Sometimes I roll my eyes when I encounter other Americans abroad. Whether it's bringing a rollie suitcase when traveling the hill towns of Italy, or subscribing to the belief that shouting louder and slower makes English easier to understand, but let's face it: travel brings out the crazy.
I had a real eye roll towards the end of our France trip. We encountered another boat of Americans. And this was no birthday-bash-reunion-lovey-dovey-women-are-great crew. This crew had mandatory, practiced nautical jobs and matching professional grade boating gloves to facilitate those jobs.
We didn't just see them coming. We heard them. "Helen, the ropes! HELEN!!" "Helen, you HAVE TO BE READY!" "Helen! Where are your gloves?" Poor Helen. She just wasn't cut out for boating the canal.
Then came the hand signals. Mr. Skipper Up Front silently and decisively demonstrated multiple hand signals to alert Mr. Captain At The Wheel of the status of the front of the boat. Which is very necessary on a 35 foot houseboat.
I was appalled. How had we survived without hand signals? I'm just an idiot abroad, I guess.
So, I established some hand signals.
Please feel free to steal these for your next travel excursion. We found them extremely helpful.
1. Check out the lock master. He's hot!
2. Check out those people, they are IDIOTS!
3. Shhh! Be careful, I think they speak English!
4. Move the boat forward.
5. Reverse! We are about to/already have hit something!
6. My guess is that those people are French.
7. My guess is they're German.
8. My guess is they're American.
9. It's anyone's guess where those people are from.
I always knew I was meant to be on a boat.
What's the sign for THIS IS AWESOME???
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