Dumbest Thing You’ve Done in Europe

Apart from visiting Brussels (twice).....

-I wasn't paying attention one morning in the bathroom and put cortaid on my toothbrush instead of crest.
-Taking a guided group bus tour to the salt mine outside of Krakow. It was literally only ten minutes away from my hotel, it would have been cheaper, faster, and less hassle to just take a taxi there.
-Attending a performance of "The Woman in Black" in London. I know it's a very popular long-running play, but I didn't get it.
-Visiting Helsinki on the two days of the year when it completely shuts-down and is like a ghost town: the summer solstice. I started cursing out LP guidebook on why it didn't warn me of this. On further reading it of course did give the warning, my brain didn't absorb it.

Michael,

The only thing that comes to mind at the moment is boarding the wrong train from from Venice to Florence on a trip many years ago. In the vague recesses of my memory, I recall that there were two trains on the platform both departing at roughly the same time, so I obviously boarded the wrong one.

I was travelling with a Railpass on that occasion, so the basic fare was covered by that. I had bought a reservation at one of the travel agencies in Venice, so thought that everything was properly taken care of. When the Conductor checked my reservation, the error was discovered and I was fined on the spot. When I protested that it was just a "mistake", he just smiled and shrugged his shoulders apologetically but still charged the fine.

That's only happened once, and is the main reason I'm now such a stickler for detail when using trains or other public transit in Italy.

Cheers!

I did not do any act, in Europe or Britain, that caused dysfunction to my trip. In trying to plan my trip to Greece, in the year 2005, I committed two mistakes. My first mistake : the first travel guide book on Greece that I read part of was FROMMER'S GREECE. That book was not helpful to me for my deciding what places in Greece to go to. Near the front of the Frommer's travel guide books is several pages of "Best of ..." I do not agree with any of that. The Frommer's Greece book's opinion of the best island in Greece is absurd. After wasting my time reading the Frommer's book for a few days, I experienced a horrid feeling of discouragement because I did not know which islands of Greece to go to. At some islands all of the hotels are closed in November, except for one hotel which is very expensive. And, going to islands of Greece in November was a mistake. Islands of Greece are better in October. The travel agents at my city in the U.S.A. were of no help, they had not been at any island of Greece. I asked a question about islands of Greece, at The Traveler's Helpline (in this website). That year, 2005, the Traveler's Helpline was not divided into geographic sections of Europe. I received two or three replies there, the replies were not helpful to me. After several days of reading and thinking, I chose three islands (at the Aegean Sea) after reading about those islands in the Lonely Planet book on Greece. I think those three islands were good choices. I traveled, in airplanes, to each of the three islands. Each of the three islands is in a different island group. My favorite travel guide book on all of Greece is GREECE, published by Cadogan's Guides. That book was written by two Greek women. The Copywrite date is 2003. The book THE ROUGH GUIDE TO GREECE is similar to the book from Cadogan's guides.

Got PLASTERED beyond repair in Munich at Oktoberfest. My girlfriend and I went through FIFTY liters of beer in about 8 hours (no lie), peed behind the porta-potties b/c we were too drunk to wait in line, and then she threw up on some Ferris Wheel-type ride.

Didn't have a hotel booked, since we were planning to take a night train to Florence. Did that. Went right to the Uffizi. Sat like stupid, still-sloshed, bilious LOGS in front of La Primavera. Enjoyed ourselves not at all and completely WASTED the opportunity to see Florence.

Dumb, dumber, DUMBEST. Being in college isn't even enough excuse.

My son and I were on a train from Paris to Melun to go to Vaux-le-Vicomte. This wasn't our first time taking the train to Melun (had done it before, which is why what I did next was even more stupid). We're riding along, so pleased that we had left early so we'd have the most time there possible... I was relaxed and thinking about other things when I realized the train was stopped at a platform.. no one got off.. I glanced out the window and saw the "Melun" sign hanging above the platform.. I was so surprised to see we were already there and afraid the train was going to leave any second that I yelled loudly at my son "We have to get off here!!" as I jumped up and raced out the door.. he followed, completely surprised by what I was doing. Everyone on the train looked up when I yelled, and all looked totally dismayed. When the train doors shut and the train took off and we were standing on the platform, I realized we were.. in the middle of nowhere. The sign I thought said "Melun" actually said "Direction Melun". There we were.. out in the middle of nowhere.. so quiet we could hear crickets.. not another person anywhere, no ticket office, no houses, no phone, no nothing. Not even a timetable posted anywhere saying when another train was coming. Then it started to rain. I felt like such an idiot and tried to explain to my son why I thought it was our stop, that I didn't have time to make sure cuz I thought the train would take off and we'd miss it, how sorry I was, etc. He just stood there looking at me, the way teenagers do when you do something really dumb. There we stood for well over an hour, our early start wasted. Every minute felt so long not knowing if another train would ever come, no way to call a taxi.. in the rain. Finally, another train did come. Never been so happy to see a train in my life. I didn't even care where it was going. Now we laugh about it, but it sure wasn't funny then! Oh the joys of travel!

Michael, I would have done exactly the same thing as you did, if I could have got the door to open. After all, from reading the RS guide, it says the stop is short and you may need to open door yourself.

Dumb - asked a taxi driver in Scotland if he would take English Pound notes. He laughed all the way to hotel.

THe dumbest thing I've done, I won't say as I am afraid they might find me.

Flew to Dublin but had rented my car in Shannon...so instead of getting a different car (I had not prepaid) we decided to take a train to Shannon. Last minute, so no cheap fares. There were 3 of us, so when we added it up we figured we could just as well have a taxi take us. So we took the many hour taxi ride, listened to tales from the taxi driver, stopped at a pub on the way for lunch and it was filled with people celebrating a wake!
The whole taxi ride was close to $400, but the experience was priceless.

Train from Avignon to Lyon, asked three attendants which track. Train was a little late but showed up and we got on. Turns out we got on the train to Gare de Lyon because they switched tracks and the announcement was in French so we missed it and ended up in Paris instead of Florence. Was pretty sure someone was in our seats until the attendant explained our mistake. Kinda like needing to go to Pennsylvania and ending up at Penn Station.

I wish that was the most embarrassing thing I've done but filling the diesel rental car with the green handled pump (green is diesel back home!) was worse. Didn't help that my wife told me to ask someone and I didn't know the color coded dot on the gas tank was for stupid tourists. Made it an hour with the car not running right and then it wouldn't start. Had to get a tow to the rental company office and when they ask if you want to ride along with the car they mean in the car on top of the flatbed! So try and have that experience in the U.S., aint gonna happen. We got to sit in the car up on the flatbed like the King and Queen of Stupidville. I laughed about it until I got the $300 repair bill on my Amex.

