It’s a pouch-like piece of bed linen measuring about 2 x 2 meters and often mistaken for a simple sheet since it consists of only two layers of thin cloth sewn together around the edges. In the center of the top side, however, is a large diamond-shaped hole through which you put your blankets and then smooth them out until they fill the cover evenly. This helps protect the blankets from dust and (probably more importantly) coming into contact with your skin.
In youth hostels, you’re usually required to put your sleeping bag inside such a cover, rather than just tossing it onto your bed (which other people will be using as soon as you check out).
It’s much easier to launder a cover than it is to clean a blanket or disinfect a mattress.
There may be other variations on the design, but the big hole on top is the one I’m best acquainted with.
They mean a thick, down comforter in what is usually tucked into a nice white cover.
I know because, yes - sadly this was also one of my stupid errors.
I called the front desk at a pension, some poor old woman had to schlep up several flights of stairs and pointed to the that down comforter that I too thought you slept ON, not UNDER.
Yes - traveling abroad does tend to make you look really stupid in many situations…
It does happen to foreigners who come here.
I had a German student go to the US on business…after a long day, he got a few beers from the vending machine (our first clue) and took them to his room. He cracked open one, took a huge gulp, and spit it out really fast. It was his first taste of ROOT beer. Not at all what he was expecting.
German blankets are very similar to quilts (may be filled with down feathers and such), but are not meant to be slept under “naked”. You need a cover to go over the blanket, like a big pillowcase.
While we all confessing our overseas blunders, can anyone explain why foreign tourists in America seem charming when they mangle the language or misunderstand some minor nuance of manners or custom? Whether Hollywood or real life, we all fall for the exchange student. Men find it adorable when young Asian women giggle in embarrassment and cover their mouths when a faux pas is realized. Women line up to help the French guy navigate the city. No matter which European accent colors “Umm, how do you say…” it’s sexy. Russian girls speak with the accent of many of our cartoon villians, yet we’d hand over our moose and squirrel without hesitation. Why aren’t Americans charming in our bumbling naïveté?
Americans who are bumbling naïve are equally charming. What’s not charming is someone, from anywhere, who expects people abroad (or simply in another region of the same country) to speak the same language* and with the same accent they do back home, cook the same food, keep the same hours, and generally have the same customs, and who make it known along the lines of a yelled “does anybody here speak my language?”
Mind you, those who think nobody “outside” will understand if they speak in their language are equally stupid, they just happen to be a different brand of asshole. Even when we’re not talking about cases where their language and the local one are extremely close and 90+% mutually intelligible :smack:
On my first trip to England, I didn’t have any trouble with the concept of a duvet - I’d done my homework and had read about it somewhere. I could have pulled the whole thing off without a hitch if I hadn’t been pronouncing it as if it rhymed with “love it.”
I think I’ve told this story before, but what the hell.
Ten, fifteen years ago, the local minor-league baseball team had opened a new baseball park; it was within walking distance of my apartment. The first game they played there was an exhibition against the St. Louis Cardinals because of some corporate relationship the two teams have. The morning of that game I had a breakfast date at a restaurant between my house and the park. Walking there, I chanced to meet a largish redheaded gentlemen; we bumped into one another because neither of us was giving as much attention to walking as we should have been. Bottled water was spilled; we both apologized; I went on my way. My ladyfriend saw the tail end of the encounter and when we sat down said, “So did you get his autograph?”
Doesn’t surprise me. Not every school is the same. I know the local Catholic high school actually required students to shower and so the HS in the neighboring school district; at least with swim classes (we didn’t have a pool). I don’t think any school in the US, even private ones, still has nude swimming. I did have a classmate from upstate New York who hated the red speedos his old school made the boys wear in the pool.
One the subject of exchange students; who also had one from Georgia. He didn’t understand how we could just blow off the military recruiters at the school. Actually he didn’t realize they were recruiters or that American boys didn’t all have to go into the Army. :smack: It never occured to him that anybody would actually want to join the military.
The only stand outs in my memory are trying to get into the cabbie’s seat first time in the States (he was just finishing putting the bags in the trunk).
Oh, and working hard to push the revolving door at the hotel around the wrong way.
What??? Do you know any “North Americans”? I teach at a school, and work out at a big health club (both in a typical Midwest city). Both places have large communal shower rooms where everyone showers after swimming or working out. You take off your swim suit, shower, then walk to your locker. Naked. You might stop and weigh yourself (you sure don’t want any extra ballast for that task). Then you get dressed. It is no big deal.
“The only other person to see you naked should be your spouse.” Were you serious? This sounds like 1620 Puritanism. Actually, I don’t even know if any religions believe this.
Rest assured, non-North Americans, we’re not as neurotic as that.
Thanks for all the info. Ignorance fought. I guess my family didn’t care as much about quilts touching the person underneath – partly because they didn’t have running water in the house, and washing linens would have been a chore.
About three years ago I was at a birthday party for a young girl. I was a friend of her parents and had made the birthday cake.
She has a lot of giggly girlfriends with her, and they are listening in apparent awe to one girl who proudly announces she has tickets to see Justin Bieber in Kansas City.
I ask “Who’s Justin Bieber?”, and get a whole lot of young girls looking at me with their mouths open in disbelief.
Reverse culture shock: I was talking to my 17-year-old daughter not long ago and happened to mention Carly Simon.
Having spent lots of time with me, she’s usually pretty astute when it comes to pop culture. This time, she said “Who’s Carly Simon?” leaving me absolutely speechless.
In the mid 80’s my dad’s Department was hosting some Indonesian exchange students and he invited two of them over for lunch. Now my mother is Dutch but was born in Indonesia and lived there until she was 7 and my dad had been over there several times for work.
These guys had been in Australia for a few months and mum figured they would be weary of the ‘meat + 3 veg’ diet so she decided to cook them up a big batch of Nasi goreng.
During the middle of the meal one of the students asked my dad what the strong flavored meat was and pointed to a small cube of diced bacon.
Dad had forgotten to tell my mother that they were both muslim :eek:
I saw my parents shoot panicked glances at each other and then mum said it was ‘smoked beef’ and everything was fine. She had some words for dad later that night.
