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Why is Ireland not in schengen? I'm not asking about Britain because lol but what is stopping Ireland?
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Jul 24, 2019 16:54
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Shy posted:Why is Ireland not in schengen? I'm not asking about Britain because lol but what is stopping Ireland? The Common Trade Area with the UK.
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Jul 24, 2019 17:00
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mojo1701a posted:I don't know if I've mentioned it in this thread, but: I will forever love my experience in Dublin at (I think) the leprechaun museum. The clerk asked me for my credit card to pay, but I just tapped the machine to pay. Heh, I get this all the time whenever anyone hears my accent before I pay. "Oh...you can tap?" Or if it's over the contactless limit they just look slightly surprised when the machine asks for a PIN instead of a signature. (And afterwards it's the inevitable "Enjoy your holiday!" when I'm like half a km from home, of course...  )Jeoh posted:The Common Trade Area with the UK. Yep, the Brits would never stand for the unwashed Schengen-visitor masses being able to slip in the back door from Ireland completely unchecked, and Ireland wasn't interested in abandoning the CTA, which predates the whole Schengen deal by decades.
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Jul 24, 2019 17:24
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mojo1701a posted:I don't know if I've mentioned it in this thread, but: I will forever love my experience in Dublin at (I think) the leprechaun museum. The clerk asked me for my credit card to pay, but I just tapped the machine to pay. I don't quite get this... both my American and my Swiss credit cards have tap to pay function. Neither one of them requires anything for below some amount ($40 for the Swiss, tbh not sure for the American card as I almost never use it in person). Beyond $40 it requires a PIN for the Swiss one and a signature for the US one.
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Jul 24, 2019 21:52
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What are my options if a hotel’s air conditioning system doesn’t work? I’m at Hotel Raito on the Amalfi Coast (a 5 star hotel), and this is the second night of just laying on top of my bed sweating nonstop because the room will not get any cooler than 80 degrees Fahrenheit / 26 degrees Celsius. We have contacted the front desk 6 times now, have had numerous maintenance guys “work on” the AC, and even changed rooms. The AC system does run but it’s just a tiny little vent with the weakest fan possible and even running at the coldest possible temp for 24 hours, the room does not cool down at all. I have to drive to the airport tomorrow morning and I’m running on 50 hours without sleep at this point, it’s going to be dangerous if I can’t get even a few hours of sleep. Edit: I’m loving laying in bed and getting up every 30 mins or so to soak a towel in cold water in the bathroom and then laying it on my body to try to stop from sweating. Edit2: Even a fan would help but somehow a 5 star hotel doesn’t possess a single fan. RCarr fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Jul 24, 2019 |
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Jul 24, 2019 22:46
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I'm about to go to Italy too, sounds like it'll be a fun time! But well, it was 39C in the Netherlands today so it can't be much worse than that... Things are crazy over here. Sounds like that hotel only invested the minimum required to qualify for the "We have AC" statement. That's capitalism. I don't think there is much you can do besides making a very stern complaint and threatening 1 star reviews. Or you can ask for another (ground floor?) room, that kind of thing they are willing to do sometimes.
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Jul 25, 2019 01:02
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Yeah, unfortunately that's pretty common, even in places like Naples where the weather right now is not a heat wave and is completely normal to have for a few weeks every summer. I stayed in a nice hotel in Cinque Terre a few years ago in July and I packed a full-size standing fan in my car when we drove down in anticipation of the A/C being anemic, which it was. There are no fans because "fans make you sick". I don't know what's up with Europeans being terrified of fans. I don't think I've ever seen a ceiling fan in Europe in my entire life and the only times I've ever been in people's homes and seen a standing fan was when they were from North America or had lived there a long time.
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Jul 25, 2019 06:21
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ive never heard anyone say that in my life and my house has a ceiling fan and multiple standing fans
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Jul 25, 2019 07:36
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We’ve stayed in Airbnb’s in Venice and Rome and both got plenty cold. It’s just ridiculous that this 5 star hotel that costs 3 times as much, and was supposed to be the apex of the trip, can’t even get the room to a temperature where you aren’t sweating.