Ah, sadly, this is not as hard as I thought it would be. :) It was my between terms trip. I was a student in Germany my friends were on a similar program, but in the UK. We were to meet in Athens at our break between terms. Steve and I sat in my parents living room in Crystal Lake, Illinois and planned the trip. Ah, the mistakes, that today would have been solved in a snap in our cell phone age! First, there was our assumption that since the programs were run by the same school that the last day of class would be the same day in both programs--Wrong! So, the email that said, "I'll I arrive by train the day after the last day of class was open to interpretation. Then there was the problem with my reading of the train schedule. I missed a whole 24 hours. I thought the trip from Stuttgart to Athens took 22 hours; wrong! It was 46 HOURS! So, not matter mixing up last day of classes we did not meet up in Athens.

However, miraculously, we separately decided to travel to Brindisi on the same ferry. Steve's arm on my shoulder in Patras was one of the more amazing experiences in my life.

Mistakes, errors, humiliation, they all lead to new experience. You need to be a glass half full kind of person if you travel.

Pam

My husband drove our rental car into a local's house in Oliva, Spain. (Somehow it was my fault). Luckily he didn't park it right in their living room, but he smashed off a fair amount of cladding. The owners ran out and were screaming at us in Spanish. We don't know a word of Spanish so my husband threw up his hands and yelled back "I don't care! Its a rental!". I just said, "honey, I don't think they care about our car".

We stayed a week in the house and the police never arrived.

Same trip: my brother-in-law rented a standard transmission even though it had been about 25 years since his once ever time driving standard. He promptly went into the wrong lane at the toll booth and couldn't find reverse to get out. After much yelling, they let him through without paying.

A few years ago in Paris I excitedly ordered a nice bottle of wine and what I thought was going to be a plate of cured meats. Nope, I ordered nice wine to go with my hot dog.

Trying absinthe once probably wasn't a stupid thing, but trying it again a few days later, hoping that it wouldn't make me feel like I was run over by a train this time? Now, that was dumb. Green Fairy, yeah right. That stuff's poison, I tells 'ya.

My first trip to Europe was over thirty years ago. A friend and myself attempted to take a taxi to a restaurant to meet some of her friends that were in Rome the same time. Remember this is back in the 80's before cell phones, internet, etc. My friend spoke fluent Spanish and seemed to be able to more/less communicate with Italians. I didn't know one single word of Italian back then. We were staying in a hostel near the Vatican, got in the cab and 45 minutes and expensive cab ride later, we were dropped off at a restaurant. Once we walked into the very high end restaurant,with a similar name as the one were wanted to go to, we discover we are at the wrong restaurant. So we take another expensive cab back to the correct restaurant. Low and behold, it's 3 blocks from the Vatican, and just down the street from the hostel we were staying in.

Great topic! I have 2 unfortunate taxi stories:

In 2001, the last time I was in Rome, one of my traveling companions and I decided to take a taxi to the Spanish Steps from our hotel near the Termini. We walked over to the train station and picked a "taxi" that had no meter or anything else that would mark it as a taxi. We were paying absolutely no attention. The driver was very friendly and told us about his twin daughters and how he wanted to go to California some day. When we arrived and it came time to pay, I gave him a 50-lire note and expected change. He slipped the note into his pocket in what he thought was a sleight-of-hand maneuver, brought out a 5-lire note, and claimed I had given him the five. I didn't know enough Italian for an argument so I started arguing in English, demanding that he give me back my money. He did so immediately. After he drove off, we found that he'd driven us not to the Spanish Steps but to Piazza del Popolo, so we had to flag down a legitimate taxi to go to the Spanish Steps.

In Stockport, England I had another taxi fiasco. We arrived at Manchester airport and were looking for a taxi to take us to our hotel in Stockport, the next town. A driver came up to us asking if we needed a cab and we said yes, pleased that getting one was so easy. The fare was something like 24 pounds. At the hotel's front desk, we asked to reserve a cab back to the airport the following morning and the lady told us that cab fare cost 12 pounds to get to the airport. So the "friendly" driver who approached us took advantage of us; we didn't even think about the fact that we were easy targets.

Some of these are hilarious! I'm glad I'm not the only one who did the getting on the wrong train thing. Once when I was in Brussels my friend and I decided to take the train to Antwerp for the day. We went to the right platform and waited. Some announcement came over the speakers in French. Some people moved around and I thought, "Oh, they announced our train is coming." The right time came and a train came. We got on and sat in a car that was completely empty except us. When we were on the train almost twice as long as it was supposed to take to get to Antwerp, a ticket guy came and casually stamped our tickets. My friend asked, "When will we get to Antwerp?" "Antwerp?" He said, and looked at our tickets. Then he started yelling at us in rapid French. Finally my friend realized he was telling us that we were on the wrong train, and not only that, we were in 1st class with 2nd class tickets. We were sent to 2nd class in disgrace and had to get off at the next station-a platform in the middle of no where-and wait for another train going back to Brussels. When that train came and we told the ticket guy our dilemma, he made very sure that we knew where we were supposed to get off the train at in Brussels. "This is not your stop. You have 5 more stops." Then at the next stop, "This is not your stop. You have 4 more stops...finally..."This is your stop!" I never did see Antwerp.

We were in Summer school at the University of Innsbruck. We often took a rather swinging Catholic nun out with us at night, as she held our money and paid the bills. After drinking too much in a nightclub in Telfs, I was relieving myself in the Damen rest room by mistake. In walks Sister Juliet, and out comes a loud scream. How embarrassing.

Two European trips ago, we were in Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris. My wife asked a security guard where the nearest restroom was, and he told her to go through a glass door. She came back in the same door not realizing she'd gone outside the secure gate area. About 15 minutes later, she was spotted on video, and they emptied the entire terminal, two loaded airplanes at the gate with 700 people and all their luggage. As we waited for the security sweep to be complete, everyone in the lines were talking about some dumb woman that breached security. My wife was also talking about that woman--like it wasn't her. No telling how many people missed their connecting flights in Detroit and had to stay in hotels.

In August, I was taking a train from Balloch, Scotland into Glasgow for the day. I had taken my camera out of my daybag to get at a notebook, and had forgotten to put it back (though I did remember to put the notebook back). By the time I discovered the camera missing and gone back to the train station to report it, it had already been found and was waiting for me at a station outside the other side of Glasgow, and they couldn't just send it back to where I was because they had already done the paperwork and I needed to sign for it. The trip to retrieve it took over an hour. On the same trip I also temporarily lost my handheld GPS (left on the floor of the train station while stashing some money I got from the ATM - a young man came after me to return it), my passport (left on the check-in counter at Prestwick Airport - passengers in line behind me called me back for it), my room key (dropped out of my pocket and never found), and my cellphone (left in the lobby of my hotel - returned by another person attending the same program I was). Truly, I needed a minder on this trip!

Ours always seem to involve trains - mostly on our first trip over in 2008.

