Stories from vacation

[Nav]

So, I'm sitting in an airport watching all the people go by. I'm excited to go home again and be able to shower and sleep in my own bed, but it got me thinking... do you have a favourite story from a vacation?

For me, a few years ago I was flying down to South America and had a layover in Panama. It was a red eye, I had been traveling for well over 24 hours... I was exhausted and to that point of being a little loopy. Soooo, I ran off the plane happily singing the song "Panama" by Van Halen when I was kindly stopped by the Panamanian airport officials who apparently have NO SENSE OF HUMOR AT ALL.

Needless to say, they frisked me, searched my belongings, threatened to arrest me before finally letting me go.

 

[Elle Joyner]

A few years before I met Mr. Joyner, I was engaged to another bullet I dodged young man. After he broke up with me, my dad... In an attempt to talk himself out of homicide decided that he was going to take me on a faux honeymoon, anyway.

So we planned out a nine day trip to the West! Arizona, Utah and Nevada. We hit just about every national park possible and it was easily one of the most amazing trips. I've ever taken.

My REAL honeymoon was also amazing... Universal Studios, staying at the gorgeous Portofino resort! It was a mini Italian vacation... But with a super fun themepark, to boot! :)

 

[Yatagarasu]

There has been so many instances where I have ran into foreigners in China who tried to use hand gestures in an attempt to communicate with me.

Granted that reaction is justified, but it is still bloody hilarious :^]

 

[Celest]

When I was 15 I was on a student exchange/student ambassador program to Germany. It was fun in so many ways but cringey and miserable in a lot of others.

Anywho, it was when we were on our way home. It was an 8 hour flight to Newark, New Jersey. Through the whole flight there was a man brutally tapping the back of my seat because of the touch screen. But we get to Newark and missed our flight down to Norfolk.

We were all exhausted. We hated out leaded who took us there. We were annoyed with each other. So, when we all found out we had to stay a night in Newark, all of us cried. I called Mom and told her to come pick me up. She didn't. I survived.

 

[Aero Blue]

Jaywalking ('jayrunning') in China and accidentally barrelling into a turning motorbike. Blowing tourist's minds for some reason when I spoke perfect English at them.

For the most part though, my childhood vacations were a lot of just eating (wonderful) and spending boring time with family. My vacations past that age mostly involve being drunk at resorts/concerts with friends. All very good, although not particularly memorable.

Though I remember once when I was like the only single person in a group of friends that was filled with couples. There was one solitary moment at night when I realised all my friends were probably banging in unison............................................

 

[Elliandra]

The summer of 2013, I ended up traveling to Gaspesie in Quebec with my father and his girlfriend, and we had stayed at Julie's(the girlfriend) parent's house.

Now, we had stayed there for several days, and regularly showered. The first day we stayed there, I turned on the water, and suddenly the smell of rotten eggs had poured into the shower.

I asked around, and Julie said it was normal.

So I took my shower, but I was careful to use extra soap to make sure the smell of subdue didn't sink in.

Another day that week, it was breakfast time, and I was getting a glass of water. I took a sip and immediately poured out the glass. Tasted like sulfur.

So, the conclusion I made that weekend? Quebec water has high traces of sulfur.

(Could be wrong tho)

 

[Vars]

Oh boy I have a lot! Depends on what you consider "vacation" though.

The first (and probably least entertaining read, lol) story that came to mind for this thread though was when I went to Finland. I had a layover in Stockholm. Someone was doing surveys of some kind, handing out papers and asking you to fill them out or something. In Swedish or Finnish depending on who he talked to.

He finally gets to me, and I say "Sorry, English," and his response was

"Only English?" He shook his head and walked onward. That just about killed all my self-confidence for that trip. I learned one Finnish word (usually I learn a few sentences at least). It was "Hei" (pronounced "hey"). Which means "hello." Sad day for Vars....

