Five phrases a traveler should never use

"Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word, before you let it fall," said Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Thinking before you speak is an excellent strategy for anyone, but it's especially appropriate for the traveling set. To fend off foot-in-mouth syndrome while on the road, banish the following five phrases from your lexicon.

 

Do You Speak English?
There are basic foreign-language expressions that every international traveler should learn before crossing borders, and this is one of them. Even if you're light-years away from fluency, a rudimentary grasp of simple phrases in the regional tongue—like "please," "hello," "thank you," "no thank you," and "where is the bathroom?"—will work wonders. Add to this list "Do you speak English?" to be stated in the applicable language. It's a show of respect. And locals will likely be more responsive and helpful to anyone who doesn't behave as if all citizens of the world ought to speak his or her native language.

 

Do You Have Change for a $20?This phrase shouldn't be spoken to your bellman, tour guide, airport-shuttle driver, hotel housekeeper, or any other serviceperson not stationed behind a cash register. Travel and tipping go together like Lewis and Clark. Thus, road warriors should make a point of obtaining small bills in the local currency at the beginning of every trip. Don't put your service person in the position of awkwardly fumbling through his or her wallet in order to receive due recompense.

 

Can You Help Me? I'm Lost, and I'm Staying at [Name of Hotel].
Have you seen the movie Taken? It's about a girl who gets kidnapped in Paris after human traffickers have found out where she is staying. Yes, it's Hollywood. But, to some degree, art imitates life. Many criminals target unsuspecting travelers—especially in popular tourist destinations—and it's not a smart idea to tell a stranger that you're from out of town or to publicize where you're bunking down for the night. You might not get sold into sex slavery, but you could get robbed, especially if your hotel lacks top-notch security.

 

I Don't Want To Go There; There Aren't Any Reviews!
While we appreciate the power and practicality of user-generated reviews, they have their limits. New establishments, locals-only joints, tiny B&B's, and less-traveled hideaways often get left off the reviews grid. Developing a dependence on the aggregated opinions of the faceless masses will prevent you from discovering anything remotely, well, undiscovered.
One traveler told our sister site IndependentTraveler.com, "Some great travel memories I have are from exploring Switzerland by train. I stopped over in many towns [without] knowing anything about the place or where I would end up staying. It was liberating to fend for myself and discover all things with new eyes." 

 

Geez. It's Not Like I Have A Bomb.
Airport security can often seem like a joke—especially when young children get pat-downs or Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents steal from passengers. But that doesn't mean you should play the part of the comedian when going through the metal detector. Travelers have been arrested for making jokes about terrorism in the airport. According to the TSA, "Belligerence, inappropriate jokes, and threats are not tolerated. Jokes and/or comments about threats to passengers or the aircraft will be taken seriously and can result in criminal or civil penalties for the passenger." Be on the safe side and save the jokes for after you've left the airport.

 

Chuck Pagano's perseverance through leukemia inspires Colts to continue defying odds, critics

INDIANAPOLIS – First they danced. Then they laughed. Then they prayed. Then Jim Irsay, the owner of these improbable, impossible 11-5 Indianapolis Colts, held a game ball and addressed a postgame locker room equal parts elation and emotion. Chuck Pagano is greeted by family members after the Colts' win. (AP)

