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Booze Around The World: How To Say ‘Binge Drinking’ In French, Plus 7 Other Useful Expressions
Every country has its drinking culture. In some places there is little or no alcohol, and in some there is too much. And sometimes, one culture adopts the habits of another. This is especially clear in France, where binge drinking has become such a common occurrence that the French General Commission of Terminology and Neology — the organization responsible for promoting the French language and protecting it from the influx of too many foreign words and phrases — had to come up with a specific French expression. “Beuverie express” became the official term, and according to Le Monde, in order to reach it you must consume four to five glasses in less than two hours.
Like it or not, alcohol certainly plays a role in travel, whether it’s drinking a beachside cocktail or exploring a traditional brewery in Brussels. Hopefully your travel drinking plans are a little more moderate, and if so, here’s a list of useful drinking-related expressions in 7 different cultures.
1. Marié ou pendu à la fin de l’année – A French expression, “Married or hung by the end of the year” is said to the person who gets the last drop from the wine bottle.
2. Beber como una esponja – Spanish for “to drink like a sponge,” in other words, someone that likes their cocktails.3. Flat out like a lizard drinking – Australian for someone who’s very busy, with or without drinks.
4. 干杯 “Ganbei” – The Chinese version of “cheers.”
5. Ram phan tram – Vietnamese for “bottom’s up,” literally meaning “100%.”
6. May you always have a clean shirt, a clear conscience and enough coins in your pocket to buy a pint! – An Irish toast. Be sure to follow it up with ‘Sláinte!’ (pronounced ‘slawn-cha’) which means “health.”
7. Mabuhay – If you’re cheersing in the Philippines, follow up a toast in Tagalog with this word which means “to live” or “long life.”
Our friends at AOL Travel are celebrating Booze Week this week, with stories about the intersection of drinks and travel.
Travel’s Three Gifts: Notes from an Indonesian Island
The first time I meet Rai is at the morning market in Sampalan, the largest town on the Indonesian island of Nusa Penida.
She says hello to me from behind mounds of mangos and bright green chilies at the stall she runs with her mother. Despite the heat, she wears a purple hoodie zipped to the neck. We chat for a while, her brown eyes glowing, her dark hair pulled back from her face.
I see her again the next night, at a dance lesson in her village. After the lesson finishes, she asks, “You come to my home?”
And because I have no other plans on this Saturday night, I say, “Why not?”
Rai sits behind me on my motorbike and directs me down an unlit gravel lane. The farther we go, the more the road disintegrates beneath my wheels. I apologize each time we hit a bump.
“Candace,” she chides, “every day I am taking these roads.”
When we reach her house, her family is seated on their concrete front porch. I’m told to call her fisherman father Bapa, and her mother Meme. Her brother Putu and sister-in-law Kadek are also there. Putu is 21, his wife 20; already, Rai tells me, they have lost two children. One died “in belly,” another at 13 days old.
When I try to find the words to say I’m sorry, Kadek smiles an impossible smile and says, “No problem. It’s okay.”
“Tomorrow you can help me selling in the market?” Rai asks.
Again I say, “Why not?”
“And tonight, you sleep at my home?”
For a moment, I mumble something about my homestay at a modified hostel in Sampalan. And then it hits me – I’ve just been offered an actual homestay.
Rai goes to take a shower, and afterwards asks if I’d like to take one, too. Bapa warns me — it’s only a “manual shower,” and the bathroom is outdoors, open for all to see, its walls barely reaching up to my chest.
Still, it’s far enough from the house – and lit only by the glow of Rai’s flashlight – that I soon let go of modesty and strip down, dipping a plastic tumbler into a bucket and feeling the water cool my sticky skin. I tilt my head back, take in the incandescent sky above me, and thank the universe for this moment.
Because that’s the first gift travel gives me – the gift of discovery, and the thrill of encountering a world so completely different from my own.
We set our alarms for 4 a.m., and I lie beside Rai on a foam mat on the floor. Her parents will sleep in the living room. After they turn off the TV, the only sounds are the occasional calls of a gecko and the ticking of a heart-shaped clock on the cinderblock wall – and Rai’s quiet breathing next to me.
I glance to my side and see that the frangipani blossom she’d picked earlier is still tucked behind her ear. I am slow to fall asleep, kept awake by gratitude and wonder at finding myself so at home here.
Because that’s the second gift that travel gives me – the gift of belonging, and the thrill of journeying so far from home only to find a home in such a new place.
The following morning, we arrive at the market when the chickens are still asleep in the trees. Yet we’re far from the first ones here. Women are setting up their stalls with flashlights held between their ears and shoulders like telephones. They roll back the sheets of blue plastic that covered their tables overnight. Rai complains of moths eating her tomatoes.
Like a pot coming to boil, the market slowly heats up. Sandals begin to slap against the dusty paths, plastic bags rustling as they’re filled with corn and cassava and grapes the size of golf balls. While Rai sells produce – carrots and chilies, garlic and red pearl onions – I stand next to her, helping where and when I can.
For the next three days, I return each morning, until the day comes for me to say goodbye and depart from Nusa Penida.
I’m still in touch with Rai – through Facebook, of course – and every now and then I’ll get a message from her, asking how I am. I smile each time, remembering the market and the manual shower and how it felt to fall asleep in the damp darkness of her home.
Because that’s the third gift that travel gives me, and it’s the reason I’ll never stop traveling – the gift of connection, and the thrill of weaving an invisible web around us as we move through the world, and the world moves through us.
The connections that keep each journey alive forever.
Photo of the Day: Beer Run
Our friends over at AOL Travel are kicking off Booze Week, a toast to the role booze plays in the grand scheme of travel. To help celebrate, this week’s photo features will follow the Booze Week theme. We’re starting off with a selection of craft beers, sourced from various breweries around the country.
What’s your favorite craft beer to enjoy while you’re traveling?
We’d love to feature your photos and videos on Gadling, so please add them to our Flickr Pool (with Creative Commons licensing!), tag @GadlingTravel on Instagram or email us at OfTheDay@gadling.go-vip.net.
Bottle With Travel-Loving Tennessee Man’s Ashes Bobbing Along Florida Keys
We all have our own ideas of what happens after we die. For the late Gordon Scott Smith of Tennessee, his goal was to ensure that his lifelong love of travel carried on into the afterlife. Or, you know, at least ensured his cremated remains saw some scenic places. Scott’s widow, Beverly Smith, carried out her husband of 27 years wishes by putting his ashes, two dollars, and a note in a bottle, and setting it afloat off of Big Pine Key, Florida, in March, 2012, reports WCVB. The money was so recipients could make phone calls to Smith with updates on Scott’s whereabouts.The bottle washed ashore further south in the Florida Keys, in Islamorada. It was discovered by a man named Ross, who called a delighted Smith to give her an update. He also left a note of his own.
Ross then took Smith’s ashes six miles out to sea, and set the bottle afloat. Over the weekend, Judi Glunz Sidney, co-owner of a resort in Key Colony Beach, 28 miles south, found it onshore. She also called Smith, and transferred Scott’s ashes to a rum bottle (“You know, added a little fun to his trip.”). The bottle was then launched off of Seven Mile Bridge in Marathon, so Scott can resume his travels. Here’s to going out in style.