Share your most outrageous experience!

Cont'd from above...

Now having been fully violated, it was over. While I got dressed Sergei leaned against the wall, lit up a cigarette and watched me. No word of a lie. We even had to pay for this! Not sure, but I recall about 90 zloty, or about $30CAD).

We left Sergei’s only to find out that Małgorzata was taking us to her parents’ cabin in the woods for the night. There was no bathroom to wash off all the oils and cigarette smell. She hadn’t told us we were overnighting so we were unprepared; no clean clothes or toothbrushes, etc.

Our time in Poland was just one crazy experience after another, thanks to Dr. Z, but I think this is the most outrageous.

Alas, Dr Z is quite old now. Chris recently stopped by her place and she was away at her daughter’s. Her husband Dr B didn’t recognize or remember Chris. But I loved her “exchanges”. Even though I wasn’t a scientist (I work at a library), she arranged for me to do English storytime in some schools. In return, we hosted some of her Polish people in the years after.

So, share your outrageous experiences!

Sorry Andrea, we don’t have anything that comes remotely close to this 😂. Hands down, you win!

Wow! 😮 I would have never allowed all that. Pretty brave.

Nicole,
Even though it was a bit of a scary and unusual experience, good thing you came out of it okay and with a funny story. Yikes!

This cracked me up! My interaction with an Italian vendor selling yoyo’s doesn’t even come close. I would be surprised if anyone could top this!

What a great story Andrea! Nice to start my work day with a good laugh!!

That reminds me of being treated like a rag doll in a Turkish bath, tossed around from side to side and a bucket of soapy water poured on my head and in my eyes. That woman was a mean one (she wasn't Turkish, I don't think, because they staff many of those tourist baths with non-Turks, so she had the bedside manner of a Russian train conductor), but my body was soft as a baby's bottom afterwards....no regrets now, it was funny in retrospect.

My other tale was not outrageous, but totally predictable. I was young, naive, and went to Italy on a solo trip (so please be kind...LOL). I was foolish enough to have too much to drink with a late dinner on virtually no sleep and was staggering back to my hotel with heels on (yes, heels...I thought every Italian woman wore them so I wasn't going to "stick out"). Well, I stuck out so much that some young guy on a scooter stopped and talked to me (God knows what he must have been thinking...I felt like I was walking straight, but maybe I wasn't). I was really happy to practice my Italian, and so I reciprocated his nice invite to go to a cafe and chat. Off we went on his scooter, weaving in and out at full speed on the streets in Rome. It was pretty exciting to ride in the back of a scooter actually, but I didn't even have a helmet on. The night ended at around 2:00 or 3:00 am with his grabby hands all over me, and having to twist his arms and kick him with my heels in an alley and then cursing him out. I don't know how I got back to my hotel (since I had no idea where the hell I was after that scooter ride), but of course he wanted to go back with me. No way, Fabio! That was my first night in Rome in my 20s, nice introduction to the Eternal City. Well, I did get to practice my Italian and my karate kicks - mission accomplished!

Girasole, not sure I was brave. I was trying to be. I think if I had been younger it would have been scarier, but at 34, slightly overweight, I kept telling myself this was their version of "professional".

Agnes, your story brings up my one travel regret -- not starting until after marriage. How I wish I had traveled young and single, and had international romance. I envy your experience! And probably wouldn't have pushed Fabio off, to be quite honest! The heels part scares me more than the Fabio part.

Don't get me wrong....I love international romance, but only consensual ones. That one was not one of them, I wasn't used to that kind of grabbiness/ forcefulness (although in retrospect, I should have seen it coming - it's not as if it never happened to me before). Yes, traveling while young, single, and without certain inhibitions made travel so much more fun! I never regret those times at all, they were the best. I still laugh about that night in Rome, although at the time it was not scary (I sized that guy up before jumping on his scooter) but really, really annoying. Again, I was naive. I thought I was really just going to hang out with someone and practice my Italian, I was not looking for a hookup on my first night (and definitely not with that guy - he still lived at home with his mother - a true Italian "mammone", as they say!).

white flag.

I can't compete with these.....

You guys win. No contest

Wow! You guys, especially Andrea, make my trips to Europe seem positively pedestrian.

I suspect Rick's massage moments could be similar (but maybe minus the flapping boobs). He'd have other 'bits' to deal with. Eastern European masseurs are known to be brusk, brutal and lacking any niceties as far as nudity goes.
North American women travelers sometimes need keepers. We forget that in 75% of the world women don't look men in the eyes and to them, 'yes' means 'yes to anything'. Been there, didn't do that. Mine were usually in Africa. I never knew whether to be insulted or chuffed given the large age difference. I know, I know, walking meal ticket and a one way ticket out of the country. Hope springs eternal....and they are well versed at smooth overtures.
More embarrassing than outrageous but not once, but twice, on last safari my need to sneak behind the jeep fender for a pee and low flying planes that came out of nowhere happened to coincide. All one can do is 'smile and wave, smile and wave'.

I am with Nigel, two white flags.

If the OP retitles the post Flapping Boobs and Karate Kicks this post may get enough attention to rival Nigel's Alphabet post. Best I can contribute is a conversation with Carol from the Cotswolds. My wife and I were in Bibury this time in 2018 and we came across a woman pouring some dust from a small plastic container into the creek. Her name was Carol and she told us her husband had died a year before and to keep his memory alive she was keeping his ashes in something like 120 small containers and distributing them across England in places they had visited.

Yes maybe this thread will be rated r and you must show your ID before you can proceed 😏

Nicole, your experience is definitely one for the books, lol. The way you described the experience I would have been a little bit scared - especially him whipping off things. I reserve that behavior for a boyfriend haha.

