I thought this was an interesting article about world travel and pet peeves, which seems to be on point based on my own experiences. Some of these pet peeves are good to know before you travel, i.e. which cultures don't honor queing up for things or the bad habit of Asian hotels giving themselves 4 stars...

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February 19, 2006 latimes.com
By Susan Spano:
Her World
The great mysteries of world travel

Those pesky electrical plugs, for instance, would stump even Sherlock Holmes.


SINCE the invention of the wheel, several great mysteries have puzzled travelers. Where was Atlantis? What do the formations at Stonehenge mean? Why does the Leaning Tower of Pisa lean?

But there are other, evidently unsolvable, travel questions I find even more baffling:

• Along with ending poverty, war and pollution, why don't the nations of the world get together and agree to use just one kind of telephone and electric plug? There are about a dozen kinds of electric plugs, from the two-flat-pronged U.S. version to such seemingly eccentric varieties as one used in the Canary Islands that has three round prongs in a row.

England has its own three-pinned plug, unlike the two-pinned variety used just across the Channel in France.

Once upon a time, such inconsistency merely annoyed users of blow dryers and electric razors. But now, there are about 40 kinds of telephone plugs to contend with too, a headache for laptop users. The plugs come in so many bizarre shapes and sizes that you'd need a tool kit to establish dial-up Internet connections on a multiple-stop trip around the world.

Blame the proliferation of plugs on differing standards. "Up until the 1970s, most electric and telephone companies were state monopolies," said Steve Kropla, whose Internet site, http://www.kropla.com , helps travelers hook up their laptops on the road and identifies which kinds of plugs are used where. "They just developed their own systems."

So much for globalization.

Please click the following link for the entire artcile:

http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-spano19feb19,1,4096498.column?coll=la-travel-headlines

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