Heading to Naples from Rome to see Herculaneum. The guidebooks were very specific about which stop to get off, but hubby thought we had to go one more stop. Nope...and it was a Sun, so fewer trains running...we sat for an hour waiting for the train to take us back to the proper stn (had no idea where we were in Naples, so we weren't going to attempt to walk it)

Heading to Cinque Terre from Pisa...our ticket said via Carrera, so we thought we had to get off at Carrera and catch a diff train. Nope...we showed the lady in the booth our ticket (I'm surprised there was one there - the place we got off was pretty desolate looking)...she couldn't either understand why the tix said via Carrera, or most likely, why we got off. So, another hour wasted waiting for the next train.

Going from Genoa to Bologna with a train change in Milan - train running late - we had no clue which track our connection was on...with maybe 2 min to figure it out, we ran to the track as it was leaving...then the fun really began...went into the office to fix the ticket, the lady writes the wrong train number on the ticket. Hour later, we get on the correct train, show the conductor the ticket, they say - no, you want the other train...so we switch when we should have went with our instincts...and....end up in Verona. Another late train arrival, missing the connection back to Bologna, another hour wait. Arrive in Bologna 10pm, instead of 6pm. All because we had no clue how to read the ticket and know about final destinations and such.

...and from our trip in 2012...I bought the wrong tickets for our train from Nice to Avignon - I got the slow train instead of the fast train. I've told the story before, but throw in someone expecting to pick us up at the stn (and the trains arrive at 2 diff stns), lack of a cell or not being able to figure out the paypahone and a 60 min+ delay in Nice because of a huge rain storm, made for a stressful day, but it all worked out in the end thanks to few wifi at McD's in Marsaille train stn.

Drinking too much on my first trip to Europe, Spain, starting early in the morning and going til the young spanairds went home. Slept in way too late. Missed alot of sight seeing opportunities. Got real sick and instead of taking my antibiotics, kept drinking wine as the antibiotics said no alcohol. I was a wreck coming home, had to miss many days of work as I was so run down.

Second trip to Europe, London, I thought I would behave and not drink in excess. Did well the first 5 nights til I met some cool people from the states and Manchester. We painted the town red, drank a lot in many places. Woke up the next morning with my brand new camera gone. I had encountered many celebrities while in London; Hugh Hefner and his 3 big boobie blond girlfriends, Christain Slater, Pink. I had so many pictures of them and then nothing to prove that I had met these people. I was so bummed for the rest of my trip. I bought disposable cameras, went around on a bus and tried to recapture what I captured. To this day, I never developed those photos.

My next 5 trips, I never let alcohol get the best of me.

So many to choose from - how to pick just one? Many involve trains...

But I'll go with getting locked out of my hotel in Marseilles. It was a small family place and the owner spoke no English and my French was awful. He explained in French and by pointing that when I left, I should leave the key in the basket on the front desk. I'm sure he meant or said "when I left [checked out] in the morning" but I interpreted it as "whenever I left, I should leave the key in the basket on the front desk." So that evening when I left for dinner, I dutifully left my key in the basket. Upon my return a few hours later, quite late in the evening, I discovered that the front door was locked and there was no one to be found to let me in. So here I was, alone and locked out of my hotel late at night on a dark, foreboding street in Marseilles. All I could do was stand there by the door and hope that someone would eventually come along before I got mugged.

After a couple hours, a man finally did come along and thankfully let me in. He gave me the strangest look as I showed him my key still sitting in the basket...

Those two hours were a big part of my learning not to panic or overreact when something goes wrong while traveling. Things will work themselves out with patience and calm.

Michael from Des Moines - Jumping off a stopped train? That's amateur hour ;-) I once jumped on a MOVING train as it was pulling out of the station. I wasn't about to miss my overnight train, so I hopped on the step, opened the door and climbed in. The people standing at the door waving goodbye to friends or family stood back with their eyes and mouths wide open in shock but I just calmly smiled and went to find my couchette.

BTW - I do not condone or encourage anyone to jump onto moving trains, that's the sort of dumb thing college students with more guts than brains do...

Great stories! A couple of dumb driving memories: My German is limited to what I recall from 101/102 a long time ago, so I thought “frei” meant “free” parking instead of “available” parking in Würzburg . Lots of fun trying to get 10 cars behind me to back up at the garage exit in order to back up myself and go pay for the parking that wasn’t free. Those people were pretty pissed…another “stupid American” moment. I almost killed (or seriously maimed anyway) an elderly bicyclist in RodT. I was looking for a specific street, and when I found it after nearly driving by it, I pulled a hard left turn and heard a long, screechy, rubbery-sounding noise coming right toward my driver’s door. I stopped and looked up…old, pissed dude about 1 inch from my door. Oops! That would have been a fun night in the local clink. I didn’t even look…I just made a fast turn like an idiot. Thank god for good brakes on his Fred Rogers bicycle!

Embarrassing moments? Too many to mention! Mistakes are the things that help us learn and grow.
But, just for amusement, here are some that leap to mind:
1. Showed up as a guest armed with a bouquet that is intended as a grave ornament (it was near 1 November);
2. Didn’t know how to eat bouillabaisse and the chef scurried out of the kitchen to instruct me;
3. Tried to use the Italian word for “grapefruit” and instead came up with the Italian word for a very lewd act. Will never make that mistake again.
4. Had a travel patch on my backpack that I’d got in Franco’s Spain and still had it on when I returned a few decades later. Ooops.
5. Referred to the Bundeswehr as the Wehrmacht. Ooops again.
6. Didn’t realise you pay for parking before you attempt to exit the parking lot. In France. With cars behind me. Yikes.
7. Trying to show-off to my visiting sister, hopelessly misunderstood a key bit of information in German. (this one truly embarrasses me.)
8. Returning to the U.S. after a very long stretch in Europe, trying to kiss everyone upon meeting them (got myself good and embarrassed last summer.)
9. Automatically assuming a North American is from the U.S., frequently they are Canadian. Now I always start with a “where are you from?”

Arrived at Dublin Airport with my BF and his mom. We found a taxi and loaded our bags in the boot. BF and his mom said they'd sit in back, so I went to sit in front and - forgetting that Irish cars are different - plopped myself right down in the driver's seat. Fortunately, the cabbie just laughed and made a joke out of it. Still, I was awfully embarrassed!

On the same trip, I bought train tickets to get to Versailles and managed to conduct the entire transaction in French (and in the process impressed BF and his mom). As we finished, I asked the ticket seller which platform the train would be arriving at. He answered, and I completely blanked. I stood there like a deer in the headlights for a moment before finally speaking aloud to myself, "Dix, onze, douze, treize ...." The ticket seller grinned and finally said in Engish, "Nineteen." Tripped up by something so simple! BF has never let me live that down!

