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A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

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Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#81

Post by michtzik »

selimthegrim wrote: post #57
leephillips wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not too surprising. When I worked at the US Naval Research Laboratory someone submitted the paperwork for travel orders to attend a physics meeting in New Mexico, and it came back refused because he didn’t allow the required lead time for approval of foreign travel.

Do they think foreign countries have a ZIP+4 AND a +1 country code?

The independent countries of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau use ZIP codes.

LOTS of foreign countries use the +1 phone numbering plan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Numbering_Plan#...

Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#82

Post by Clewza313 »

ericmay wrote: post #40

This reminds of a story I vaguely recall of a lady in Europe who followed GPS directions which took her to Italy or something from Belgium, instead of the airport 30 minutes away. Might be fuzzy on the details or truth of that story.

It was, incredibly, even worse than that: she meant to drive 90 miles, but ended up going from Belgium to Croatia, a distance of over 900 miles:

https://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/woman-drives-900-miles...

You'd think she'd twig on during the 2nd day of driving...

Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#83

Post by s0rce »

khazhoux wrote: post #53
mkl wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's on the left in both, and on the right in both. It depends which way you're facing, and the sort of person making this mistake seems unlikely to know which way north is.

Clearly, a thing can't be both to your left and right side simultaneously -- that's a physical impossibility. In fact, to underscore this point, the Tony Bennet song "I Left My Heart In San Francisco" was written to remind people that water in SF is to their left.

its kinda on both if your standing on a peninsula. Although when you land at the airport you mostly see the bay and not the ocean at the same time

Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#84

Post by fishywang »

RegnisGnaw wrote: post #4

I lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (eh?) for 23 years and we have similar stories. There is an island that is part of Nova Scotia called Cape Breton with a city named Sydney (so Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada) with population of ~30K. Every few years we get a tourist that confuses that with Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. They generally realize something is wrong when they switch planes in Halifax from a Jet (B…

My favorite similar pair is Yinchuan (a city in western China) vs. Incheon (a satellite city of Seoul and where their bigger airport is).

They sound very similar in Chinese, and in China people usually refer to Incheon airport as "the Seoul airport" (a lot of average Chinese people probably don't even know Seoul has another airport), and to make things worse, the IATA airport codes for the two are INC vs. ICN.

So the urban legend is that for a lot of Koreans living in Beijing, when they are planning to go back to Korea, they go to a travel agent on the street (this was around 2000 so online booking were not ubiquitous) using their not so fluent Chinese to say "I need a flight ticket to Incheon", the agent will often book them to Yinchuan instead. Korean Air had a direct flight between Yinchuan and Incheon for a while (they probably still have that flight) and the urban legend is that flight is mainly for those confused travellers.

Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#85

Post by ericmay »

Clewza313 wrote: post #82
ericmay wrote: post #40

This reminds of a story I vaguely recall of a lady in Europe who followed GPS directions which took her to Italy or something from Belgium, instead of the airport 30 minutes away. Might be fuzzy on the details or truth of that story.

It was, incredibly, even worse than that: she meant to drive 90 miles, but ended up going from Belgium to Croatia, a distance of over 900 miles: https://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/woman-drives-900-miles... You'd think she'd twig on during the 2nd day of driving...

Gosh. So crazy to read about again. Thanks for digging up that link!

Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#86

Post by Qworg »

quercusa wrote: post #79
fma wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Georgia resident...we have Rome, Ga AND Athens Ga so you can take a nice trip through European cities a few hours apart. And a Gainesville, Ga not to be confused with a Gainesville, Florida. We also have a Houston County...which is not pronounced the same as Houston, Texas (it is pronounced like house-ten) Also a Decatur, GA not to be confused with Decatur, Alabama. That's all I can think of off the top of my he…

There's also Cairo, not to be confused with Illinois or Egypt, as well as Albany (not to be confused with NY).

Different pronunciations - if you're going to kay-row, you're going to Illinois.

Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#88

Post by willcipriano »

Spooky23 wrote: post #9

I used to work in a State Capitol, and would occasionally run into confused tourists in strange places, or very much lost. They were always Chinese or German and I’d run into them two or three times a year. One couple thought they were in Niagara Falls. Another somehow found themselves stuck in a secured employee parking garage. The strangest one was a person on a self guided tour who took a wrong turn and ended up w…

>Another somehow found themselves stuck in a secured employee parking garage.

Note to self, if in a secure area of a government facility without permission pretend to be a German tourist.

Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#89

Post by abrowne »

geocrasher wrote: post #68
heelix wrote: post #66

There was a time where I use to fly internationally very frequently. Very use to having the manager sort out the car/flight/hotel with our travel agent - so for the most part I just grabbed the tickets and go. Manager asked me - can you go to London? It was pretty cold in Minnesota, and London sounded nice. Turned brain off, got on the flight, and landed way too early. London, Canada... ffs, and it was even colder th…

Just be glad they didn't send you to Paris TX or Rome, GA. Edit: I forgot Memphis, TN.

Or St Petersburg, Florida.

And on the way back, not to Minneapolis, KS!

Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#90

Post by adonovan »

shimonabi wrote: post #6
baron816 wrote: post #5

> Kreuz, who typically enjoyed drinking 17 beers a day This was the point where I was hooked

Remember, that was the time when being an alcoholic was still considered funny.

Also, beer was 3.3% ABV when I was in college in the UK, so intake matches renal clearance. By contrast, a session of today’s “session beer” can be practically life threatening.
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