signs – Pickpocket Bob Arno

United Airlines’ boorish clientele

Just wondering: what kind of clientele does United Airlines have? I mean, is it really necessary to place a formal request on each coffee table, telling its airport lounge guests to keep their feet off the furniture?

And the advance explanation, “As a courtesy,” as if anticipating the obvious follow-on question that surely comes from that feet-on-furniture breed, “why not?”—isn’t it a bit subtle?

Does United mean feet or shoes? Does it matter?

Are people really such pigs?

Is this what happens when lounge membership includes everyone who gets the first-year-no-annual-fee United-branded Visa card? (And is that why the lounges are so crowded?)

Survey: Do you put your shoes on the furniture at home?

Do not hold your child’s hand

Strange signage in Norrtälje, Sweden.

We all know what the red diagonal means. What do we make of this combination?

This was a regular-looking street sign on an ordinary road. After seeing this sign, I did notice the same sign elsewhere, without the red diagonal. And no, the red was not graffitied.

Any other ideas as to the meaning of this odd sign? Swedes: what do you say?

signs

Hotel oddity #37

The floating sign. As if the preponderance of signs in hotel rooms were not in-your-face enough.

For this hotel in Berlin, messages stuck on walls and set on tables are not loud enough. They have to be SHOUTED, thrust at us, rudely forced forward into our airspace.

And they are everywhere. Poking from the minibar, floating in front of the television, rising above the telephone.

Important messages, like this one: “Have you thought about breakfast?”

Yes, I always think about breakfast in the bathroom. At this moment in the bathroom, I can’t help but think of breakfast. Thank you!

hotel odd signs

Laughing in pidgin

Pidgin sign at Vanuatu airport — Sign at Vanuatu airport

I was somewhere near the intersection of the equator and the international dateline when I saw this sign at airport security.

Plis putum algeta samting we hemi metal insaid smo basket long ples eia befor yu go thru long machine.

Just passing through Vila, in the Ripablik Blong Vanuatu, a volcanic archipelago nation independent since 1980 (before that, it was called The New Hebrides).

If you’ve ever collected stamps, as I did as a kid, your favorites were probably from Vanuatu. I remember ordering them: huge, gorgeous images of flora and fauna and, if I remember correctly, some odd-shaped stamps—I think diamond-shaped, or at least large squares on a 45-degree angle.

In the tiny airport lounge (difference: air conditioned) we were treated to banana chips and some other tasteless fried things. It was 10:00 a.m. but Bob and I toasted with sauvignon blanc from New Zealand, as we were in some other, unknown time zone.

When travel is not glamorous, it is, at least, amusing.

islands signs Travel Words

Acoustic and luminous

Maybe it’s a good idea to change the subject. Too much Barcelona negativity. So how ’bout, instead, I share a sign I saw at Cagliari airport (Sardinia) over the baggage conveyor belt? Faithfully translated from the Italian, with the Italian:

ATTENZIONE AL SEGNALE ACUSTICO LUMINOSO DI PREAVOISO MOVIMENTO MASTRO.
PAY ATTENTION TO THE ACOUSTIC AND LUMINOUS SIGNAL FOREWARNING TAPE MOVEMENT.

Shame I didn’t have a camera handy when I saw it.

airport signs Travel