Besides, we had spoken to people behind the desk when we came in, and they spoke very good English.

In a foreign country, we try to rely on signs. We are even more attentive to signs than we would be in our own country. A social person in his/her own country often ignores the sign entirely and focuses on the actual human being behind the desk. The classic scene in many a movie involves such a social person doing precisely that and the anti-social desk clerk pointing to the sign. But in a foreign country, the opposite often happens. We look for signs everywhere, any piece of technology to help us navigate so that we don’t actually have to subject ourselves to the embarassing difficulty of talking. But as we all know, whether from Biblical hermenuetics or from philosophy (from Plato to Locke to Derrida) or simply from ordinary experience, signs often don’t mean exactly what we think they mean.

And now, I have to try to order a plane ticket on-line, which I hate, because talking to an actual travel agent is so much easier and sensible than the cyber-morass.