Standing in front of him was Chuck Pagano, the man he hired not 12 months ago in part because of his toughness; who in turn had proven tougher than even Pagano himself believed possible.
Most of the season had been spent down the street, in a cancer center, getting chemo pumped into him and then medicine to deal with the chemo and then medicine to deal with the medicine to deal with the chemo. And then more medicine after that.
He lost weight. He lost hair. He found tears. He found people in worse shape, with bigger challenges. He found humility in his good fortune … "treatable cancer" and, even better, treatable cancer that struck him, not his children. At the bottom, sometimes there is so much reason to be thankful.
He found inspiration in the support of his wife and daughters, in a well-executed play on practice tape and in sharing popsicle recommendations with the cancer kids he was suddenly living among.
There were days he could hardly move, of course, when nothing could lift him. He'd just lay there, sick. Others he mostly slept. There were nights when he awoke drenched in sweat, shivering under piles of blankets.
There was, Pagano said, never a doubt that he would return to the sidelines of Lucas Oil, to calling the shots, to a joyous locker room like this. He couldn't envision the team he left at 1-2 would wind up like this, but he never stopped believing it was possible.
[Also: Chuck Pagano receives hero's welcome from Colts faithful in return]
There were times, of course, he felt like it would never come. That this hellacious sickness wouldn’t pass, that the simplest of life’s moments (taste, smell, sleep) would never return, let alone coaching. Even on this cold Sunday, cleared for work, focused on victory, as he drove to the stadium, he struggled to pass the turnoff for treatment.
"That truck was pulling to go to Michigan [Avenue] to go that IU [Simon Cancer] center," he laughed with the team in the locker room.
"No more."
No more.

Chuck Pagano celebrates with offensive coordinator Bruce Arians. (AP)So, yeah, there was one hell of a celebration here, not just for a 28-16 victory over the Houston Texans, not just for the way the Colts rose up in the fourth quarter, not just to mark this outrageous season, from 2-14 to a playoff game at Baltimore and, who knows, maybe even beyond.

"We said a long time ago," Pagano told the team, "that just because of the circumstances we weren't going to listen to anybody. We were just going to get together and build what?"
"A monster," they yelled.
"A monster," he said. "And right now we just hit our Mojo."
Mojo was everywhere here. There were roaring fans chanting his name. There were fellow cancer patients down on the field. There were cheerleaders with hair growing back from a mid-season, Pagano-inspired, fund-raising shave. There was a "ChuckStrong" banner in the end zone that proved so moving that even Houston's Arian Foster bowed before it after scoring a touchdown.
[Also: J.J. Watt lines up against kids from Newtown]
There was all of Pagano's family in the stands, wife, daughters, the extended clan too. There was Pagano after the game shaking hands with fans, signing a football and stopping about every three feet in the hallways to hug players, coaches, stadium clean-up crew, whomever was offering.
"What a day," Pagano said. "What a day."
"It was a blessing," he said. "It was a blessing. I am very humbled by it and anytime you get taken away from what you know and what you've done you're whole entire life and all of sudden you're kind of sidelined, so to speak, and then you have an opportunity …

"It's like a dream come true again. It's the greatest feeling in the world to be down there … When I first walked out of the tunnel and to see everyone in the stands again, to see my family standing there again. Then we had the opportunity to see some people that were at the game that came a long, long way, that were battling things and have some circumstances, have some issues … very humbling." Chuck Pagano acknowledges the fans after the Colts beat the Texans. (AP)

Pagano never said the word cancer after the game. He never said the word leukemia. He never said the word chemotherapy. 

Circumstances. Issues. Challenges. He's a coach. He never wanted to hear those words, hear what they meant when the moments were bleak. He figures no one else does either. A circumstance can be dealt with. An issue can be overcome.
In his darkest, most miserable moments, he used the promise of coaching again, of leading a team onto the field, to pull him through. Yet once he was back doing it, he didn't waste a second thinking back to those darkest, most miserable moments.
"Never," he said. "Not one time. It almost seems surreal to be honest with you."
This Sunday would've been no less glorious had the Colts lost, had Deji Kalim not returned a kick 101 yards, had Andrew Luck not found T.Y Hilton for a 70-yard touchdown, had Vontae Davis not picked Matt Schaub off in the end zone.
A man who spent most of the season laid out in the misery of a hospital was coaching in the NFL.
[Also: Texans lose AFC's top seed, stumble into playoffs]
But this is the NFL. There are winners and losers, and Pagano wanted this win, even if it meant nothing to the Colts' playoff seeding. And the players wanted this win because they knew their coach deserved it. And the whole town wanted this win because there is something powerful about winning too.
This Pagano believes. This, he says from experience, is the glimmer of hope that can help. He was asked what he wanted all the others dealing with "circumstances" to take from this day.
"You are strong enough," he said. "You have one thing that you will find out, that you are a lot stronger than you think you are. Have a positive attitude, wake up every day and have a faith, a belief that you're going to beat it and you're going to win."

