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Show Eli joying Europe A travelers primer on guards and guides by William AdaniK TRAVEL, particularly in Europe, is supposed to be fun, and for the most part it is, but unfortunately a certain group of people have made a game of tourist frustration. These people, under the guise of helping the tourist enjoy himself, work relentlessly to prevent anyone from touching, photographing, or seeing any of the great sights of Europe. Sooner or later every tourist will have to meet at least one of them, usually beginning with the most noticeable players of the game, the two Gs of travel: guards and guides. Guards come in two varieties; young ones who stand on borders and in front of monuments, and their grandfathers who stand in museums. (In Eastern Europe its their grandmothers, due to a shortage of happy workers.) Border guards are those still in training who havent yet become obnoxious enough to serve in museums. They can actually be cute while rummaging through your luggage, and commenting to their friend, who just stole your passport, on your poor taste in underwear. THEY COME in infinite variety, changing with the border. In Italy, they skip the luggage but pick up any girls on the tour. France, they forget all formalities and concentrate on getting you to change money. In Austria and Germany theyre a pure joy: efficient, friendly, and so trusting you could smuggle a small tank across the border, but they become abusive if asked to give a souvenir passport stamp or to pose for a picture. Their counterpart is the East European guard, who is efficient and stem, not unlike the stereotyped World War II concentration camp commander, with a look that can make any tourist sure he just committed a capital offense. He has an in dating way of displaying embarrassing personal possessions to the entire bus, and of rearranging an already arranged suitcase, not to mention the fact that he dresses in a manner that bears an uncanny iesemblance to the Gestapo, and enforces camera shyness with a cute little machine gun. Ive heard of tourists who have been done in right between Martha, stand a little closer to the quaint man with the gun, and wave to the folks back home. HOWEVER, even he is a pushover when put up against the average museum guard His job is to say no. No, you cant take a picture; no, you cant go into that room; and no, you cant get out without paying extra. He is at his best explaining museum hours: Yes, were always open between 9 and 5 except Mondays, Tuesdays, holidays, working days, noons from 11:30 to 3:00 and during religious commemorations, but I think I can slip you in on the first Wednesday after the second full moon following Saturns alignment with Mars. He can be found locking rooms you were just going to enter, or standing in front of your favorite work of art. A room can be empty, but take out a camera and a guard will turn up to shut off the lights To add the crowning touch to his Performance, he never speaks a language ou can understand. Should you know English, he only speaks German, and should you also know German, he speaks Italian I once thought I caught one speaking something I understood, but he denied it in fluent Swahili. BETWEEN being an apprentice museum guard on border patrol and the real thing comes the stage known as guidehood. Guides, like guards, come in two varieties, inside and outside. The inside guides work closely with museum In guards to make sure the average tourist sees nothing I first met one of this variety in Pans where I joined a group wandering through the Louvre. Our guide spoke perfect memorized English in a lovely monotone, and got frustrated, lost his place and had to start over if pressed for any kind of information such as who was the artist. He would point with unbelievable pride to a huge yellow bowl and announce Roman bath tub; cant get it any more. I refrained from saying why would I want to? as he already had his hands full getting the group away from a beautiful statue done by a nobody and interested in a lovely 10th century Byzantine painting done by a kindergarten student with a dull gold crayon. OUTSIDE guides are masters at their art. Who else could pull up to a building and announce, Here we have a lovely old church with 10 world famous altars, 12 masterpieces, two Michelangelo statues and enough gold to buy a Rockefeller. You have five minutes. The guides have plenty of information, but they give it only to one member of the group who has taken an oath to see that it goes no farther. Guides know every language just well enough to get confused, and are required to be able to take a bus two and a half miles to go around a block before they are given a license. Guards and guides are only the first line of defense in the game of tourist frustration If you get past them there are still the hotels, which have their own version of the game called toilet, toilet, whered they hide the toilet? Such conveniences are never put into a room in any middle class European European guards this is an East German model, very efficient work their way up from border crossings to monuments to museums, where they turn off lights. Here are the five big advantages in using Cultured Llarfelo fay rWeynwc hotel. They are at least 500 yards down the hall to the right in a converted broom closet that has had the lock removed and the back wall knocked out to make room for the bay window; but at least toilet paper in Europe, like America, comes in more than one variety. A good hotel will not only provide the London Times, but also a local daily. THE FINAL great players in this game are supposedly tourists themselves, but they couldnt be real; no one in his right mind would do what they do to the U.S.s image and remain a citizen. I have reason to believe that they are really plants put in the group to make enemies and ruin reputations all over Europe Theyre easy to spot. Who else weighing 260 lbs. and standing 5 ft. 5 inches tall would appear in public in Bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirt, horn nmmed sunglasses, a straw hat resembling a stiff pizza, and have four cameras around his neck, all of them Instamaties? Who else wears a mink coat and pearls to climb through Italian ruins in 90 weather? Who but such a plant can be seen climbing on the altar during Mass to take a flash picture of an Archbishop, or is caught trying to rifle the donation box? Should you ever, for some inconceivable reason, want to find such a plant, it isnt hard They leave their names and addresses all over Europe, scrawled on museum walls, statues and church towers. If all else fails they can always be found at night digging souvenir cobblestones out of the streets. OF COURSE, these are only a few of the people provided for your inconvenience, but before you give up traveling altogether, just think of what fun it would be to get back at just one of these people, and you cant do that sitting at home. V-- 3fT & iy 1? The Salt Lake 1. VARIETY: 4. Nine kinds of tubs (adapted to hydrotherapy), sinks, vanities, showers, flat wails, etc. 2. CUSTOM FITTING: Our designs can be adapted to fit your needs. 3. REMARKABLE VEINING: So true even experts look twice. Match or make any color. 5. AVAILABILITY: We con custom make ond ship in ten days. 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