Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

No one could have predicted…

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

We still have time to mess this up!

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

People are complicated. Love is not.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

You are here: Home / Humorous / He Should Have Asked, “What Exit?”

He Should Have Asked, “What Exit?”

by | 94 Comments

This post is in: 

It’s perfect that this guy’s from New Jersey:

Mr. Santillan, 28, arrived at Keflavik International Airport on Monday morning after a five-hour flight from New York and was eager to get to the Hotel Fron on Laugavegur, a main street in Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, local news media reported. But the spelling error got in his way, according to Visir, an Icelandic news website.

While driving nearly six hours over icy roads, Mr. Santillan, who works in retail marketing, had an inkling that something might be wrong, local news reports said.

His suspicion was confirmed when he arrived in Siglufjordur, a remote fishing village in northern Iceland that is roughly 430 kilometers, or about 270 miles, from the airport and has a road named Laugarvegur.

There, a local woman informed him that he was not in Reykjavik, which is about 45 minutes by bus from the airport at which Mr. Santillan arrived.

Should have asked, “What exit?”

The Times scrupulously notes that, “his account could not be independently verified.” Even if the truth turns out to be somewhat stretched, however, we’ll always have Wrong Way Mike.

Reader Interactions

94Comments

  2. 2.

    Amir Khalid

    Well, Noel Santillan doesn’t seem to have suffered any harm. The locals have taken a shine to him, and made him a celebrity of sorts. If only all tourists’ mistakes turned out so well.

  4. 4.

    Hillary Rettig

    @Amir Khalid: Yeah – New Yorker recently had an article on Iceland’s vaunted volunteer emergency-rescue network (aka “people who love to drive giant trucks around volcanos”). A lot of their work is apparently rescuing feckless and reckless tourists from places they shouldn’t be in in the first place.

  11. 11.

    cmorenc

    I have a friend who’s a Scottish expatriate with a thick accent to match, who moved to North Carolina. His first year in the Tar Heel state, he stopped at a small-town gas station on the way to the beach, filled up his car with gas. This was back before the ability to pay by credit card at the pump was ubiquitous, particularly in the hinterlands, and so he asked a fellow who looked like a local “where do i go to pay?” The fellow replied: “around back, but you’ll need to get a key”.

  13. 13.

    BGinCHI

    @schrodinger’s cat: I saw that episode. Since we have a small child we did not go out drinking. Food was pretty good. It’s a small city, but very charming. Lots of fish and seafood, as you would expect.

    I should add that here in Bergen I have been eating the best smoked salmon I’ve ever had (OK, except for maybe the stuff in British Columbia). It’s plentiful and amazing, all local. You can get about 10 different kinds of smoked fish.

    Having fresh local cod from up north tonight, as the fish dude says it’s in season and I had to try it.

  14. 14.

    Tokyokie

    If you don’t know the language and can’t read the signs, you probably ought to rely on public transportation. A quick check of the hotel’s website indicates that it doesn’t run an airport shuttle, but I’m guessing that in Iceland, most of the cabbies speak English, and even if they don’t, if this knucklehead had printed out the hotel information from his room confirmation, he could have shown that to the cabbie and gotten there without difficulty. But noooooooo, he had to drive himself. Putz.

  15. 15.

    Hillary Rettig

    @BGinCHI: they were advertising cheap flights to Europe constantly in the 80s and so my friends and I all used them. best part of the stayover, besides Iceland itself, is that its the land of geothermal energy a.k.a. Hot Tubs for Everyone!

  18. 18.

    Hillary Rettig

    @Tokyokie: He’s from Jersey. He probably considers a cab an insult to his manhood.

    The other sort of suspicious thing about this is that there are probably fewer roads in all of Iceland total than wherever he’s from in NJ.

    all that said, those of us who are directionally challenged really depend on our GPS’s and when they go wrong they REALLY go wrong

  21. 21.

    Tokyokie

    @BGinCHI: Other than the people, what I liked most about Norway were the dairy products (order milk, and you get a full pitcher with dinner!) and the fact that Norwegians seem to prefer the same temperature of drinks (cold beer, sodas and milk, hot coffee and tea) as most Americans. Still wish I’d eaten the whale cutlet and going inside the Thor Heyerdahl Museum and perhaps meeting Knut Haugland when I was in Oslo, but alas, I didn’t know who Haugland was back then.

  22. 22.

    dmsilev

    Mr. Santillan’s unintended journey has captured the imagination of Iceland, and the people of Siglufjordur have embraced the American, who has since visited the local herring museum and tasted a favorite local delicacy, putrefied shark.

    This is one of those “local delicacies” that exists solely as a joke that locals play on tourists, right?

  25. 25.

    D58826

    OT but in what universe does JEB! gain creditably as a possible president by having his Mommy show up to campaign? Maybe 41 or 43 since they both held the office but his mommy!!!!

