What is this?

QU'EST-CE QUE C'EST? ***WHAT IS THIS?***CHTO ETO?

Welcome to At the Ruins (by Shirley B. Trew), the generic phrasebook-cum-novel introduced by the dear Professor Emeritus Jacques Roundabout in the blog at-the-ruins.blogspot.com.

Here, the Conventional/Traditional novel form is used, just the way Charles Dickens's work (originally a 19th. c. blog of the era) is now packaged in fat books.

Read Professor Roundabout's Foreword, then plunge into the phrasebook novel. Uh, novel phrasebook.

Just read Post #1, then Post #2, and so on. At the bottom of each page, CLICK OLDER POSTS. Don't worry, you'll catch on eventually.

Contact me at sbtrew@gmail.com

P.S. THE FOREWORD SETS UP THE PREMISE; YA GOTTA READ IT.


FOREWORD, by Professor Jacques Roundabout


Often, people travel in pairs. One has common sense, the other speaks a little of the language. One is obsessed with maps, the other with native costumes. One is into photography, the other, shopping. One keeps an eye out for food, the other, ruins.

Here, finally, is the perfect travel phrasebook for both of them.

The problem with so many well-intentioned travelers' phrasebooks is that they're written in two languages, when in fact travelers most often find themselves juggling three or four at least as they seek stimulation and adventure around the world, and directions on how to find a bathroom.

But hardly anybody can handle three or four languages, and most Americans can't even handle two.

Besides, when the natives offer to sell you things, ask you questions, or even give you directions, they speak in their own language, with their own accents, and at normal speed. So even if your phrasebook has all the answers in it, everything will happen too fast for you to be able to translate and understand what they've said.

This first generic phrasebook skips over the frustration and gets right to the essence of your travel experience.

At long last, here is a traveler's phrasebook that translates all the phrases that you are likely to use, need, or hear into one language--good old American English. For the first time, you can finally grasp the essence of your travel experience.

Bon voyage! Oops--Good Trip!

J.R., Timbuktu

Wednesday, September 26, 2012


POST #16—MONEY MATTERS, INTERMEDIATE LEVEL

What was the price?
Is that in new bongoes or old bongoes?
The old bongoes were called bingoes.
What was the difference again?
Bingoes are worth one thousandth of a bongo. Don't accept bingoes.

Well, I seem to have a lot of bingoes in my pocket. Do you think they gave them to me at the bank?

You know what, the 200,000-bongo bills look almost exactly like the
5,000-bongo bills. I wish I had noticed that before.

Well, I hope you noticed that the 500-bingo bills look like the new ten million bongo bills.
How much did that roll of film cost?
I'm not sure.

I think I'm getting low on bongoes. We'll have to find a bank that's open again to change bongoes. Or maybe go back to the man at that jewelry stand.

Change. Do you have change for 500,000,000 bongoes? How come nobody has change around here? I just gave him five 100,000-bongo pieces, what did he do with them?
Posted by at