Travel/holiday thread

[briantrumpet]

This started me thinking about my parents' and the family's foreign journeys - both my parents had been abroad before they got married (dad to Spain on a motorcycle with a friend, mum to Norway with college friends), but that was it ten till they were in their 60s and they 'discovered' Austria.

My first foreign trip was a schools' orchestra tour to the Arabian Gulf in 1981, and my brother 'did' Israel in about 1980. Other than that, I've only done Munich for an overnighter, Austria once with the parents, then France lots, initially musical twinning with Rennes.

Oh, and cycled to Rome from Paris, and discovered that Italian musical terminology doesn't get you very far.

 

[First Aspect]

A foreign school trip? Twas not a thing in my day.

 

[briantrumpet]

A foreign school trip? Twas not a thing in my day.

It was a county-wide orchestra which did BIG trips every two years. I timed my audition suspecting something major was afoot. Ten days in Bahrain, Dubai (before it was much developed), Muscat, Abu Dhabi, and Doha, playing to posh expats. Most of the time in Intercontinental Hotels, transported by Gulf Air. Cost my parents £150.

 

[Pblakeney]

View attachment 12539

This started me thinking about my parents' and the family's foreign journeys - both my parents had been abroad before they got married (dad to Spain on a motorcycle with a friend, mum to Norway with college friends), but that was it ten till they were in their 60s and they 'discovered' Austria.

My first foreign trip was a schools' orchestra tour to the Arabian Gulf in 1981, and my brother 'did' Israel in about 1980. Other than that, I've only done Munich for an overnighter, Austria once with the parents, then France lots, initially musical twinning with Rennes.

Oh, and cycled to Rome from Paris, and discovered that Italian musical terminology doesn't get you very far.

My first foreign trips were sporadic, and done on the cheap. Two families in a VW camper (4 adults, 6 children. H&S? 😂) driving to Spain and back in 1975. Next was a youth exchange in 1979 then a gap until a cheap* boys holiday in Mallorca, 1984.

*Paid at the travel agency for flights, transfers, and 3* half board beachside hotel. Cheap as they were filling empty spaces. We didn't know where we were flying to until at the airport, and didn't know the destination till dropped off. FYI - It was Cala Millor.

 

[C R]

My first foreign trip was a schools' orchestra tour to the Persian Gulf in 1981, and my brother 'did' Israel in about 1980. Other than that, I've only done Munich for an overnighter, Austria once with the parents, then France lots, initially musical twinning with Rennes.

FTFY

 

[briantrumpet]

FTFY

Haha, funnily enough, it was very much on the radar in 1981. There was still some war going on, which left things hanging in the balance for a while... glad I wasn't having to risk assess the trip!! And the stuff about not taking things like M&S carrier bags, and considering having a duplicate passport if yours had Israeli stamps in them were also topics of discussion in the planning.

 

[C R]

Haha, funnily enough, it was very much on the radar in 1981. There was still some war going on, which left things hanging in the balance for a while... glad I wasn't having to risk assess the trip!! And the stuff about not taking things like M&S carrier bags, and considering having a duplicate passport if yours had Israeli stamps in them were also topics of discussion in the planning.

Interestingly, a westerner is probably a lot safer among local Iranians than among local Arabs. The government's are a different story.

 

[briantrumpet]

Interestingly, a westerner is probably a lot safer among local Iranians than among local Arabs. The government's are a different story.

Here's a still-vivid memory from 45 years ago... the Oman short-stay visa stamped in our passports.

 

[briantrumpet]

Good use of Arabic numerals in that visa 😉

I didn't notice whether they wrote them L to R or R to L, as I assume they do the latter when writing everything in Arabic. I also assume that when reading out numbers in Arabic, they start with the smallest unit, so 146 would be (in effect) six, forty, one-hundred, which actually makes a lot of sense, as you haven't got to work out how many digits there are before starting to read the number out, as we do when we read from L to R.

 

[C R]

Good use of Arabic numerals in that visa 😉

I didn't notice whether they wrote them L to R or R to L, as I assume they do the latter when writing everything in Arabic. I also assume that when reading out numbers in Arabic, they start with the smallest unit, so 146 would be (in effect) six, forty, one-hundred, which actually makes a lot of sense, as you haven't got to work out how many digits there are before starting to read the number out, as we do when we read from L to R.

Numerals are written LtoR in the Arabic script, even though text is RtoL.

 

[briantrumpet]

Numerals are written LtoR in the Arabic script, even though text is RtoL.

I mean the actual process of writing them - surely, given they write R to L, they must also start writing at the smallest unit and finish with the largest, otherwise they'd have to guess how much space to leave in text, if they suddenly switch to L to R writing for numbers.

 

[C R]

I mean the actual process of writing them - surely, given they write R to L, they must also start writing at the smallest unit and finish with the largest, otherwise they'd have to guess how much space to leave in text, if they suddenly switch to L to R writing for numbers.

I'll ask how it is done in practice.

 

[briantrumpet]

I'll ask how it is done in practice.

Thanks. It was just one of those "Oh, I wonder...? thoughts that pointlessly drift through my mind.

I sometimes wish that I was Arabic and wrote in Arabic, because then my left-handedness wouldn't be a problem in writing cursive script with a nice fountain pen, instead of having to push the sodding nib against the flow. Trying to learn to write italic script with an italic nib was the bane of my schooldays.

 

[C R]

I mean the actual process of writing them - surely, given they write R to L, they must also start writing at the smallest unit and finish with the largest, otherwise they'd have to guess how much space to leave in text, if they suddenly switch to L to R writing for numbers.

They write the numbers LtoR, you get used to guessing how much space you need, it becomes second nature. Arabic script is used in languages other than Arabic too. Turkish used Arabic script until Ataturk. Farsi and Urdu, both indo european languages, use the Arabic script. Farsi speakers in Tajikistan use the Cyrillic script, though.

 

[briantrumpet]

They write the numbers LtoR, you get used to guessing how much space you need, it becomes second nature. Arabic script is used in languages other than Arabic too. Turkish used Arabic script until Ataturk. Farsi and Urdu, both indo european languages, use the Arabic script. Farsi speakers in Tajikistan use the Cyrillic script, though.

Aha, interesting, thanks!