Some thoughts from our trip so far

We find that the most difficult part of our trip is the travel from the airport to the hotel. We are each lugging one heavy luggage with a backpack strapped onto our backs and at the same time trying to figure out which direction it is from the airport to the Metro. Once we figure out how to get to the Metro, we have to figure out which line to take and how to transfer in the Metro. And in Europe, their Metro systems are very extensive. Just transfering from one line to another takes almost 5 minutes to get to. It's not like in Toronto, where you just go up or down the stairs to connect to the next train. In Europe, its more like taking 2-3 flights of escalators and stairs with a really long walk from one tunnel to another. The worst part of their Metro system is that there are very few escalators and elevators in use. This means carrying our luggages up and down the stairs most of the time. Worst of all there are always a lot of people in the subway. No one cares or bother to be considerate to move out of your way. They just walk into your direction expecting you to maneuver out of their way. There is also, always a small gap between the subway train and the platform. What does that mean for us, more heavy lifting. =(

But the difficulty doesn't end there. Once we successfully exit the station closest to the hotel, we always have difficulty finding the actual hotel location. Even with the address and having asked a few local people on where to find the hotel, we always end up getting lost or walking in circles trying to find it. It never fails for us to be sweating like pigs when we check in at each hotel.

We also found that communicating in a country where English is not their first language is really frustrating and hard. When we order food, buy things, or even just asking for directions, we can never seem to understand each other. It's like ducks and chickens talking to each other.
Kenny and I, however, have learned to use single simple English words and lots of hand movements. With this combo, it seems to work better than trying to talk to them in English slowly. But the funniest thing is that even though they know we can't understand them, they will always answer us in their own language with their own version of hand movements. Most of the time when they are explaining directions to us, we can barely understand a single word. We focus mainly on the direction they are pointing to and we just follow that hoping to find another local that can speak in English. This is when pictures become our best friend. Even at McDonalds, the menu is in Spanish. But thank goodness for pictures. We just point to the burger we want to order and no confusion is stirred. But that only works for lunch. Dinner is harder. Most of their menus are in Spanish with no English translations. So we always end up taking an hour to choose a place to eat for dinner because finding a menu with English translations is rare.
I have decided to take Spanish and French lanugage classes when I get back to Toronto. This communication barrier is hard to bear. Man, what will it be like when I get to Egypt or India????