  26. 26.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I have probably 3 or 4 dozen stories of GPS fail, one of the funniest was the time the MDC cave biologist asked me to take him to a cave that they owned but just could not find. He pointed on his map where they had it located and it was all wrong so I said sure. When we got to it he was very excited as it was an important cave and they had been looking for it for some time. He set the GPS down on a rock away from any trees for about 10 mins to make sure any errors were aggregated out, locked in the #s and we headed for a 2nd cave we were bio-surveying. He sat down in the entrance and got out rule and compass and topo and proceeded to plot the location on it. When he had the cave marked he very proudly handed the topo to me and said, “There it is!” I looked and his mark was in exactly the same location where they had been searching the past couple years. I pointed this out to him and he got all embarrassed and said, “Oh well… That was just a quick down and dirty calculation.” and tried to fold it up again. I said “Wait a minute, give me your pencil.” and marked it in it’s proper location.

    It was funny because he was a very intelligent PHD who had become way overdependent on technology. It was doubly funny because he was very fond of telling people how smart he was to the extent that he had alienated a very large proportion of the MO caving community. I have told that story more than a few times.

  27. 27.

    schrodinger's cat

    @BGinCHI: My Norwegian friend makes great seafood stews. She mostly uses salmon and/or cod. She has an apartment in Oslo that she said I could use, I must take her up on it sometime soon.

    ETA: Fresh sea food is the best. I has a jealous.

  32. 32.

    BGinCHI

    @Tokyokie: Yep. The cheese is a bit weak, though. I mean, it’s good, but there isn’t a lot of variety (not much that is sharp or stinky).

    The meat has more flavor, generally, and so do the eggs. Smaller country effect I think.

    We had pork tenderloin the other night, which I got from a regular shop, and it was crazy flavorful.

    Haven’t had whale yet but it will happen soon. The reindeer was terrific.

  34. 34.

    Ahasuerus

    @dmsilev:

    This is one of those “local delicacies” that exists solely as a joke that locals play on tourists, right?

    Nope. Lo, I present to you Hakarl

    I saw Andrew Zimmern’s Iceland episode where he tried it. The expression on his face was priceless, but I believe he even went for a second piece. [shudder]

  35. 35.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @D58826: If I were Trump, or I guess I should say if I had money to burn, I’d make a thirty second clip of her repeating her line about not bothering her beautiful mind about body bags

    the “this is all working out rather well for them” would be for a general campaign

  36. 36.

    Shell

    @D58826: Kinda embarressing. And her complaining that Obama is boasting too much ( how dare he!) and that Jeb has a good heart. Im sure he has, and he’s probably nice to children and pets. But why should that persuade people to vote for him?

  38. 38.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    OT but in what universe does JEB! gain creditably as a possible president by having his Mommy show up to campaign?

    @D58826: Man Card forever forfeited. I didn’t think the poor fucker could lose any more of his dignity than he already has and he finds a new way to surprise me every time.

  40. 40.

    elmo

    I can’t point and laugh, not in good conscience. I grew up in eastern San Diego, and once while visiting friends in Santa Monica we went on a whim to Big Bear, which was due east across the 10. Had a great time. So a year later, when I wanted to take a friend to Big Bear, I decided I knew the way – I just had to get to the 10.

    [Non-SoCal readers take note: Big Bear is in the mountains northeast of San Diego. There is a freeway (the 15) that goes pretty much straight there. This is important to understand the depth of my folly.]

    So I didn’t bother looking at a map, oh no. I just got us into the car and headed northWEST. Up the 5, to the 405 (which branches off the 5 and heads even further northwest, toward the ocean). It took about four hours to get to the 10. Then I started heading east. Imagine my irritation when the 10 crossed the 5 some way into my travels – damn! I should have stayed on the 5! – and then more driving. More driving. And then, after another two hours, the 10 crossed the 15 at the base of the mountains. I had turned a 2-hour drive into 6.

    If you can imagine a roughly equilateral triangle standing upside-down on its point, I started at the point. Big Bear is on the upper right-hand corner with a road going straight up the right side of the triangle. I drove up the left side and then across the top. After living in Southern California all my life.

    No, I can’t point and laugh at this guy. At all.

  41. 41.

    different-church-lady

    What kind of idiot drives six hours before he figures out he’s not in the same city he started in?

  46. 46.

    elmo

    @satby: Oh Jesus. So glad nobody was hurt! That’s awful, and it makes me want to take an immediate chainsaw to the dead oak next to my house!

  47. 47.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @A Ghost To Most: Missouri Department of Conservation. Very large land owner in this state due to a .5% (?) sales tax that was enacted for the express purpose of increasing public land holdings. They (and that tax) are one of the few things in this state that we can be mostly proud of.

