Tag: France

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Thank You

As a traveler I think the most important phrase is “Thank you.” That was what I learned to say before each country we traveled to. Even if you can't speak the local language and talk in English or gestures, it is nice to be able to thank someone in their native language. Second most important for me is “I'm sorry” or “excuse me”. That is very useful when on crowded buses or trains and you have to push by someone to get off. Third is probably “where is the bathroom?” or simply “toilet?” which gets the message across.

Anyway, here is how to say “Thank you”, in every country we visited, at least how it sounded to me. Please don't get too offended if I mangled your native language, I was trying 🙂 :

Taiwan (mandarin), China: Shi-shi

Korea: Gamsameeda

Egypt (Arabic): Shockram

Zurich – Switzerland, Vienna – Austria (German): Danke

Geneva – Switzerland (French), France: Merci

Spain: Gracias

Italy, Vatican City: Gratzie

Hungary: Kusonome

Czech Republic: Dekuji

Poland: Dziekuji (very similar to Czech)

Norway: Takk (pronounced like talk)

Denmark: Tack (like tact)

Iceland: this is the one I didn't learn. Supposedly it is similar to Danish (tack) but they add several syllables to differentiate from Denmark. Just saying “tack” is frowned upon, so I went with “Thank you” which everyone understood.

Canada, U.S.A.: Thanks.

 

-David

 

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Tower and Arc

Our time is running out in Paris, so it was time to hit some of the biggies.

View from the Eiffel Tower
Yanmei overlooking Paris

After the tower we headed to the Champs Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe.

Champs Élysées looking towards the Arc
Arc de Triomphe

 

We also found the missing obelisk from Luxor, Egypt.

-David

 

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More Paris

Today I went to the Louvre. Yanmei has “been there”, so she decided to stay home and rest. I couldn't cover the whole place in one day. Hopefully I can come back again some day and spend more time there.

I don't get the fetish of photo taking in a place like the Louvre. People are looking at the art through the tiny screen of their phone/camera, snapping a shot and moving on. Don't they realize there are professionally taken photos available online, and the whole point of coming to the museum is to see the works in person instead of on a screen?

Code of Hammurabi, front

While the rooms with the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo were packed, the room with my favorite and, in my opinion, the most important item was almost deserted. I'm talking about the Code of Hammurabi. I confess I even took a couple of photos of it. It is not as visually striking as a Michaelangelo sculpture, for example, but its great age and historical significance make it the coolest object to me.

If you aren't familiar with it the Code of Hammurabi is a list of 282 laws from about 1750 BC that covers many everyday situations, such as merchants giving receipts for transactions. It is also the origin of “an eye for an eye”, although it goes on to elaborate lesser punishments for destroying the eye of a freeman (poor person), or a slave. Also it is the first instance of the presumption of innocence. In fact it is quite harsh stating that if you accuse someone of a crime for which the punishment is death and fail to prove the accusation, then you will be put to death.

I bought a book a few years ago with the translations of all the laws, it is pretty interesting reading. Lots of laws dealing with robbery and marriage. There is the concept of liability, for example if you accidentally injure someone you have to “pay the physicians.” I wouldn't want to be a physician though, because if a physician operates on a man and causes his death then his hands are to be cut off. I imagine a lot of operations in 1750 BC would result in death.

Code of Hammurabi, back

As I mentioned, we are staying in the Montmartre region of Paris, which is near the Sacré Coeur basilica, so we finally walked over there this evening.

As a bonus we got to see the full moon rise over Paris.

And the Eiffel Tower from a distance.

-David