Example #1
We got on the bus in Ulan Ude, which is one of Russia's Eastern-most cities, reasonably near the border with Mongolia. Having slaved over our phrase book I knew how to ask if the bus went to the place we wanted. However, after hearing my carefully rehearsed line, the driver looked completely confused. This was particularly mortifying as we were going to the main square - ie, a very well known location - so you would have thought a loose approximation of it would have been understood. Embarrassingly he then turned to the other passengers on the bus to ask their assistance in translating my appalling Russian. 20 helpful Russians looked expectantly in my direction. I stammered the same phrase then repeated it in English - after some consultation amongst themselves, they agreed we were indeed on the right bus. I blushed and thanked them - again in English - and stumbled shamefully to the back of the bus.
Example #2
Still in Ulan Ude, we visited a pub for a beer and some lunch. Armed again with our phrase book, we carefully studied the menu for about 25 minutes. At last we were confident we knew what to order. We'd painstakingly matched it with the phrase book and were ready to go. The waitress wandered over and we pointed to the item on the menu, we were pretty darned sure it was french fries with a slight spelling variation. However, it turns out our Russian had failed us again. The waitress returned with - a plate of prawns for these two vegetarian explorers. Kind of the opposite of french fries for a vegetarian, you swallow their heads and eyeballs whole. We swallowed our horror and thanked the waitress profusely. How could we get it so wrong? Not only did we fail in our efforts to secure fried potato - we managed to get the only thing on the menu with eyes. However, Brett didn't want to let the waitress see our failure. He manfully gulped 8 of the little monsters down. I sidled up to the waitress and pointed out "french fries" in our phrase book. That was what I ate.
Example #3
On the train. In the restaurant car, again facing a menu filled with Cyrillic. A kindly man came up to help. I said in perfectly-accented Russian "I am vegetarian". The man smiled - "oh, you are Italian!". I gave up and resorted to English and pointing.
We're still working on it though.
julie and terry send their love.
ReplyDeleteLove from grandma
xoxo
what does the title mean? is that an a translation gone wrong?
ReplyDeletepoor vegetarians, you don't eat the prawn heads, you break them off and just eat their fleshy bits. unless the ruskis have special soft head prawns?
maybe, well they did win the space race didnt they? and realised they can use pencils in space rather than developing zero gravity pens like the americans...
Yeah, the title is a mistranslation - it is meant to be 'My hovercraft is full of eels'.
ReplyDeleteIt takes some pretty impressive no-skills to *not* order potato in a Russian eatery, your incompetence is to be commended.
Hi Sophie,
ReplyDeleteThis makes lovely reading...
P xxx
Good on ya Bretty. I bet you loved the eyes the most. I was scared of boil-up (pork, puha, and dumplings) until I discovered it was the most delicious soup in the world. Did the prawn heads taste like peanuts? Frankie and I ate the heads once too at Monsoon Poon and that's what they tasted like to us. Ump Ump. Miss you baaaad.
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