And that's part of why Pagano can't wait to live what's next, to see what more he and these Colts can provide.
The playoffs are here, and why not keep going? You spend 20 hours a day sleeping, only awoken by nausea or migraines, and then a few weeks later you're whipping right past that cancer ward to get to a game. Suddenly managing rookie quarterbacks or stopping Ray Rice doesn't scare you.
[Also: Is there a power struggle in the Jets organization?]
He reminded the team that they'd been writing their own story, against all the odds and all the critics the entire season. Why put away the pen now? Why stop believing anything and everything is possible?
So there was Irsay, back in that locker room, fresh off doing some silly jig with the head coach who had been to hell and back. The owner, surrounded by the players, was gripping that most special of game balls.
"This ball," Irsay said, "we all present to a guy we love and who's healthy as hell right now."
The place roared.
"And I wouldn't want to put the gloves on with him."

Trindon Holliday could be the most perfect football player in NFL history

Trindon Holliday is three wins away from being the answer to one of the great trivia questions in NFL history: the only player ever to go undefeated in a 19-game season.
Holliday, a Broncos kick return specialist, is the beneficiary of fortunate circumstance: he played his first five games for the Houston Texans, who went 5-0 over that span. But Houston waived Holliday; Denver then picked him up, and proceeded to go 11-0 to close out the season.
[Related: Champ Bailey nostalgic after Broncos wrap up No. 1 seed]
Talk about your lucky charms, huh? Even if Holliday only scored one touchdown all season, you can't argue with the numbers.
Denver now has to win only three games for Holliday to go 19-0 over a season, something that no team, not even the 1972 Dolphins, has ever accomplished. Those Dolphins were 17-0, playing in an era of 14-game seasons. (Funny how they never mention that when they break out the champagne every time the last undefeated team of each season loses.) The New England Patriots went undefeated in the regular season and won two games in the playoffs before the New York Giants and Manning-to-Tyree derailed them in the Super Bowl.

Suspect in NYC subway death arrested before

NEW YORK (AP) — The family of a woman accused of shoving a man to his death in front of a subway train called police several times in the past five years because she had not been taking prescribed medication and was difficult to deal with, authorities said Monday.

Erika Menendez, 31, was being held without bail on a murder charge in the death of Sunando Sen. She told police she pushed the 46-year-old India native because she thought he was Muslim, and she hates them, according to prosecutors.

They had never met before she suddenly shoved him off the subway platform because she "thought it would be cool," prosecutors said. The victim was Hindu, not Muslim.

It wasn't clear whether Menendez had a diagnosed mental condition. But her previous arrests and legal troubles paint a portrait of a troubled woman.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly would not say what medication she was taking or whether she had a psychiatric history. Authorities were called to her home five times since 2005 on reports of an emotionally disturbed person.
In one instance, police said, she threw a radio at the responding officers.

Menendez had been arrested several times, starting when she was young. In 2003, she was arrested on charges she punched a 28-year-old man in the face inside her Queens home, but the case was later dropped. She pleaded guilty later that year to assaulting a stranger on the street near her home. The victim, retired Fire Department official Daniel Conlisk, said the attack was violent and relentless.

He said he was sorting recyclables outside his home one night when Menendez approached him and punched him in the face, screaming that he was having sex with her mother.

"It was such a shot," Conlisk said. "And I was surprised she hit so hard, because she was just a girl."

He said he tried to fend her off as she clawed at his skin. He eventually broke free and went inside his home, where he called police. When they arrived, he said, she was still outside screaming about him having sex with her mother, and saying he had stolen jewelry from her in high school.
"That's when everyone realized there's really something wrong with her," he said. Conlisk, 65, said he took out two restraining orders against her but never saw her after he was attacked.

He said that he felt bad that he pressed charges, but that she seemed dangerous.