Relatedly, on a completely different trip to Denmark, I attempted to wash away the sour spot from Finland by definitely at least saying one thing in Danish. I figured ordering a hot dog couldn't be too bad, right?!
Fucking wrong.
The cashier's response was. "I can't understand you, what do you want?" (in perfect english).
After that I just decided I wasn't going to bother with languages in that part of the world anymore.
(This is coming from a guy who learned a pretty decent amount of conversational Japanese in a short period. I had high hopes...)
It's ok, I guess. I was on a downward trend since Japan. I mean I did manage some Gaelic, but it was probably horrible and I didn't like speaking it anyway (Sorry, Irish people).

For a (probably) MUCH more entertaining story... The US Navy. Lol.
I have tons of Navy stories because what Sailor doesn't drink his ass off and do stupid shit?
But anyway, probably the safest story to tell for now is when we went to Hong Kong....
[spoili]We had to get on a 'liberty boat' to go from our ship to the pier. We got there late at night and I was determined to have a good time but I didn't know what to do. So we got in a cab and went someplace random. The cab got sideswiped, his side mirror splattered across the pavement but me and my liberty buddy were okay. It was awkward while the cabbie and the other dude screamed at eachother in Chinese, but eventually we managed to pay and slip away to a convention center that was incidentally holding a national robotics convention. Which was pretty interesting to people watch at!

Then we found a bar and I decided I was going to outdrink all my friends, which is an impossible task because they were all engineers... I could not walk without assistance on the way back... We got on the liberty boat to go back to the ship, and this thing was ROCKING. A lot of people tried to hide their sickness or covertly throw up over the side.

BUT NOT THIS GUY.

NOPE, I saunter right up to the front of the boat, in front of everybody (it's a big boat with those huge lines of pews, then an open area with some trash cans). I pick a trash can and I go to town filling it up with my alcohol-fueled insides. I then go to the toilet, which is a squat toilet. For the first time ever, I somehow manage to use it correctly to take a shit without missing, while drunk, while the boat is very unsteady.

We get back to the ship, I say "Fuck this" on the way to the berthing (because, remember, can barely walk), and stop into my workshop which is on the way to the berthing. Not everyone is on liberty. We still have day and night shift, and night shift is in my workspace. We make some shit conversation, I don't remember what about, then I grab a trashbag and lay in the corner, saying something about how I don't want to go to the berthing. I wake up 0600 covered in the trashbag and a bunch of winter jackets (my workspace is about 50F usually). I remembering hearing the 1MC say something about turnover muster and I said "Holy fuck it's late."

I get up from underneath my winter coat pile and stumble over to my berthing, where I go back to sleep. Until I hear a knock at my rack.
Oh man, it's my buddy Cub, who I had promised the other day I would be his liberty buddy today. I'm still half-asleep and still 100% drunk, and I say as much.
"But you promised" Cub whines (you see, you can't leave the ship without a liberty buddy).

"But I'm not even ready," I mutter.
He waves at the clothes that I went out in last night and how they are still currently on my body, totally ignoring the small puke stain near the collar. "You're already dressed!!"

The man makes a solid argument, I say to myself, and say "Well ok. At least let me brush my teeth first..."

And I do, and we go out, and I shit you not, I was well and fully plastered until at least 1400 that day. It was a blast. We decided to go to Hong Kong Disneyland, which everybody got upset at because they didn't serve beer and it wasn't nearly as cool as US Disneyland. Every single escalator we got on (and fuck there were a lot) induced vertigo in me and I had to hang onto Cub's backpack for support so I wouldn't fall over.

I was far too drunk to be disappointed in my friends' sober and bored debacle. I remember one of them having a little tantrum in the Hello Kitty part of the park. And I was much too proud of my picture with a giant sculpture of Buzz Lightyear, which for some reason I found truly hilarious. It's in a scrapbook somewhere, now.

Somedays, I feel really bad about drinking away a whole port and not really experiencing it, but you know, a lot of neat stuff happened anyway. So while I definitely recommend against drinking your liberty away, and I wouldn't do it again, I don't exactly regret what I did either.[/spoili]

 

[Dipper]

Once, in a hotel in Ireland, the people staying in the room next to ours kept tapping on the wall and making noises, pretending to be ghosts. I was no more than eight, I think. Scared the hell out of me.

Australians, man. What were they doing in Ireland?