Comments on: International Incidents

By: Jennie C.

Jennie C. — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:37:21 +0000

So funny.

By: wandermom

wandermom — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:50:19 +0000

Surprisingly, my children have managed to keep it together outside the US. Inside the US is another matter. How about “Dad, why is everyone in this elevator black?” (at full volume) in random hotel elevator, obviously not in all-too-white Seattle ?
Charming.
Kids.

By: Gretchen

Gretchen — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:37:02 +0000

The only foreign country we’ve had the nerve to take our kids to is Canada and well, we’ve all heard South Park’s theme on that.

They were pretty good even though they were about 18 months and 3 years at the time. The only major problem was screaming fits for the giant lollipops and wanting to throw them into Niagara Falls.

Son was about 4 or 5 when he left his Yoshi (Nintendo Mario’s little dinosaur) at Gettysburg movie theatre. The owner refused to let me just run in and grab it and he couldn’t be bothered, so we had to stand outside until the new movie was over. All that time, son is screaming bloody murder that his best friend was kidnapped. :( Aren’t children fun?

By: Jane Rytina

Jane Rytina — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:59:26 +0000

Actually I said something really stupid once in the Czech Republic. My dad is from there and it was the first time my WHOLE family had been there together to see where he grew up. We met up with some childhood friends of his and their family and had lunch (meat, gravy and dumplings – standard Czech food) in a very rural village restaurant (really an inn). This was 2000. And the Czech Rebuplic, though charming, is/was very poor. Anyway, after the meal the restaurant owner asked us if we would like coffee. And I asked if I could have a CAFE LATTE. (I mean I lived in California and you can even get them in Safeway here). My (very socially aware) brother was mortified. Needless to say, I just had the (very strong, very black) coffee.

Great blog, Kayt.

By: Roaming Tales » Best of the web: Culture cringe, cider, Monument Valley, Las Vegas, Ireland, Atlanta fine art, Damascus hotel

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:02:24 +0000

[...] If you ever travel with children, be prepared for a few embarrassing moments dealing with the culture clash. Kayt at Travel Savvy Mom shares her own hilarious, cringe-making [...]

By: jessiev

jessiev — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 03:42:15 +0000

I am laughing SOO hard! yes. yes!! one of our embarrassing ones happened on an airplane. The man next to us across the aisle had sleeve tattoos. our daughter got out her markers and asked him if she could FINISH HIS HANDS, he did such a good job coloring. he laughed. i cringed. great article!

By: Jamie Pearson

Jamie Pearson — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 03:27:51 +0000

Our shaming happened in Belgium.

My son had a diaper blowout of epic proportions. This was totally our fault because we had allowed him to consume his weight in truffles, even though he was 18-months old.

We were all lounging around our swanky hotel in our swanky hotel bathrobes when the blowout occurred. I sized up the situation, and strongly recommended my husband change that sucker in the bathroom (not, you know, on the bed).

Unfortunately, my husband wound up getting liquid feces all over his swanky robe and on the bathmat. He compounded the problem by soaking the robe and bathmat in the tub (I would have stopped this, but I assumed he was washing the baby when I heard the water running, not creating the fecal mess of the century).

It was a big poopy, soupy mess, and the only way out was to call housekeeping, tell them what had happened, and ask them to come refresh our linens.

I can’t imagine we’ll ever be welcome in Belgium again.

By: Mara

Mara — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 03:06:03 +0000

I was laughing and nodding the entire time I read your post, although I don’t think I have such interesting or specific examples as you do (which makes me think, in answer to your question, that perhaps your child is more creative than most?).

Tommy did choose to have his first real, honest-to-God, I’m-now-a-toddler-and-not-a-baby on a very narrow sidewalk in London when I tried to remove him from a toy store with a train table. The British are of course very good at ignoring a scene, which is basically what everyone did while I manhandled him into his stroller.

And this past summer in Paris Tommy (now six) had his own disposable camera to take pictures of places we visited. The two punky-Goth women on the Metro seemed nonplussed when he whipped it out and snapped a photo of them without their permission. Then he turned to me and said loudly “She has purple hair!”