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Jul 25, 2019 07:46
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Davincie posted:ive never heard anyone say that in my life and my house has a ceiling fan and multiple standing fans I'm surprised you haven't heard it -- it must be a country-specific myth in Europe? Where are you? At least in France and Switzerland it's ubiquitous for people to say fans make you sick. I've definitely never seen a standing fan in any friend's house here in CH, even this week when it's like 37°. E: It's all over the news every time there's a heatwave: big articles telling people how to stay cool, and warning them not to use fans, and then it's all over my facebook news feed shared by people and people comment on it when they visit my house and see a fan in the bedroom, like I have an altar to Satan on my dresser. For instance: https://www.santemagazine.fr/actualites/pourquoi-dormir-avec-un-ventilateur-est-mauvais-332917 "Health Magazine" tells you not to sleep with a fan or you will get sick. Or here from major French newspapers, including Le Figaro and Le Parisien, two of the most prominent papers in France, like NYTimes / Washington Post. Le Figaro warns: "Don't forget that a fan can also cause you to get sick because of the continuous cold wind." http://madame.lefigaro.fr/bien-etre/chaleur-ete-les-erreurs-a-eviter-lorsque-lon-veut-se-rafraichir-290517-132471 http://www.leparisien.fr/societe/canicule-comment-utiliser-climatiseurs-et-ventilateurs-sans-tomber-malade-26-06-2019-8102928.php https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2018/07/30/2843822-canicule-dormir-ventilateur-est-mauvais-sante.html "Sleeping with a fan on during a heatwave is bad for your health." Or from a doctor's advice website, article is titled: "Heatwave: why it is dangerous for your health to sleep with a fan." https://www.pourquoidocteur.fr/Articles/Question-d-actu/26465-Canicule-dangereux-sante-dormir-ventilateur Wow, I finally found one site that actually recommended using a fan: https://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/sante/canicule-les-fausses-bonnes-idees-pour-lutter-contre-la-chaleur_2091437.html (with the reasonable caveats that: (a) watch out if you have allergies, and (b) if you point it directly at your face it can dry out your nasal passages so make it rotate and don't point it at your face). The article has to specifically state that "Si la pratique n'est pas réellement nocive" ("The fan is not actually harmful, unless you have allergies or have it directly blowing into your face all night.") At least it's not as bad as South Korea where people literally think you can suffocate and die if you sleep in a room with a fan on and closed windows ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death ). I don't think I've ever seen a ceiling fan in any country in Europe except sometimes in outdoor covered-patio-style restaurants, but I don't really keep track either. I've definitely never seen one in Switzerland or northern Italy although I guess they might exist somewhere in north Italy. Saladman fucked around with this message at 09:41 on Jul 25, 2019 |
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Jul 25, 2019 09:18
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I'm imagining the gif of the Top Gear lads cringing as James May looks down the barrel of a gun but instead it's a desk fan. I'm also lolling at the warnings about "thermal shock" and air conditioning--"If you have AC in your home, it should never be more than 8°C cooler than the outside temperature! If it's 40 (104°F) outside, you shouldn't cool your home below 32 (90°F)! If you're in an office or shop with strong air conditioning, bring a jacket to cover up!"  I'm loving dying.
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Jul 25, 2019 09:58
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Saladman posted:There are no fans because "fans make you sick". I don't know what's up with Europeans being terrified of fans. I don't think I've ever seen a ceiling fan in Europe in my entire life and the only times I've ever been in people's homes and seen a standing fan was when they were from North America or had lived there a long time. We do have the warnings about air conditioning temperature differences (for cars, we don't have it in the house normally).
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Jul 25, 2019 09:59
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im dutch like entropist, maybe its something in countries that have french speaking populations?
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Jul 25, 2019 10:07
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Germans are (were?) terrified of moving air too in my experience, though I definitely don't get that from the people I know under around age 35. And it's definitely not a hard and fast rule... I have one coworker who's in her early 50's and loving loves having the air conditioner blow on her constantly, while I have another one who's 39 and will loudly protest about having it on even when it's 40 degrees outside.