I love this topic :)

1st: Driving from Paris to Bruges, my friend and I were quiet tired once we arrived in Bruges.. so tired that after we passed the traffic circle leading to the train station, our GPS told us to take the exit on the right...somehow we entered a parking garage. Knowing European parking garages well, we knew that all we had to do was take our ticket to a machine & pay.. unfortunately, many of the machines only took Belgian or Euro cc's and we had no cash on us. After an hour scouring the parking garage, we finally found one that would take our MasterCard. Even bigger mistake, finding ourselves back in the same parking garage on the second trip to Bruges :/

2nd: Taking the boat from Sorrento to Capri. I get horrible motion sickness. Cruises aren't my fortay (transatlantic nearly killed me last year). When discussing whether or not to go to Capri, I made the comment, "this will be no different than the lake". Mistake #1. As we boarded the boat, I wanted to sit on the upper deck to get the best view leaving and entering both cities, mistake #2. It was a ride from hell. The poor kid sitting across from me had a look of fear on his face as he watched me feverishly fan myself and eye the trash can. Luckily I made it without getting sick. The worst part of that experience, realizing we had no Euro's to take the bus from the port up to the main square of Capri, thus leaving us with no other option but to walk all the way up...in boots :(

OK, it's not Europe, but I can do dumb things anywhere. In Xian, China, while putting my bag out in the hall for pickup by my tour company, I accidentally locked myself out of my room wearing only a large t-shirt. I wasn't about to take the glass elevator down to the lobby for help, so I had to knock on the door of another tour member to call the desk, then wait in the hall for the housekeeping guy to let me into my room.

By the way, this is a great thread. It should make any newbie feel much better to see that we all make stupid mistakes and live to tell the tale.

Which reminds me of my daughter's error when trying to order three crepes for the three of us. She was in her first year of French, and asked for treize crepes. The waiter nicely corrected her and we all had a good laugh.

Ummm let's see...

The first time I went to Germany was in High School. We went to the Eagle's Nest and were climbing around on the mountains. One of my friends said wouldn't it be cool if someone ripped their jeans up here? (Ripped jeans were totally cool at the time) I said that would be stupid. Guess who ripped her jeans? Yeah this girl...I had to wear umbro shorts underneath the rest of the trip when I wore the jeans because of where the rip was.

Next I did a summer program in Germany while in college. One day after class we ran home from Heidelberg to Neckargemund to grab our passports then went back to Heidelberg to catch a train to St Avold France. We wanted to visit the American Military Cemetary there. (My great uncle is burried there as well) So we get there and the brochure said there would be taxis. There were none to be found. So we walked the long walk to the cemetary. In the midst of our trek we wondered into a church. One of the others on the trip was like "Oh my goodness, I know that guy (The choir director)" It was true, that gentleman had come to our campus back in the states and directed a choral concert that my friend had sung in. When we got to the cemetary, it was closed. It had closed when we stepped off the train...I was oh so tempted to jump the gate, but I didn't. So we hiked back to the train station and caught the last train back to Germany. It never occured to us to get a hotel. So we make it back to Mannheim, and all the trains stopped for the night. We comtemplated sleeping in the train station, but there were some shady characters. So we took a taxi back to Heidelberg. By that time the busses stopped running, so we ended up walking the rest of the way back to Neckargemund. We got back at 4 am. We did try to hitchhike, but no one would pick us up.

Then there was the side trip to Sweden to meet a boy, but that is a totally different story.

Yeah, not the smartest series of choices but at least all was well.

In May we ran into the parking garage issue stated above. We had paid, but we did some shuffling around of stuff and were there too long. We ended up having to put more money on the card, but we didn't realize that until we were trying to leave and the gate wouldn't open. There were some Germans that were not too happy with us.

Oh and later on in the trip the GPS got us off onto a side road, which I will call a cow path, and we almost hit a cow...

Michael,

The first time I went back to Europe was when I was ten. My family and I were traveling by train to Scotland. There was a sign in the back of the rail car that said "A Serious View Will Be Taken of Anyone on the Rear Platform Whilst Underway." I thought I could get some great photos from a "serious view", and went out the door to take pictures with my little camera. We were going about 50 or 60 mph, and I was out there, watching the cross ties fly by on this little tiny metal platform at the very back of the train, with only a chain rail to keep from falling off. I felt a strong grip on my shoulder, was grabbed by the Conductor, and pulled inside. My parents were given a ten minute lecture and a written warning. I did get some pretty good photos.
The other was when we hung clothes to dry on the emergency pull cord at a hotel in Firenze, and were both in the shower when the clerk came up to tell us what was going on.... So embarrassing!

As a European I kind of feel like I shouldn't be posting on this thread, but I have done some very foolish things in my time and I'll restrict myself to events that happened outside the UK, so...

{} Getting into a drinking competition with members of the Swiss army reserve, who were in the same mountain village as my geography field trip. Big lads, very good at a game which involved a yodelling song and two saucepan lids.

{} Walking up a valley and coming across one of the aforementioned soldiers sunbathing, shirt open, rifle on the ground:

Us - Er, what are those loud bangs coming from up the valley?
Him - Oh, it's just my platoon firing mortars up onto the glacier
Us - Hmm, we were going up to measure something on the ice, is it safe?
Him - Yes, this is Switzerland, of course it's safe!

We got about another 2 kilometres before his sergeant caught up with us. Fortunately there were no fatalities (and in any case I assume the mortar shells were blanks).

{} Hitchhiking to Paris, accepting a lift at the peage just outside Le Havre with a very stoned guy in a Renault 12:

Him - Where are you going?
Us - Paris, but even if you could drop us at the next peage that would be great
Him - No, it's OK, I can take you to Paris...

What a ride that was. We eventually jumped out somewhere in an industrial area outside the periphique when he started doing handbrake turns.

{} Another time hitchhiking in France, with 60 hour return ferry tickets (come back on any ferry you like, just within 60 hours of arriving), with almost no money and no means of getting any. What could possibly go wrong?

{} Sleeping rough in the woods outside Versailles in November (see above).

{} Paris, Armistice Day weekend, no accommodation booked. Paris is full. We tried every hostel and cheap hotel. Eventually, around 01.00 in the morning we found a real fleapit kind of place:

Us - Er, Paris is full, have you got a cupboard or somewhere we could crash out, it's perishing cold out here
Concierge - Sure, but don't tell my boss in the morning, he'll kill me

So, we go in.

Concierge - By the way, I've got 2 rooms you can use, but the boys will have to go in one and the girls in the other...
Us - No my good man, we rather think not...
Concierge - Well, OK, but no noise, d'accord?

We caught him, dressed only in his Y-fronts, looking through the keyhole a few hours later. There was a frank exchange of views and we found ourselves back on the street, but it wasn't long before the cafes started opening and I don't think a cup of cafe au lait was ever more welcome.

The more I think about it, the more I realise how stupid I was in my teens, when all of these things happened. Fantastic times, character building, but I wouldn't want my teenage daughter doing most of them now.

