Travel broadens the mind

I TOLD you I’ve been overseas, didn’t I?

Sure I did. You just mustn’t have been listening.

Anyway, despite a complete lack of public demand, I thought I might share some of the things I learnt while I was away.

“Don’t do it,” my wife warned.

“No one wants to hear your boring holiday stories.

“Bad enough for the people who have to work with you. Why take it out on your poor readers?”

And fair enough too.

But I did learn some really interesting things.

For example, did you know that there is no word for acrophobia in the Swiss dictionary?

I may have made that up but I did learn that fear of heights is not something the Swiss recognise as a legitimate condition.

Why would they when everything about Switzerland involves height?

By the time they’ve realised the only way to visit the snow-capped alps is via a train that hugs the sides of mountains and cable cars that dangle hundreds of metres above the ground, most acrophobics have packed up and gone home in tears.

So is it any wonder the average Swiss toddler openly mocks an Australian man curled in the foetal position on the floor of a cable car, sobbing hysterically?

Sobbing like a baby.

See, you’ve already learnt something new, haven’t you?

About Swiss children and me.

How about the problem Turkish people have with Red Bull?

I’ll bet you didn’t know about that, did you?

It took me a while to realise that Turks will look at you strangely if they see you drinking a can of the high-caffeine drink.

They can’t understand why anyone would choose an artificial caffeine hit when they have coffee that will take off the top of your head and keep you up all night.

But beware, the last bit in the cup is a thick, black sludge and while I became addicted to the coffee, I never actually worked out if I was supposed to drink the last bit or use it as engine oil.

I might have been confused but I reckon the Dutch would have worked it out because they’re masters of ingenuity.

When Amsterdam’s city fathers had a problem with men urinating in the streets near a popular nightspot, they simply installed outdoor urinals.

Simple, huh?

Now a bloke can step up to a small trough, discreetly protected from prying eyes on three sides, and relieve himself without offending pedestrians passing by just centimetres away.

Of course, I didn’t actually ask any pedestrians if they were offended. I just took it for granted.

I also learnt an important lesson in Rome.

If a woman introduces herself to you in an alleyway and presents you with a business card which claims she is a professional tour guide/driver, it doesn’t guarantee she will turn up at 5.30am to take you to the airport.

In fact, she will probably fail to arrive, leaving you stranded in a backstreet and giving your wife plenty of reasons to remind you that she never thought it was a good idea and she tried to warn you but you didn’t listen, did you?

And finally, a moral dilemma from Spain.

If you are walking past a nudist beach in Barcelona and on the path in front of you an elderly man with no hands (yep, nothing below the wrists) is having difficulty getting his pants on because he can’t get a proper grip, do you:

(a) Look the other way and keep walking.

(b) Pretend your wife has just said something really interesting, turn to say something delightfully witty to her ... and keep walking.

(c) Grab your wife’s arm as if you’re a blind man being taken for a walk, say, “it must be so nice to be able to see the ocean” ... and keep walking.

(d) Say, “what the hell, we’re in Spain so no one will ever know” and stop to help him pull his pants up.

Ponder that one over breakfast.