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Jul 25, 2019 10:21
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For some reason I though Korea’s Fan Death thing was a coded way of talking about suicide
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Jul 25, 2019 14:36
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Old people in general are terrified of draughts.
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Jul 25, 2019 14:46
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My (French) mother is ok with moving air but is convinced air conditioning makes people sick.
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Jul 25, 2019 16:50
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I'm not old and I hate air conditioning AND fans!
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Jul 25, 2019 18:44
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dennyk posted:Heh, I get this all the time whenever anyone hears my accent before I pay. "Oh...you can tap?" Or if it's over the contactless limit they just look slightly surprised when the machine asks for a PIN instead of a signature. (And afterwards it's the inevitable "Enjoy your holiday!" when I'm like half a km from home, of course... I find I have much more fun with locals in English-speaking countries when they discover that they've misjudged my accent and find out I'm Canadian. Saladman posted:I don't quite get this... both my American and my Swiss credit cards have tap to pay function. Neither one of them requires anything for below some amount ($40 for the Swiss, tbh not sure for the American card as I almost never use it in person). Beyond $40 it requires a PIN for the Swiss one and a signature for the US one. Most of the people working at tourist attractions are probably used to the average American, who usually don't have the banking technologies Europe has had for a decade. How recent are contactless cards in the US? I've had mine for more than a few years now. Unrelated: Is there a best time to book an AirBnB in general? I just realized it's less than 8 weeks before I take off for Hungary and Croatia, and I should talk to my friend soon and book around his schedule. I was looking at prices for the same period of time about a month and a half ago, and the prices seemed higher for the same booking period.
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Jul 25, 2019 19:40
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Fan talk: I've traveled a lot throughout Europe and never heard of this fear of fans before. I can only assume its one of those tabloid scare pieces that old people latch onto to justify why they're living in 30C hellholes with no AC. I worked in a general retail store in Ireland for a while back when I was in my teens. When it came to those couple of weeks in summer when the temperature rose high enough to warrant fans we couldn't keep them in stock fast enough.
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Jul 25, 2019 23:58
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I'm Dutch and as far as I know being scared of fans is some weird Korean thing. Never heard of it here. Ceiling fans aren't that common but everyone's got a standing fan, usually one of those types that sits on a table.
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Jul 26, 2019 06:35
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As a swiss, I currently have a desk fan blow directly at me here in the office and have one next to my bed at home too. And I can't really see any fan aversion here, every year when it gets hot you read that all the shops have their stock of fans being bought out. Also the Swiss railway has been under fire by the public because they are cheap bastards and only cooling down their trains by 5 degrees to the outside temperature (which is idiotic when it is almost 40°C) and that they should cool them down to 25 at least. However aircons are only really seen in shops here and I don't know anyone who has an aircon in their house/apartment.
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Jul 26, 2019 07:01
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I have an AC unit but it normally sits in a closet and when I want to hook it up I have to lead this big air hose out the window and stuff up the gaps in the window with foam rubber to create a seal. European houses are not really built with AC in mind.