Lol Kevin... reminds me of my younger days.. I've got some wild stories I'll never tell.. :)

The dumbest thing I continue to do is to argue with some hospitality industry dude or lady in France - waiter, counter person at the car rental place or the hotel, etc.. Each time that I do so, I feel frustrated and DUMB for catching myself thinking that this time, common sense or logic would prevail, or that I may actually get a direct answer.

What's worse is that it's really the only place where I'm ever driven to argue in the first place and where it's totally pointless to do so. And I know that. Yet I still manage to bang my head on that wall at least once each trip there.

French is my mother tongue, but I never learned the proper French skills of obliqueness and obfuscation. France is the only country where I have an ongoing love-hate relationship with the locals engaged in the hospitality industry.

One dumb thing that I have done is to head into a city center by bus during a lay-over.

I had a 7-hour lay-over in Barcelona once and decided to hop the airport bus to Plaza de Catalunya. My plan went along fine and I was on the return bus on time, but the bus got stuck - not moving at all - in an accident-caused gridlock. I got to the airport 25 minutes before my next flight, but still missed the minimum check-in time.

My choices were to buy a very expensive flight the next day or try for an overnight train. I lucked into a berth that night and got to Sevilla the next morning. I was very, very lucky that a) I only had a carry-on, and b) that this flight was not a segment on my return ticket - or my "no-show" would have automatically wiped out the rest of my ticket!

I can't believe that I'm planning on doing something similar again next May in Athens... at least it's a tram service, not a bus, and I'll aim to be back at the airport at least 2 1/2 hours before the next flight.

Oh oh...I have to mention the dumbest thing my husband did, but only because it affected me painfully...we are in Murren, Switz and want to do 'the bike ride Rick Steves did (which you know if you've seen the Gimmelwald episode)'. We even found the same guy from the video (a Canadian!). It was late in Sept, so tourist season was pretty quiet. Instead of doing the easy RS route on the mostly paved walk, hubby decides to take a diff route suggested by the bike guy...which involved lots of downhill on a twisty gravel road. I haven't been on a bike in years, and about 15-20 min in, I locked the front brakes and over the handlebars I flew, getting wrapped up in the bike pretty good. Only upside - I didn't tear any clothes (did tear my skin a little) and I came about an inch from my chin impacting the road. I also had one huge mother of a bruise on my thigh, and lots of aches and pains (luckily we couchsurfed with some lovely folks in Bern that night who drew me a lovely hot bath with some eucalyptus oil - so relaxing). The rest of the way down the road, I mostly walked as I was too frightened of falling off again, so lots of wasted time. I was so angry at my husband for taking the other route...and he felt so horrible that I crashed...

A couple of dumb things -

Dumbest was taking a train to the next town to go to a recommended restaurant (traveling alone). I was running late but did check the train schedule before leaving the station for times to catch a train back (something like 20:50 and 21:50). I planned on taking the earlier of the two but met a group from Seattle in the restaurant and talked to them - thinking I could always catch the later train. I went to the station in time to catch the last train. After waiting long enough to realize there was a problem, I went and checked the schedule again. The late train was only on Friday and Saturday. No train, nothing open - the town was shut down, no phone, no taxi... I ended up walking the 14km back to my lodging.

Another was showing up in Munich on opening day of Oktoberfest with no lodging arranged. It's the closest I've been to ending up homeless. Eventually, I found a nice pension for the normal price, but it was still a stupid thing to do.

Maybe it's just a lousy memory, maybe I'm just lucky, but I don't remember the really embarrassing things that I'm sure must have happened in the past.

Last month, I spent my last evening in Turkey, preparing for my last full day, carefully selecting, sorting and packing exactly what I would need where and when I would need it . . . early flight from Izmir to Istanbul, spend the day in the city, what I'd need at each stage and where it would be (checked bag, carry-on, daypack, money belt) and all went smoothly, until I got off the plane in Tel Aviv and had no clue where my house keys were. After going through all my hand luggage twice, they had to be in my checked bag - safely secured with a plastic cable tie. Turns out, the only people in the baggage area that have anything sharp (duh) are the customs officers and Israel has a very low limit on free imports, so that didn't seem to be a viable option. The Tel Aviv airport is bustling at 1 a.m. so the florist shop in the arrivals hall was open, 2 snips and so was my suitcase. Of course, I had to sort through sundries and intimates in the middle of the waiting area, but I found the keys safely stowed in a little zipped pocket, out of sight, out of mind. Um, did I mention my bad memory?

I've never done anything dumb in Europe, but a family member of mine has done the following. I promise that these are all true.

-He said "No speaka the Englisch" to other English-speaking tourists to avoid giving them directions, even though he was clearly an American tourist and they probably overheard him speaking English just a moment earlier.

-He took a photo of nude sunbathers at a park in Salzburg while on the Sound of Music Tour.

-He slept through the stop where he should have changed trains, and then woke up on the wrong side of the country. He was put off that train in the middle of nowhere. A second train stopped to pick him up, but he then refused to pay for a ticket on that train and insisted on being given a sleeping compartment. The train officials got tired of arguing with him, partly because he is so stubborn and partly because he hadn't showered in several days. They finally put him in a half-full sleeper car with some bankers on a business trip to Frankfurt. I can only imagine what they thought of him.

-He drove through a pedestrian plaza in Austria while looking for a parking garage. The parking garage was only a block away from the hotel, but he ended up driving around for several hours and at one point had completely driven out of the city.

-He wondered out loud about the giant town of ausfahrt and was amazed that every road coming off the autobahn would lead to it. Apparently all roads lead not to Rome, but to Ausfahrt. Ausfahrt is German word for "exit" as in the exit off of a highway.

-When the fast food employee in Germany didn't understand his special order request in English, he attempted to help her understand by speaking the word "Mayonnaise" at her louder and louder.

-He wandered off while the rest of his group was shopping at the Plaka in Athens. When we found him, he was being chased by an old woman who insisted that he must buy her tablecloth.

-He didn't understand that he would need his passport, visa, and other travel documents to get off the cruise ship in St. Petersburg, Russia, despite that information being posted all over the ship and announced continuously over the PA system. After waiting in the long disembarkation line, he was turned away at the border. He had to make his way through the mass of people getting off the ship so that he could go back to his room and get his documents.

-At one of the Czar's palaces in St. Petersburg he sat in a priceless antique chair in the royal theater and was scolded by the nyet-nyet ladies. If you are unfamiliar with nyet-nyet ladies, they are surly babushkas that sit in the corner and guard museum exhibits in Russia.

Speaking of leaving things behind:

I left my ATM card in a bank machine that was outside on a pedestrian street near the cathedral in Monreale, Sicily (close to Palermo). As I was eating lunch in a nearby restaurant, a man found me and handed it back. He had noticed which street I had turned down and he systematically hunted me down... he saved the rest of my trip!

I left my cellphone charger in my room in Paris, and when contacted, the manager mailed it back to me.

