Asking Directions

During out last trip overseas about a year ago this week in 2019 we were asked for directions by other people 7 times. I wrote down in my trip notebook each time someone asked us for directions while we were in Dublin, London and Edinburgh. I was doing this because we had a similar number of people ask directions while we were in London and Paris the previous year. We were amazed that people kept coming up to ask questions.

Did we look that much like natives? Confident and assured as we walked around a foreign city. We were standing in a Paris square in 2018 admiring the surroundings when an older French woman and started talking to us in French and we could tell by her voice inflection that she was asking a question. She got angry when she realized she was talking to a couple of American tourists that couldn't speak French.

Maybe this happens because we've done our homework. We researched the cities we visit and most of the time we know where we are going and how to get there. We move about with confidence and apparently it shows. This has also happened at other places. When we were in Hudson NY a couple of days for our nephew's wedding we were twice approached by people asking us directions. We had to admit we didn't know what they were talking about. Another time in NYC we were down in the subway and a family came up to us asking directions.

I guess we look like we know what we're doing and know where we're going.