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Jul 26, 2019 07:22
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I've got a similar AC unit here in my apartment in Germany and it's been a godsend the last few days. The window insulation to prevent the hot air from the hose coming back in the room could be a bit better, but it get the room cool enough to be able to sleep without sweating. vvv Cheat code: I'm an American 
Drone fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Jul 26, 2019 |
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Jul 26, 2019 07:45
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^^^ Apparently you're one of "less than 2% of Germans" with a home AC unit ( https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/world/europe/heatwave-record-temperatures.html )BMX Ninja posted:I worked in a general retail store in Ireland for a while back when I was in my teens. When it came to those couple of weeks in summer when the temperature rose high enough to warrant fans we couldn't keep them in stock fast enough. This is kind of funny, since the record high temperature ever reached in Dublin was... 31.0°C, and Cork's record high is 28.7°. I guess maybe even people in Reykjavik freak out and buy fans when it hits 25°. Maybe people in Basra think we're all idiots too for complaining on a nice cool daily high like 38°C. E: Also another of my friends, an Egyptian living in Germany, just posted complaining about how Germans don't believe in fans let alone AC. I seem to live in a different reality than many of you re: central-Alpine Europeans and their hatred of fans. It was a multi-year battle for me to get to use one in my bedroom ... and I just walked through the hallways of my work building and did not see a single fan in any office with an open door, except a tiny desk fan in the IT guy's room. Saladman fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Jul 26, 2019 |
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Jul 26, 2019 07:49
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The all-time high temperature in Germany was broken by an insane 2.1°C yesterday (42.6°C) and the old record of 40.5°C was literally from yesterday. These very strong heatwaves are just not something that used to happen here, ever. Wait for a bit and everybody in Germany will try to get AC and fans. It’s an old people story anyway with being afraid of a breeze. Biggest problem nowadays is the vast majority of people being tenants instead of homeowner in this country, so there probably needs to be some legislation that makes landlords install air conditioning.
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Jul 26, 2019 09:00
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When I was a kid you'd sometimes have what we then thought of as a "bad summer" in Holland, where the temperature never went over 30. For some reason people didn't like this. Heat waves were a rarity where everyone would rush to the beach to take advantage and go for a swim, so nobody really needed a fan, let alone AC. I miss this time and I'll probably feel nostalgic for it for the rest of my life. I actually ordered a fan yesterday because it turned out my old one was broken, I can't wait for it to arrive.
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Jul 26, 2019 10:30
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This heatwave is madness, all right; it was like 23 degrees the other day and I had to open the windows and take the duvet off the bed. 
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Jul 26, 2019 11:57
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I literally just came from loving Madrid to Salzburg expecting some cool mountain air after baking in Spain. We climbed the Untersberg today and nearly died from the heat. Not only was it hot, but there was *zero* breeze, event at the near 6,000 foot summit. loving miserable.
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Jul 26, 2019 14:58
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it's annoying because i have a p decent us travel points card (chase sapphire preferred) with one of the perks being on foreign transaction fees and they refuse to support a pin. they assure people that you can bypass the pin prompt by hitting "enter" but i'm skeptical anyway, one last question: how important is it generally to buy intercity train tickets in advance? is there substantial savings by bookng on one of the myriad online sites or is it p safe to show up at the station on the day of?
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Jul 26, 2019 15:10
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Thauros posted:how important is it generally to buy intercity train tickets in advance? is there substantial savings by bookng on one of the myriad online sites or is it p safe to show up at the station on the day of? In Germany the savings are pretty substantial, especially if you book pretty far in advance. Example: in October I'm going to Berlin for a week from Frankfurt. I booked 6 months in advance, and paid 48 euros per person (including the 5 euro charge for a specific seat reservation) on an ICE Sprinter (basically the slightly faster version of the high-speed train). That same ticket, if I purchased it for next week, would run me 135 Euros (but actually 161 Euros, because the only seats left unreserved are first class).
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Jul 26, 2019 15:14
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Thauros posted:how important is it generally to buy intercity train tickets in advance? is there substantial savings by bookng on one of the myriad online sites or is it p safe to show up at the station on the day of? Depends on the country, but in most places buying at the station is more expensive than buying in advance. Switzerland for instance often has significant savings if you buy more than 3 hours in advance (sometimes even half off; it depends on expected train usage so buying 12 days in advance is typically the same price as buying 4 hours in advance.) Traveling in unusual hours is also often much cheaper, so if you just show up at the station you're probably showing up for the most expensive possible ticket.