On the subject of cars:

I returned a new rental car with the passenger mirror duck-taped back on... glad to have had zero deductible!

On my mom and grandma's first trip to visit, we took the train to Berlin. (I'd already been to Berlin once at this point, also by train.) On the way back, I'd really settled in, headphones on listening to a podcast, while playing a game on my phone. I didn't notice that everyone but us had gotten off the train, nor did I hear the announcement, but I did notice when we started going backwards out of Frankfurt, and I knew it was a through-style station, so I was alarmed.

I found the ONE DB employee who doesn't speak any English, but managed to realize that for some reason the train was not continuing to Stuttgart and instead was going to Nurnberg. It was an ICE, and the next stop wouldn't be for several hours. But the DB employee did write down on a peice of paper what the stop we could transfer at to get to Stuttgart was - it looked like "Augsburg" and that was a city I'd heard of not TOO far from Stuttgart, so it made sense.

Several hours later, the train slows and stops at Ansbach. My mom asks me if this is our stop, but I say no, it's Augsburg. Just then the DB employee comes running up at us shouting in German for us to get off the train RIGHT NOW! Again, we'd really settled in, with books out and shoes off and nothing packed up, and man if you ever wanted to see 3 generations of women just hustle off a train, that was it. I exited in my socks, carrying my shoes.

We then had to wait an hour for the most busted-ass regional train I've EVER seen in Germany. Which had no working bathroom we could access (one car was out of order and chained up). It was awful. We finally arrived in Stuttgart 8 hours later than our scheduled time.

Luckily my mom and grandma had a sense of humor about it, because, MAN. That was awful.

The second stupidest thing I ever did was not booking a room with A/C at a Paris hotel in July.

Third dumbest thing: Trying to cross the border between Romania and Serbia without a driver arranged in advance.

Fourth dumbest thing: Taking a night train in Romania.

Fifth dumbest thing: Couchsurfing in Bucharest instead of just getting an affordable hotel downtown. The couple was really nice, and we had a "real" experience, but we spent so much time in awful public transit that it totally wasn't worth it.

Sarah, that's the worst train screw-up story I've ever heard. I'm sure there's worse, but d---.

Given how bad many of the stories here are, I'm not sure if I should feel proud or embarrassed that my train story is the worst. Like I said, I'm just so glad my family found the situation hilarious instead of upsetting, most women approaching 60 and 80 would've been a lot more put out.

OK, this is a combo post: dumbest and first time. My employers, (God bless their precious hearts), decided to send me to a project meeting in France that arose unexpectedly when the main guy was on vacation. In those benighted times, the company paid for Business Class on overseas flights, and in common with other posters, Demon Rum played a role. My chatty seatmate on the Pan Am flight from JFK to Orly, (now, I am dating myself), also enjoyed the great free drink menu, and through the course of the night, we tried everything the friendly stewardess (not a politically incorrect term those days) offered. Result was I landed in Paris in a state. The customs agent tore my suitcase apart (suspected of smuggling alcohol into France, no doubt), then disappointedly shrugged his shoulders, and sent me on my way to repack my suitcase. I then had to pick up a rental car (wouldn't happen these days, thank God), and find my way to Gien, about 70 miles south on the Loire. At least 2 round trips on the Periphique and I still had no idea where I was. Somehow, I ended up on Avenue du President Kennedy and drove past the Eiffel Tower and "Ah Ha!" I know where I am on the map now.

I managed to make my way to Gien, very sober now, and very tired. My employer had neglected to tell me where I was staying except in the most general terms, (Get the next flight to Paris! Instructions to follow.) I finally decided I was just going to walk into the first decent looking hotel that had a room and crash and worry about it after a nights sleep. I asked for a room, and when they looked at my passport they exclaimed, "Ah Monsieur _________, we have been expecting you." Blind luck. Parking the car, I heard my name called from an open window above. "Is that you Sam? Glad you're here! We have a pre-meeting with the client in one hour." It was my British colleague, and he informed me that after that meeting, the client would be taking us to a long dinner at a French country restaurant. Thank God for jet lag second wind.

The rest of the business was concluded without incident, and I then had 2 days left to see Paris. One of the client's engineers was a British expat, married to a girl from Alsace ("Just don't ask my father-in-law what he did during the war, he got drafted by the Wehrmacht!). He got me a hotel reservation in Paris, and sent me off to prey upon the Parisians.

The most significant incident was being stopped for running a red light. I was trying to keep up with the local traffic, where the rules seemed to be there are no rules. But suddenly, I was in the middle of an intersection all by myself and heard a shrill whistle behind me. A quick glance in the rearview mirror revealed a genuine Paris policeman, kepi and cape, gesturing to stop immediately. I did as instructed, and a squad car pulled behind me a minute later. I rolled down the window and handed the officer a New Jersey drivers license and Hertz rental papers. "Etes-vous americain?" "Oui" (my language skills were really picking up now). "Parlez-vous Francais?" "Non" He threw my papers back in my lap and walked back to his car, gesturing and mumbling something in French that I took to mean, "Park the damned car and stop menacing the citizens Paris!" I had to empathize with him. He had a killer ass-chewing already rehearsed, and he suddenly realized it would be totally wasted on my uncomprehending ears.

I took his advice, and in the end, I got to see Paris without killing or maiming anyone.

My dumbest train mistake was that it was two mistakes in one day. It was in 2001, well, live and learn. I was at Mönchengladbach Hbf and wanted to take a train to Aachen, where I would transfer to a train going through Belgium to Paris Nord. I had a Select Pass covering Bel, Ger. and France.

I couldn't tell where this particular train was headed, checked for any destination signs, could not find any. I had been told this train was it at this particular departure time...confusing. No announcements, no DB personnel around. That station struck me as strange at Mönchengladbach, strange for Hbf., instead of the DB signs in the present blue, they were still in the black and white as they had been in the '70s and '80s.

Anyway, against my better judgement I got on, (ignored that inner voice), threw the luggage on the rack, sat amongst the locals, who were chatting constantly and loudly. Good that they were. True, I was eavedropping on their conversation instead of trying to ignore it, since they were making destination references from time to time. What I gathered from listening to these chatty women was that the train was not going to Aachen. Finally, I decided to ask them if it was going to Aachen, they told me no. No big deal, I'll get off at the next town...Viersen, which I had heard of before but was never there.

Now, at Viersen a second dummer mistake with a financial cost: Out of a lark I decided to ask the woman at the DB ticket counter about the next train to Aachen, yes, from Viersen to Aachen was all right with my Pass. Then she tells me that I would have to transfer there to a Thalys train and would need another ticket to go through Belgium; even though my Pass included Belgium that made no difference.

I learned long ago that you don't argue with Beamtentum (officialdom) and expect to win. Also, I didn't know about this limited seating for Passholder, didn't read the literature with the Pass. Like one with no imagination, I gave in and bought the ticket/reservation putting it on a US credit card, waited for the train there for Aachen, then caught the Thalys to Paris.

