Bottled water in Spanish Speaking Spain and the Canary Islands

 

Spanish - English

agua -water

antes - before

botella - bottle

consumir - consume (literally to consume

Espana (note the mark above the n meaning pronunciation is ny) - Spain

preferemente - preferably

Hot, hot, hot in the UK. Should we travel or cancel? What should we pack?

This week in London a Toastmasters club cancelled their in person meeting and made a Zoom meeting instead. 

The temperature in London was 30 Celcius, which is 86 Fahrenheit.

The temperatures predicted in London on the next two days were 30 OC which is in the high eighties.

Schools are sending home the children.

Other countries scoff at the UK. People commenting on forums, writing from countries outside the UK say that they have higher temperatures, and for weeks longer. They can cope.  They have air con systems. Just look at the buildings. New York buildings and Singapore buildings are festooned with air con appliances. 

Inside you see free standing fans, fans attached to lights. Companies give away paper fans. Shops sell gadgets to carry such as battery operated fans. 

What about the schools? The schools have glass windows. They are often more than two storeys high and the windows won't open for health and safety reasons. You would think they would have blinds and air cooling grilles for hot weather.

On the other hand, they have different holiday dates.

Poeple are also asking: How come  people can go to the beach at the weekend, but not to work on Monday? 

On the beach you can buy ice creams, shut your eyes and do nothing. You can snooze in the heat. 

You can take time off to apply sunblock, take a long lunch, go off early to do shopping. 

You are outdoors in the fresh air. You are cooling in the sea breeze. You are not breathing in other people's germs, from air con maybe circulating Covid.  

You can take a shower. You can cool off in the sea water.  

Why was the London in person meeting cancelled?

They said because of the Met office warning.

What are the implications and risks?

Somebody might faint at the meeting. You will be busy opening windows for one person who is too hot, closing them for somebody else in a draughts, calling the caretaker for the key. 

If anybody faints during the meeting, it will disrupt the meeting. The organizer could be blamed for the hot room.

The caretaker of the building might be staying at home so you cannot get in.

People will be hot and tired and lethargic and staying home, disinclined to travel.

Your insurance might refuse to cover you if you ignore official warnings.

What Are The Warnings?

I looked at the Met office warning page. It is red, which means that not just the elderly and young and pregnant are vulnerable but everybody.

They asked how to improve their website.

I said - add

Symptoms of being in danger from heat. Why children are better off at home than at school. Advisory on which groups of people should stay home. Does it affect public transport and why? How can I tell if somebody has heatstroke? What are the death figures due to the heat? 

Where can I get sun protection clothing online and what qualities should I look for? 

Which sunscreen should I wear? What is the cheapest place to get it? 

How will the health services be impacted. If other countries have these temperatures, how do they cope?

 Why can't we? Will it be just as hot in the middle of August? When should an organizer of a meeting or conference send people home? How do you cool a conference room? 

I have been reading the comments on the internet. 

How Do Other Countries Cope? 

Regarding the idea that others cope, many countries have cars with built in air conditioning.

I had air conditioning in my UK car, but I did not know. I had never previously had occasion to use it.

Can I drink from any tap?

Water in the UK from a drinking water tap is safe to drink. Not from the hot tap in bathrooms. Why not?

Beware Hot water kitchen taps and all household bathroom taps

1 The water stored for heating might be sitting on the roof or in the attic in a storage tank. All sorts of dead animals and insects and birds could crawl into the hot water tank and die there. Our plumber fished out of our tank some rusting metal

2 If the building has a water softener, this is directed through the hot water pipe, whilst it bypasses the cold water tap to the kitchen which is drinking water.

Where Can I find Water On Holiday?

On holiday, when looking for drinking water, you might find it here

In coffee bars - you might have to ask for it.

Gyms.

Hotels.

Stations.

Shopping malls.

Public toilets.

If in doubt, ask. If you ask do they have drinking water, they might simply reply no. So then you can ask them to tell you the nearest place where you can get some, or refill your bottle.

What About Insects?

In hot weather you are also exposed to insect bites. I looked up insects. I thought I was bitten by fleas. After I heard a buzzing sound, again, I saw the buzzer and it was not a fly nor a mosquito, which is higher pitched, but a bee or wasp.

Hot Weather Travel Checklist

1 Drinking water

2 Plan for a refill (eg location of Tesco Express), or free water fountain.

3 Sunhat with wide brim

4 Sunglasses

5 Sun cream. Calamine lotion. (Failing all else, Sudocream healing for nappy rash or heat rash.)

6 Insect repellent

7 Insect spray (working at home, you might prefer a vaccum cleaner, or open windows, and a bowl with a flat piece of card covering the opening to slide underneath.