"I really believe if she had a knife, she would have killed me," he said.

In December 2003, Menendez was arrested for cocaine possession. She was given a conditional discharge after pleading guilty.

Last Thursday, witnesses said a woman pacing and mumbling to herself suddenly shoved Sen off the elevated platform of a No. 7 train that travels between Manhattan and Queens. She fled.

Menendez was spotted by a passer-by who called 911 and said she resembled the wanted suspect. When she was arrested, she told police she shoved Sen because she blamed Muslims and Hindus for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and had been "beating them up" ever since, according to authorities. She said she thought Sen was Muslim.

Sen, a Kolkata native, owned a print shop and had lived in Queens for decades.

She laughed and snickered so much during her court hearing last weekend that the judge admonished her. The attorney who represented her only for her arraignment said she acted the same way with him when he tried to speak with her. He had no further comment.

Calls to Menendez's home on Monday were unanswered. Angel Luis Santiago, who used to work at the Queens building where Menendez's mother and stepfather live, said he was shocked by her arrest on the murder charge.

"It surprised me what she did," he said. "She never acted that way."

Five phrases a traveler should never use

Now that San Diego Chargers head coach Norv Turner has officially been dismissed, a team source said a consideration has to be made that's foreign to other franchises:
Who will play to the Los Angeles market?
As the Chargers (7-9) fired Turner and general manager A.J. Smith on Monday following another disappointing season, there are some unusual assessments that owner Dean Spanos must think through.
Spanos must settle whether the Chargers are going to stay in San Diego (which is his hope) or move to Los Angeles. And Spanos has roughly one year to settle it all.
"Everybody understands that Dean wants to be in San Diego," the team source said. "That has always been his priority."

Norv Turner 56-40 in six seasons with the Chargers. (AP)Whether San Diego voters approve a ballot measure on a new stadium is critical, but so will be upcoming talks with new San Diego Mayor Bob Filner. Shortly after being elected in November, Filner declared that there would be no "sweetheart" deal for the Chargers.
According to multiple sources with an understanding of the Los Angeles and Chargers situation, the earliest the team would move north is 2014. That’s if they ever do. With that in mind, the Spanos family isn’t just hiring a coach to reinvigorate the San Diego fan base; it has to hire a coach who is seemingly a good fit for L.A. That’s why, for all the talk of Andy Reid wanting to coach the Chargers, that’s extremely unlikely.
Despite Reid’s L.A. roots (he grew up there and graduated from Marshall High), he’s not viewed as the type of winner that will grab a fan base that is used to the tradition and glitter of the Lakers, Dodgers, USC football and UCLA basketball. Reid got the Philadelphia Eagles to one Super Bowl and five NFC championship games, but failed to win a title.
How about Mike Holmgren, whom Reid worked for before landing with the Eagles? He has the personality and the California roots. He also has the experience of running the personnel side.
[Related: Tracking all of the NFL coach/GM firings]
Jon Gruden? Now you’re talking. Gruden may have plenty of chinks in his armor (never developed a quarterback, depends too much on old players, too emotional), but he has personality. He is a star and that could carry the Chargers initially as they wade through the complicated realities of playing in the Rose Bowl (which already has taken steps to be a temporary home of whichever team moves there) for two or three years and trying to sell the team to a wary fan base.
The same could be said for Chip Kelly of Oregon.
Of course, guys like Holmgren, Gruden and Kelly cost serious money. The Chargers have never paid that much for a coach, so making a splashy move also will require a leap of faith for Spanos.
Then again, if you’re talking about moving your team to the City of Angels, you’re already willing to leap.
[More: Chuck Pagano's perseverance through leukemia inspires Colts]
Spanos can’t do what he did when he tabbed Marty Schottenheimer in 2002 and then Turner in 2007. Schottenheimer and Turner were retreads, guys with NFL head-coaching experience but no overwhelming success.
In Los Angeles, you better have somebody like Joe Torre or Phil Jackson if you expect fans to take you seriously right away.