Taking a wrong train I could excuse myself. That happens, but getting caught unawares with this limited seating for passholders, I thought was even stupider...real bright. If I had had a little more imagination at that point, I should never have bought that ticket covering Belgium since I had a Pass covering Germany and France. I could have taken next train going to Cologne from Viersen, (that meant backtracking), then from Cologne to Frankfurt Hbf, then transfer to an EC train to Paris, thereby avoiding Belgium totally. By ca. 22:00 I would have been at Paris Est, within a few minutes walked over to the hotel across the street from Nord.

Thanks to this lack of imagination, I had to pay extra for what was basically a transit ticket on a Thalys train through Belgium, otherwise all three legs, Viersen to Cologne, Cologne-Frankfurt, and Frankfurt to Paris Est would have been covered by the Pass with a reservation only needed for the last leg.

Here's my train story. The night before my wife, our adult daughter, and I were going to take a high-speed train from Florence to Rome, I looked for our e-ticket printout from Trenitalia. Although I had seen it a few days earlier, it now was nowhere to be found. (It probably had gotten mixed in with some other printouts that I had discarded because I no longer needed them.)

Assuming that the tickets were in the Trenitalia system and could easily be retrieved, I walked from our hostel to the train station and talked to an agent at a ticket window. She told me to come back in the morning and talk to a person in a booth near the tracks that is specifically for people with high-speed train questions. I got to the station 30 minutes before our train was to depart and talked to the man in the booth. He looked everything up on his computer, wrote down the PNR code for me, and told me to show it to the conductor on the train.

Mission accomplished, I waited for my wife and daughter to arrive. Time passed and it got late enough that I started to wonder if something had happened to them. It turned out that they had arrived in plenty of time, but we missed each other. Why? Because although I was waiting directly opposite the platform from which our train was leaving, I was standing behind a short row of booths that blocked the view of some of the platforms. When my wife and daughter entered the station, they walked in the narrow area between the booths and the platforms rather than in the larger area where I was. Not knowing which car was ours, they walked all the way to the far end of the train looking for me and then walked all the way back. By this time I had gotten smart enough to move around in front of the booths and stand on the platform by the first car (which happened to be ours). We got on the train and had barely found our seats when the train pulled out of the station.

Dumb train mistake: I booked travel from Tropea to Matera by train and bus. Five connections in one day, a Sunday. The first train was ten minutes late, you can imagine the rest. I got to Matera the next day from Metaponto. I walked into a bar in Metaponto and asked the barista if she knew anyone who would drive me to Matera, and she did, and I became the patrons' project, with tons of advice on what the price of the ride should be. Turned out great.

The Dumbest Thing I have done in Europe was to go on a trip with someone that had a major drinking problem that I didn't know about until we started traveling.

Talk about a trip from hell! Nasty, snide, aggressively rude comments for no reason at all, from mid-morning (when the drinking began) until evening. Thank goodness we weren't sharing a room and that I only had to spend a week putting up with the rudest person I have ever met. It wasn't only me either, I watched in flabbergasted amazement at how strangers were spoken to, how no thought nor an "excuse me", was given to anyone they bumped into (adult or child made no difference), and no thank yous or pleases ever emerged from their lips. I had looked forward to this trip, even though I couldn't really afford it, but it was ruined by this behavior. All I could do was try to stay calm, and keep my distance as much as possible. Needless to say, we haven't spoken since the trip, and I am fine with it. Taught me a good lessen, be leery of traveling with people you don't know very well.

On my first trip to Europe, when I was 20 and in a big group, I left my passport somewhere in Heathrow. Luckily someone found it and turned it in. I don't really count this though because I had been on my first trip away from home without my family, and my first trip abroad ever, and it was a mere two weeks after my grandmother (who helped raised me) passed away, so I was in a daze the whole time.

So fast forward ten years. I did a few dumb things on a trip to Italy. The first was booking into an opera in Florence, the night after we arrived. The timing was mistake number one, because of jet lag, which is worse for me when I am in a dark setting. I conked out. That turned out to be lucky, though, because it was something I hadn't gotten reviews of, and it was AWFUL. (None of the cities we would be in that trip had real opera on the nights we were there.) It turned out to be opera for American tourists who know nothing about opera: La Traviata put on as if a High School were doing it, but in a purpose-built theater in the Florence Best Western. Since we regularly attend the Metropolitan Opera, and my husband's mom is an opera historian, this was, shall we say, not the best way to spend our time. Those less familiar with opera may have enjoyed it, but it was a bad choice for us. I made the mistake of assuming all Italian productions of opera must be good. Anyway, I slept, but it was an expensive nap. My husband stayed awake and told me the best part was the lead trying to shake off a flower that had clung to her skirt for over ten minutes as she sang, until she finally picked it up. Enthralling!

On the same trip, we got on trains without validating our tickets... twice. The second time was the stupid mistake, since we'd got off without a fine the first time but had no such luck the second.

This was also the trip when I sprained my ankle walking down some ancient steps in the Forum. Even so, overall it was fabulous, even if I had to limp around Rome and Venice.

ETA: Oh, I should mention something that happened recently, even though it wasn't Europe. My husband and I left our apartment for JFK, getting there in plenty of time for a once a day flight to Johannesburg.... and as soon as we got there, he realized he forgot his passport. It was in his work bag, which he usually travels with when he travels for work, so he forgot to move it because he usually doesn't worry about it. Since it was morning, and traffic was bad, we couldn't make it home and back in time to make checkin time, and we had to pay A LOT to fly the next day instead. We missed our one scheduled night in Johannesburg but got there in time to fly to Botswana to start a safari, thankfully.

Back when I was a young single soldier in Germany I was taking a train back to Wurzburg from Zurich. The train was nearly empty when a beautiful girl got on and sat next to me. She could see I had an English guidebook so she asked me where I was from. Turns out she was an American college student studying somewhere in Bavaria. We got to chatting and seemed to be getting along very well so out of the blue she says "I don't suppose you'd want to come with me to Nurnberg would you?" It was a Saturday night, I was young and single so I said "Why not?". We spent the entire night bar hopping around the Nurnberg Altstadt having plenty of drinks and really enjoying ourselves. I was really digging this girl and she seemed to really be into me as well so when we got to the train station the next morning I was thrilled when she gave me her number and told me to call her that night so we could get together the next weekend. I slept on the train all the way back to Wurzburg, then back to the barracks. When I awoke later that day and went to call her, you can imagine my horror when I realized that I had thrown my train ticket - on which she had written her name and number - in the trash on the way out of the train station in Wurzberg. This was in the days before the internet took off so there was no way to find her. I kicked myself for a long time for being such an idiot.

Rik, I see that as the beginning of a wacky romantic comedy starring Ashton Kutcher. Who would play the female lead?

