Travel Stories (rather lengthy)

[Hannah Roderick]

jenny from ravenclaw wrote:  >Does anyone have any really funny or just good
stories about a time
>when you were traveling?  It could be something bizarre that happened
>when you just went away for a weekend or to visit a friend.  I told my
>creepy Lausanne story and I loved both Ebony's and Amy's stories.

I have many bizarre stories to tell about my travelling experiences, so here
are a few choice morsels for your delectation.  There was the time I went on
a school trip to Holland five years ago, and we decided to visit an
outdoor centre.  It was during the Euro 96 football tournament when there
was a lot of friction around anyway, and a group of local kids must have
realised we were from Scotland because they started hurling abuse at us.
Then rocks and bottles.  Anyway, it was worth it to be able to go home and
tell everyone I got stoned in Holland!

Last year, I went to Paris on yet another school trip. We stayed overnight
in Manchester in a -3 star hotel in the roughest area imaginable, and our
bus was bricked by three drunk girls when we arrived.  Then, the next
day, our driver couldn't find his way out of town.  We drove around all
morning, and missed the train we were supposed to be taking (Channel
Tunnel).  Consequently, we didn't arrive in Paris until about one in the
morning, to find that once again our highly competent *snort* driver didn't
know where the dickens he was headed. When we finally located our hotel, it
was to discover that it was in the city's ... er ... red light district.
Needless to say, much hilarity ensued.  I will draw the curtain of decency
over this anecdote.

A week later, I was headed back to France, this time to Brittany.  A friend
and I went on a minority languages festival, and spent a weekend with a
French family, who were intent on practicing their english, while I was
desperate to see how much french I had learned at school.  Not as much as I
had thought, but enough to make myself understood, up to a point.  Anyway,
the funny thing about this place was that there was *no door* on the toilet.
There *was* a door, right enough, but it was leaning against the far wall,
which wasn't a lot of use when you were sitting on the loo, listening
intently for the sound of someone coming up the stairs ...

But it's not just other countries that have provided odd breaks away for me.
While at school, I travelled around Scotland a lot as I competed at National
Mods, which are in a different place each year.  My first year, we stayed in
a place like a prisoner of war camp, complete with slatted tower at the
entrance, in which one could imagine men crouching with guns, waiting for
someone to try to escape.  The people in the canteen wore latex gloves and
those masks that go over your nose and mouth ... was it us or them that had
the infectious disease ...?  And my bed collapsed in the middle of the
night, so I suddenly found myself on the bottom bunk.  A couple of years
later, I was sharing a room with three friends at a hotel which was on a
hill above the town in which the Mod was being held.  We were looking out of
the window late one night, and thought we saw two people fighting.  One of
them seemed to be really laying into the other.  One of my friends went to
get a leader, and they were all set to call the police when we realised that
they had been going at it for much longer than was humanly possible.  It's a
good thing we didn't call the cops, because in the morning we realised what
it was that we had seen.  A tree, its branches waving in the wind.
Anticlimatic, but there you go.  And last year, well, we stayed in a castle,
complete with suits of armour, chandeliers, and a toilet which locked you in
if you didn't prop the door open, she says speaking from experience.

Ho hum.  That's a pretty long list, and I could go on and double the length
of it, but won't.  I guess I'm just one of these people, who always seems to
have odd things happen to them. For me, it wouldn't *be* a holiday unless
something disastrous happened.  I think these little occurrences make the
trip that more memorable.

Hannah aka IckleRonniekins

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Ron is *not* evil
Hedwig/Dumbledore is a perfectly viable ship
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