  49. 49.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @elmo: unless you really know what you are doing, don’t. Hire a bonded tree trimmer to take it down. That ‘bonded’ part is very important.

  50. 50.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    There’s an amazing bucket list dive to do there in a place called Silfra. Picture a crystal clear glacial lake that covers two tectonic plates, and is the only such site in the world that is divable. Water is scary cold and it is undoubtedly far less than pleasant even in a drysuit (which I’m certified for, yet hate, and there’s about a thousand ways to die in one), but my Gods, the view.

    First, the Silfra fissure is actually a crack between the North American and Eurasian continents, meaning that you dive or snorkel right where the continental plates meet and drift apart about 2cm per year.

    Silfra is the only place where one can dive or snorkel directly in the crack between two continental plates.

    Secondly, the underwater visibility in the Silfra fissure is over 100 meters, which creates an underwater experience that will rarely, if ever, be surpassed. The reasons for this astounding water clarity are twofold: the water is cold (2°C – 4°C year round ) as it is glacial water from the nearby Langjökull and this water is filtered through porous underground lava for 30-100 years until it reaches the north end of Thingvellir lake, seeping out from underground wells. The Silfra water is as pristine as water can get and you can drink it at anytime during your dive or snorkel.

  56. 56.

    JustRuss

    Heh. Many eons ago, I lived in Ventura, CA, and had a temporary need of a computer. The only rental places were in Los Angeles, about 75 miles away. The shop I ordered from was run by two recent transplants from Chicago, they’d seen the signs for the Ventura freeway and assumed that Ventura was just over the hill.

    The day of the delivery I get a phone call from the guy who drew the short straw, “Where the hell is Ventura? I’ve been driving forever!” I eventually ended up working for them and 30 years later we still keep in touch.

  60. 60.

    PurpleGirl

    @BGinCHI: Have you had Gjetost? My penpal called it peanutbutter cheese. It’s on the sweet side; good for dessert or snacking. Gjetost is pronounced “heytoast”.

  61. 61.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @elmo: After I hit post I thought to myself, “I should have started with, ‘I probably don’t have to say this, but…” Glad you know better. Over the years I have cut down my share of trees and actually gotten pretty good at dropping them almost exactly where I want. I wouldn’t dream of trying it around a structure or 3 because that is when “almost exactly” is nowhere near good enuf.

  63. 63.

    elmo

    @OzarkHillbilly: I actually do have a chainsaw, which I am given to understand is a little unusual for a stout middle-aged woman. I have delusions of adequacy around the house!
    But it’s a little bitty 14″ bar that I use to clear away downed stuff and cut up the occasional firewood; I’ve never tried to cut down anything bigger around than a beer can.

  64. 64.

    schrodinger's cat

    I was once trying to find a hotel in downtown Quebec City at night in winter, when it was snowing. I kept going round and round the same set of blocks for what seemed like an eternity because many of street signs were in French and there were a many one way streets. I don’t know being in a strange town is disorienting. Also too, I don’t have the best sense of direction and confuse right and left. So I could have been this guy.

  65. 65.

    PurpleGirl

    @elmo: Let me second OH’s advice. My friend in Boca Raton wanted to have this huge tree in the front yard taken down. It also had some huge vines growing around it. The grass mower said he’d take the tree down for $150. The licensed, bonded tree puller quote $350. Well, the licensed, bonded tree puller is there and starting to take the tree down and starts at the top. He’s cutting it sections and then suddenly, there is chaos as a water main bursts and starts flooding the yard and street. The tree was on top of the cul-de-sac’s water main and as the pressure from the tree was released the water main moved and broke. It was a Sunday afternoon. The licensed, bonded tree puller knew the crews at the water district and was able to call them to come and handle the broken pipe.

  66. 66.

    Gelfling545

    Using IcelandicAir for my trip next month along with the usual stop in Rekyavik. They fly directly into Paris now. Last time I flew with them – lo, these many years – you had to go by way of Luxembourg. They still have the best price.

  67. 67.

    elmo

    @PurpleGirl: Oh wow. Talk about unintended consequences!

    The lowest quote I’ve had to take this fellow down is $950. Tall oak in the middle of other trees, looming over my bedroom window. Dead as Julius Caesar. So I keep putting it off, and every time the wind picks up I get nervous.

  68. 68.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @different-church-lady: My mom once crossed the Hudson River without recognizing what she did. She ended up in New Jersey, distinctly not on the itinerary. Could not determine later if she used a bridge or a tunnel.

    I was not there, of course. I have a preternaturally good sense of direction, which I partly developed in order to not inherit her bad sense of it.

  69. 69.

    PurpleGirl

    @elmo: This tree was by itself in the front yard and not near the house. But nobody thought to check where any underground pipes were. And my friend wasn’t going to home for the takedown. He was on a business trip! And usually he went for the cheapest way to do something, so we were surprised he decided to be safe and get the licensed, bonded tree puller.