Leaving my day pack on top of a cab in London. Luckily traffic was a mess and I was able to catch up to the cab and retrieve the day pack. Also in my youth I tried to have a pint at every stop on the Circle line.

Most embarrassing was when I poured my red wine into my white wine at the table in a restaurant in Paris when I was 13. I wanted a rose.. I was not embarrassed,, my family was ,, and my grandmother was horrified that her little Canadian grand daughter did not know how to drink( really)

Dumb ( but still so fun) was drinking too much when my friend and I travelled around for a few months when we were 23.. missed seeing alot of sights.. but did get a great tour of nightclubs.

But the DUMBEST,, .. while outside a nightclub in Greece being ill.. a man came by and asked if I wanted to come to his apartment that was only steps away to clean up.. I said sure.. the guy was legit.. he let me use his washroom and I let.. he was not into girls if you know what I mean.. he was really just being nice.. but what a MORON I was to go with a stranger.. ( thanks to the over drinking ) Angels were protecting this idiot that night.

The dumbest thing I've done was to trust a hesitant hotel receptionist in Zurich, 1.30am, on his recommendation that I parked my car on a place that was marked as parking prohibited. It was a driveway within the hotel property (shared with 2 other hotels), and I was so tired I took his advice (the garage was full and all other marked parking spots were full, the nearest parking lot available was 500 meters away and it was raining light). I wasn't insisting, but he suggest I just "left it there" as there would be no problem, he'd leave a note to the receptionist in the morning about it. There were already 2 other cars parked there, so I ended up biting it.

Next morning the car was towed, and a CHF 500 bill was in my hand to be paid. I wrote to the hotel management later, never got an answer.

Easy choice for me. I drove our rental car into the middle of London. Amazing how many different tones car horns can make.

Oooh, Pat, you've reminded me of another dumb thing. I wasn't alone when this happened, but was with another girl who was my hostess (I was staying in her room in Strasbourg). She was one of the biggest flirts I ever met, and in Strasbourg, she was flirting with every Algerian male student in town. One night found us in Citroen headed for two Algerian's dorm room. I was in the front seat and my friend was in the back with the guitar playing Algerian. It worked out alright. They took my non, to the voulez vous question and we made it back to her room. But I think that I had the same angles looking out for me that night.

Really happy to have survived being 19.

Pam

My wife and I were staying in Venice in budget accommodations by the train station.

It was about 11:00 p.m., and there was a large family of Italians below our 3rd floor window arguing and arguing. My wife yelled out the window asking them to please be quiet. They just kept on being Italians, and wouldn't be quiet.

My wife went to the bathroom, filled the trash can with water and emptied it out the window.

Needless to say, the family got the message and moved on.

Paying $25 for a horrid cheese and tomato sandwich at a restaurant near the Vatican. I was the dumb tourist at that moment! Should have walked the extra block or two.

David, Brilliant!

And Maryam reminded me... paid about $25 for two very flat sodas in a glass at a cafe at Place du Tertre in Paris. It was 100 degrees out and we needed to sit and drink something refreshing. My son said he didn't think it was a good idea, that it would be ridiculously expensive, I said.. oh, how bad could it be and I don't care, I'm dying of heat and thirst. Well, my son was right.. as usual. We took a photo of the bill it was so outrageous. And as far as refreshing... not! No ice, warm, and flat as could be. That's why I now always say never eat or drink at a cafe by a tourist site.

A wonderful topic with many terrific tales ... ours tale occurred in '97 on our first trip to Europe. After enjoying a week in London and a short stint in Paris, I rented a car for a tour of the BeneLux area. My wife and I were joined by our 13 and 15 year old boys. Many of our walks thru London and Paris provided a fair number of head-turners (i.e., frontal nudity bill boards),as did Belgian and Dutch females sunbathers but nothing compared to the surprise when arriving at our Novotel in Luxembourg City. Now I'll admit that trip 1 was for me pre-Rick Steves; and, Trip Advisor had not yet empowered travelers with ratings,etc. Oh, did I mention that in '97, ran promotions that kids stayed in their parents room (~ $150 USD) free, along with bountiful breakfast buffets? OK, back to Luxembourg City ... we're driving into the city about 9 pm remember now no GPS, no Google Maps so finding a hotel without getting lost for an hour was a major victory (especially for yours truly a male driver). That night looked like it was going to be a **** navigational success - found the train station and the boulevard with our hotel with nary a wrong turn UNTIL we noticed an inordinate number of women standing outside the nearby establishments. OMG - our Novotel was right in the middle of the neighborhood of strip clubs and other recreational establishments. While the boys were laughing pretty hard, their mom wasn't finding any humor in this situation. She walked right up to the front desk and demanded a room at another Accor hotel - far away from ladies of the night. Fortunately, an airport Ibis was available. The tale of the Ladies of Luxembourg will always be a family favorite; too bad I didn't have an iPhone to snap a few pictures .

OK, just added a new dumb thing this last trip:

I bought return train tickets from London to Bath for a day-trip earlier this month. What I had in hand when I arrived at Paddington station was simply a print-out, as I was supposed to get my actual tickets from a machine when we got there.

However, even though the print-out clearly says that I needed it, I did not bring my credit card that was originally used to make the online purchase with me that day. The rationale that morning: since we will be going to the spa, then we only needed DH's cards for our purchases that day... my only possible excuse for that bit of muddled thinking was lack of coffee ;-)

It's a good thing that we got there early and got a hold of a customer service call center rep willing to help.

list:
- Dined in Paris for 100 euros and it was disgusting food.
- Bought at a flea market in Berlin, old carpet, I swore that he was 100 years old, and he has appeared only 10 years maximum.
- Coffee shops in Amsterdam after the lost camera
- In Krakow stole my bag my new friends.

People beware. And do not trust the dubious acquaintances traveling. I had a bitter experience.

I was in airport in Germany. We had been delayed over a day and I was exhausted. We were going through security they ask for my husbands passport they look at it and give it back. They take mine and the gentleman calls someone else over and they talk about it. Then the look at me and say something in German. I am just staring at them like an idiot. Finally my husband steps in and tells them that I do not understand German. So they ask me in English where my German passport is. Again with the stupid look I am just setting there. Luckily my husbaand thinks faster than I do and he explained that yes I was born in Germany but it was on a US military base so I only have a US passport. I am sure they got a good laugh out of it.

On my first trip to Europe many years ago, my BFF and I were on a long, late night train in Italy from Florence south to Brindisi. Early in the morning at one station stop, she work up from a dead sleep and asked me if we were in Brindisi yet?
"No", I told her as I read the sign out the window of the train, "this station is Uscita."
My friend flew into a panic, grabbed her backpack and told me "that's not one of the stops on our route. We must be on the wrong train. We have to get off!"
The 2 of us grabbed our gear and tore off of the train only to realize that we were on the correct train and only halfway to our destination.
We sheeplishly re-boarded.

USCITA , being the Italian word for Exit.