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Jul 26, 2019 17:03
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Saladman posted:Depends on the country, but in most places buying at the station is more expensive than buying in advance. Switzerland for instance often has significant savings if you buy more than 3 hours in advance (sometimes even half off; it depends on expected train usage so buying 12 days in advance is typically the same price as buying 4 hours in advance.) Traveling in unusual hours is also often much cheaper, so if you just show up at the station you're probably showing up for the most expensive possible ticket. Yeah, I was planning on doing something similar. Buy a ticket from Budapest to Zagreb a few days after I land, and then just buy the next ticket upon arrival in Zagreb. The only thing is whether or not I need to actually go to Slovenia if I'm already staying in Budapest, Zagreb, and Rijeka. Might just spend an extra day in Budapest and Zagreb instead, and save that extra bit of travel. Is there anything specifically interesting around those cities that would require a day trip that I should look into? Sorry for the questions, but I'm really afraid of overloading myself on travel time if I visit too many cities, plus the added time of waiting for trains.
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Jul 26, 2019 19:22
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Slovenia is my favourite place in Europe and I think is easily the most underrated country but I'm not sure I'd bother doing it as a day trip. It's a great place to spend 5 days to unwind and enjoy nature and the cute old town in Ljubs though.
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Jul 26, 2019 20:40
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HookShot posted:Slovenia is my favourite place in Europe and I think is easily the most underrated country but I'm not sure I'd bother doing it as a day trip. It's a great place to spend 5 days to unwind and enjoy nature and the cute old town in Ljubs though. I meant more like day trips around the other cities. My original plan was to spend around 3 days there. Arrive in Budapest on Sept. 19 for 5 nights, the 3 in Zagreb, 2 in Rijeka, 3 in Ljubljana, and then one more night in Budapest so I don't have to go far from hotel to airport. Then again, the realities of train travel might change this.
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Jul 26, 2019 20:59
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mojo1701a posted:Yeah, I was planning on doing something similar. Buy a ticket from Budapest to Zagreb a few days after I land, and then just buy the next ticket upon arrival in Zagreb. Doctor Malaver posted:Early autumn is the the best time to see Croatian coast. Rijeka itself isn't worth spending more than a day or two but I assume your friend will take you to day trips to Istria and islands. If that's the plan than you could stay longer and cut some days from Zagreb. Maybe even skip it entirely if there's a Rijeka-Budapest overnight connection.
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Jul 26, 2019 22:39
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Bah, that's what I get for not checking my post history. Thanks, I'll keep Slovenia, then, and maybe make it four days total in Croatia.
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Jul 27, 2019 01:44
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mojo1701a posted:Yeah, I was planning on doing something similar. Buy a ticket from Budapest to Zagreb a few days after I land, and then just buy the next ticket upon arrival in Zagreb. In that part of Europe consider Flix Bus instead of a train. They have bathrooms.
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Jul 27, 2019 03:49
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Saladman posted:^^^ Apparently you're one of "less than 2% of Germans" with a home AC unit ( https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/world/europe/heatwave-record-temperatures.html ) It is kind of weird. I've been to places like Egypt when the temperature was regularly in the high 30s/low 40s and I was fine with it. I think a lot of it has to do with humidity, since in Ireland higher temperatures often come with high humidity. Also in Egypt the temperature would drop by 15-20C after sunset whereas in grey overcast Ireland a daytime temp of 26C might only drop a couple of degrees at night. People in warmer places also build their homes to suit the climate. Irish houses are built for mediocre unremarkable weather so they're heat traps when it's unusually warm and a pain to heat when it's unusually cold. Ironically people in Reykjavik would probably fare better. Their super-insulated eco-friendly houses would be just as good at keeping hot air out during a heatwave as they are at retaining it in winter.
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Jul 27, 2019 21:06
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BMX Ninja posted:Their super-insulated eco-friendly houses would be just as good at keeping hot air out during a heatwave as they are at retaining it in winter. I have a super insulated house too, and it indeed keeps hot air out during a heatwave for like two days if we keep everything hermetically sealed. But eventually it reaches the median daily temperature, and even at night with windows open it doesn't really ever get close to the minimum nightly temperature. It depends a lot on house design though, I was at my boss's house a few days ago for dinner and his house cooled off instantly because it was a modern renovation and design to permit both heat retention in winter and heat transfer in summer in mind. I'd guess it also cost a ton more than the house I live in.
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Jul 28, 2019 12:39
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