  72. 72.

    Hillary Rettig

    @D58826: AND say (no joke) that she’s lucky there wasn’t a child-abuse phone line when he was growing up.

    oh, scratch that – for a lot of the GOP child abuse is a plus.

  76. 76.

    D58826

    @CONGRATULATIONS!: If the entire family, including Mrs. Bush, had been out campaigning from the start it would not look so bad. That kind of family campaigning is normal. It’s just so transparently desperate. Like the other day when he had to plead for the audience to clap. And this guy is going to scare Putin. ??

  77. 77.

    MattF

    @ThresherK (GPad): DC area story– about coming home to Maryland at night from Northern Virginia. I knew I had to cross the Potomac an odd number of times– I think I hit five and found myself in Georgetown– from which I found my way home.

  79. 79.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Hillary Rettig: A cave. One of 3 caves that were geologically connected but not passable for humans. They had one located way down in the bottom of the hollow when it was actually high up on the ridge above the other 2. They had only owned the land for 5 years or so and didn’t know what they had. We were doing bio-surveys on them (counting bugs, bats, salamanders, etc.) to give them a better idea. One of the caves turned out to be a maternal gray bat colony, which was a good thing because they are an endangered species and need to be protected. Unfortunately protecting them meant closing the cave which is bad for cavers because it is one of the more beautiful caves in MO.

    There is actually a picture of my ugly mug in the cave in a book that some rather well known cave photographer friends of mine took. Fortunately it’s kind of hard to make out my face.

  80. 80.

    Jacel

    Years ago I was visiting in Ireland. After reaching Galway, I wanted to go to what looked liked a pleasant, isolated hostel about 20 miles away in Lough Derg. I asked at the train station how to get there, and was told to catch the Sligo bus the next morning. Hours later — and puzzled why I was put on such a lengthy route — I was waiting at a transfer point where I learned that the route I was told to take went to another, more famous place called Lough Derg. It was associated with St.Patrick, and people would go there to pray and fast. I consulted my maps to figure what to do, caught a train to Donegal where I spent several pleasant days of the sort I had hoped to find at the correct Lough Derg.

  81. 81.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I was in a cavern in Mexico in October that was definitely about 80 meters vis at 110 feet deep. Another one (part of the same system, but about a half mile away) was running roughly 100 meters on one of my dives in late July. The guide advised that when conditions are perfect, over 300 meters is possible.

  82. 82.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @MattF:

    Putin would be well-advised to stay away from Babs.

    Quite true. And Putin, by temperament and trade, understands that.

  86. 86.

    lawguy

    Coming back from Laredo in 1966 after a night of partying, I made a wrong turn some where and ended up about 80 miles into the west Texas desert instead of on my way to San Antonio before the signs to Judge Roy Bean’s place alerted me to my error. There is no way to correct, you’ve got to go back and start over.

  87. 87.

    Peale

    @Tokyokie: It’s odd. There aren’t that many paved roads in Iceland to begin with, but its not like there’s a sprawling Los Angels style highway interchange globule there. Icelandic may look foreign, but it is written using the latin alphabet. It’s not like Reykjavik spelled in runes on the street signs.

  90. 90.

    vtr

    Speaking of Iceland, my wife and I have a favorite movie we saw a couple of times in the late 90s. It’s a typical Japanese-Icelandic road movie about a Japanese who travelled to Iceland to perform a religious rite honoring his parents who had died there in a hiking accident. It’s called Cold Fever. Has anyone out there seen it? I can find no copies of it for under $200. Thanks Cruz…

  91. 91.

    Shana

    @BGinCHI: Have you flown WOW, the economy line of Icelandic Air? We have tickets from them this summer and are wondering how awful the experience might be.

  92. 92.

    Jeffrey Kramer

    @Tokyokie: there is a shuttle service, the “FlyBus,” which takes you from the airport to pretty much any Reykjavik hotel for about $20-25. And if you do want to drive yourself, well, you take the road with the sign saying “Reykjavik” above it. Doesn’t need English translation, really. He must have been following GPS after punching in laugarvegur instead of laugavegur.

    I’m probably the only one here who has actually been to the Hotel Fron on Laugavegur, and I would recommend it for your future Reykjavik stay.

  93. 93.

    satby

    @elmo: Had to drive Qunoot 3hours away, but this tree fell on a quiet no wind day. Been dead for years but the neighbors said they couldn’t afford to have it removed. Now their house is in foreclosure, so they were probably telling the truth.
    The $950 is really worth it, and I’m pretty fully covered.

  94. 94.

    Mike G

    @vtr:

    I saw Cold Fever in a movie theater in London in 1995. Lilli Taylor was in it. One of those ‘atmospheric’ indie pictures with lots of silent shots of the landscape.

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