Windows

8 Open window so insects can fly out. Keep window keys on a hook near the window but not visible from outside.

Window covering, net curtains, hanging bead curtains on doors, or fixed insect wire net.

9 If renting or buying to work overseas, check for outdoor access to keep the room cool and sit outside because of Covid because you or your visitors want protection from sitting at a distance.

10 Overseas, windows often have shutters to let in air but keep out intruders including intruding insects. Check how windows open and shut and any half way position.

Cars

Do not leave babies, children, adults, pets, food, chocolate, in a hot car.

Take a cool box for anything you want to eat or drink during the day or anything you buy. Put a cooling device in your fridge the day before travel and leave a note on the fridge door to remind yourself to put it in the cool box. Or set a timer to remind yourself to put the water and ice in the cool box before driving off for the day.

Make sure your backpack has a separate compartment for a water bottle to keep it away from precious papers and to allow easy access to the bottle. 

Pack a separate plastic glass, or two, in case you need to share the water bottle with somebody else, so you are not sharing germs from the bottle. Better safe than sorry.

Be a cool person. Have a cool day. 

Staying Cool At Home

11 Sliding glass patio doors might also have an air inlet at the top. Look for a little sliding section over a grille. (We had one for years and did not realise it was there.) If somebody closed this in winter, you might want to open it again in summer.

Travelling To A Conference

12 Pack a hand held fan, a battery operated fan, or make a paper fan.

What Is The Temperature

13 Write conversions of temperatures from C to Fahrenheit in your dairy, or find an old diary with such a page and add it to your current diary with sticky tape.

Celsius °C	Fahrenheit °F
-30 °C	-22 °F
-20 °C	-4.0 °F
-10 °C	14.0 °F
0 °C	32.0 °F
1 °C	33.8 °F
2 °C	35.6 °F
3 °C	37.4 °F
4 °C	39.2 °F
5 °C	41.0 °F
6 °C	42.8 °F
7 °C	44.6 °F
8 °C	46.4 °F
9 °C	48.2 °F
10 °C	50.0 °F
11 °C	51.8 °F
12 °C	53.6 °F
13 °C	55.4 °F
14 °C	57.2 °F
15 °C	59.0 °F
16 °C	60.8 °F
17 °C	62.6 °F
18 °C	64.4 °F
19 °C	66.2 °F
20 °C	68.0 °F
21 °C	69.8 °F
22 °C	71.6 °F
23 °C	73.4 °F
24 °C	75.2 °F
25 °C	77.0 °F
26 °C	78.8 °F
27 °C	80.6 °F
28 °C	82.4 °F
29 °C	84.2 °F
30 °C	86.0 °F
40 °C	104 °F
50 °C	122 °F
60 °C	140 °F

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How To Get by Translating With Photos When Travelling

POINT TO THESE PICTURES IN A RESTAURANT. STORIES AND INSTRUCTIONS BELOW

(Pictures in this post: Menu; coffee; olives; fruit/pineapple; red wine; baed beans; baked beans on toast; white wine; four pâtés; sandwich with crisps and green garnish; mustard orange juice; bottled water; white wine, glass of water, rosé wine; petits fours; chicken soup with noodles and ravioli; fat pancake or thin hot scone with butter; breakfast or Sunday brunch grill with sausage and egg and chips (Americans call them French fries); fancy carrot cake with icing and nuts on top;  Chinese  moon cake for autumn festival (very sweet, filling, to eat at party, as gift or souvenir).

Problem
How do you translate what you want to somebody who doesn't speak your language?
Most Chinese and Japanese Restaurants have photos outside or on a menu. What if they don't?

Story
When I first went to China I started off in a grand conference hotel with my husband. All the restaurants had English menus. However, you had to ask, because a Chinese person who speaks no English does not know whether you don't understand staff or the menu because you are English speaking.

The first time I struggled, letting the head of a group order for everybody. I ended up faced with lobsters and similar shellfish which I can't eat because I am allergic to them. I then had to get chicken, which came up later so I was out of sync with everybody else.

On our day off, my husband insisted that we did not eat in another international restaurant in a hotel, but tried a 'local' restaurant. The trouble was, only locals ate there, they had no English menu and we had trouble making ourselves understood.

I tried drawing a chicken. I soon had three members of staff and guests from other tables surrounding me, all arguing with each other. I had drawn what could have been anything from a pheasant to a cow. Even if they understood chicken, they didn't know whether I wanted soup, a sandwich, lemon chicken, or chicken with cashew nuts.

You could be Russian, as most visitors to Shanghai who look Western will be Russian. You could be French or German.

Would you be able to tell apart somebody who spoke Chinese (mandarin), Cantonese, Korean, Thai. Even if the restaurant manager is ultra smart and has initiative, the waiter may be timid and rushed off their feet. They have no idea whether you speak other languages. They don't know whether you speak French or Mandarin. Their guests may speak other 'dialects' but understand the Chinese writing which is common to Chinese and Japanese, a bit like a non smoking sign.

Given the speed with which restaurants change hands, and waiters change jobs, the waiter may well not know where the other menus are kept and will have to ask.

Answers
1 Choose a restaurant with English translations or photos.
2 If recommended a restaurant with no translations or photos, or taken into one by your Asian host who assures you the food is wonderful you have several options.

1 Put a dictionary in your pocket.
2 Photograph a menu with translations from another restaurant or hotel.
a) Copy that photo the menu to the end of your photo list each day so so it is quick to find.
b) Email yourself a copy of the translated menu before leaving for the restaurant so your email is most recent and easy to find.
c) Print a copy of your photo of the translated menu.

You may have to ask for the English menu. Just because Remember the waiter is not trying to be difficult.

Make a collection of pictures of your favourite foods. Photograph what you like from one restaurant to how the next. Or photograph what you like in your hotel restaurant to order the same, or photograph it and draw a black felt tip cross through it and shake your head to ensure you are trying something different the next day.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, teacher of English and languages. Please bookmark this post for yourself and come back to this page or share links to your favourite posts with family, friends and colleagues. 

Water, water, drinking water in Cambodia, London, Singapore, America

Problem
Is the water safe to drink?

Answers

America
Water, water everywhere. Fountains in shopping malls, on every level or every other level of hotels. I suppose that's why Americans are always so alert. They also don't drink at lunch time. Certainly not at the conventions I have been to.

Cambodia
In Siem Reap (the second city and most visited tourist city because of the probity to Ankor Wat) you are told not to drink the water.

In our hotel we were given small bottles of water for tooth cleaning. I thought, if I'm not supposed to use this for tooth cleaning, do I really want to wash my hands in it? I would clean my teeth, rinse my mouth with bottled water, tip a capful over my hands. What about my face? What about washing underclothes? What about my hands in clothes washing water? What about washing a hat, a blouse, a dress, a slip, a pair of socks?

Presumably washing grapes and apples means using bottled water. And lettuce and tomatoes.

A business man going to Cambodia to the capital next week asks me if it's easy to find bottled water. Yes. Hotels have it on the restaurant tables and in bathrooms attached to bedrooms (although not in the wash rooms / rest rooms. Carry your own. Easy to get water? Yes. You can buy it in a supermarket. Your talk-tuk driver will collect half a dozen bottles of water in a pack and give you a fresh one every morning. You will have saved your own bottle from breakfast.

Remember to save your bottled water from dinner. Don't leave it on the table.

At the airport they will take away your water, but usually let you drink it, or they will offer to throw away the water and give you back the bottle to refill later.

England
Drinkable water from London fresh water kitchen taps. In Physics lessons at school we were told don't drink from bathroom taps because that water is not from the main but stored overhead in a tank which could have all sorts in it.

You hear lots of stories about creatures which fall into tanks. I've heard plumbers say nonsense, tanks have covers so no insects not pigeons nor squirrels can drop in. But we had a plumber who investigated a tank in a loft where we were living and produced and piece of rusting metal which he said he'd found in the tank.

Hard water in London. Soft water in Derbyshire at Writers' Summer School.

Singapore
Yes, you can drink from the tap. We do all the time. I also use the tap water in a coffee machine which I hope boils the water. Then the water is too hot to drink, so I add milk and cold tap water.

I don't like the taste of tap water to drink so I add slices of lemon. Lemon is supposed to rot your teeth, being acid. You are told not to clean your teeth within an hour of drinking water containing lemon.


Wales
Lovely soft water in Fishguard, West Wales.

Tips
Concerned about drinking water safety?
1 Drink water which has been brought to the boil.
2 Buy a filtration kit from a camping shop.
3 Buy bottled water. In restaurants drink only from water which has been poured from a bottle which was opened in front of you.
4 Wash the cup before pouring in water to drink.
5 Avoid ice, iced cold drinks, iced tea, iced alcoholic drink, milkshakes with crushed ice, ice lollies.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share my posts.