I remember about a couple of years ago, a restaurant in Rome I frequented, I went there every night for just about two weeks - so the wait staff and the regular customers got to know me.

One guy was interested in taking me out for a drink or two. He was a retired carabineri - something happened on the job or he had health problems and took retirement. I don't know.

Thing is, there was the language barrier.... But not to worry because his good friend was fluent in English so he came with us to another bar and sat there and translated back and forth. It was pretty funny and fun at the same time. I suppose I could have used Google translate, lol! For a romantic possibility well... He was nice, shy but I just was not into him.

I met another Italian man a few years ago who works in Rome but lives outside of Rome. When I traveled to Rome, we would plan to get together. He was very nice to take me to dinners and a couple of his favorite coffee places in Rome. We spent a lot of time together...Let me just end it there, haha.🤭
Actually he just messaged me the other day asking when I'm coming back to Rome LOL.

A little side topic, another friend of mine opened up a new trattoria in Rome. It seems to be doing pretty well so far in the last couple of months.

The way things are going over here in America I probably won't get to visit for another year or two.

Wow!
Anything that's ever happened to me while traveling seems quite "normal" in comparison to these experiences!!

Well, not exactly outrageous, but it made an impression at the time. My husband and I were walking up to the gates of the non catholic cemetery in Rome, and as we got there a woman was being ushered out and there was some sort of commotion. The gates were quickly slammed shut and locked. We stood there a bit wondering what to do and the woman (an American I think) came up to us with tears in her eyes and explained that she had come to Rome to visit her husband's grave and it wasn't there! She said it had been several years since she had been there last and couldn't find it and when she asked someone they couldn't locate it either. I still have never been inside, darn it, so I don't know if there is an office inside to help people, or if it would be hard to find a particular grave. I do wonder what happened and it she ever got answers.

Andrea your story had me laughing out loud while reading it!!

I certainly don’t have any story to compare, but your taking the time to share yours has brought some humor into an otherwise blech Friday —thank you!

Way back in 1988 my husband and I were in Barbados on our honeymoon; it was very sleepy and quiet back then, and definitely not as busy and crowded as today. We rented an open air Jeep and just traveled all over the island, loving the scenery and getting a bit lost in the mountains and sugar fields. Somewhere in the middle of one of those deserted fields, not really knowing where we were, a young local man, from out of those same fields, jumps in the back of our Jeep and tells us to take him to the beach. We looked at each other and then the “HUGE” 10 inch switch blade in his hand and thought “this is it”. We said fine, okay, whatever you want/need buddy, (saying good bye to each other with our eyes) he then smiled the biggest smile ever, and proceeded to use that said knife to cut us some fresh sugar cane from the field he had just popped out of! Best sweet treat ever, sweetest guy ever, and he happily said goodbye and thanked us when we reached the shore...Never judge who jumps in your Jeep!!!!

I would add to the Women who say they should have been more outspoken or "slapped his face"/"stomped on his foot" that in many parts of the World* the attitude that pissed you off goes with an entitlement that you're not allowed to act that way in response. Rage (and violence towards you for daring to act like that) that you did is always a possibility to keep in mind. Have backup or a quick way out before you do.

(And many parts of the US)

Wow, I feel lucky to just have a sort of drive-by story, not the flesh-to-flesh kind. Brava, you who braved out some major experiences.

Years ago we were in Rocamadour, France, the cliffside pilgrimage town, staying in a vertical old hotel, our windows looking out over the chasm. Closed the inside shutters at night, but woke early next morning to a mystery sound, "Whoosh......... whoosh........whoosh......."

Sat up in bed (female here), then up on knees to reach the shutters, pulled 'em open, &, whoops, offered a full frontal to the hot air balloon crew directly outside! Like OP Andrea said, nudity & TMI, you were warned. I eeked, grabbed the sheet, we all roared.

I have previously posted this in a trip report, but I will share it again here. It's my solo walk down a street in Berlin to get to a restaurant for dinner...

It was a beautiful afternoon, so I decided to arrive at the restaurant by foot, taking a 30-minute walk. The jaunt took me down a street in Berlin I had previously taken in the morning a couple of years ago, and it seemed like a pretty typical street. As I walked down the street this day, a lady made eye contact and started talking.

Lady: [German, German, German]

Me: Ich spreche kein Deutsch.

Lady (calling my bluff a bit): Sie sprechen kein Deutsch? Welche Sprache sprechen Sie?

Me: Ich spreche Englisch

Lady: I speak English, too! (Pause). Would you like me make you very, very happy?

Well… I guess she didn’t say she spoke English well. Also… I suppose the short, bright red hair should have tipped me off, but, in my defense, I’m pretty naïve with respect to such things.

Me (smiling brightly because I wasn’t sure what else to do): No, thank you.

She walked away, and I started walking toward my destination again. In about 100 feet, another woman makes eye contact, smiles, and starts speaking in German. I throw a good solid “Nein!” her way and keep walking. A lady who watched that interaction and who, frankly, was much more attractive than the other two women, smiled and started moving toward me while saying something in German (apparently feeling she would be more successful?). I gave another curt “Nein!” and kept walking. In 50 feet, I saw a woman who was leaning against a building catch sight of me and start moving in my direction. I picked up my pace, deviated my path to move away from her, avoided eye contact, and ignored her German Siren song (an oxymoron if ever there was one). I reach the end of the street, passing a sex shop on the right (Figures!). I turn left onto Potsdamer Straße, leaving the Street o’ Propositions behind me.

Speaking of massages and memorabilia -- I was killing time the night before our flight home from Beijing, when all those younger than me went clubbing and all those older than me suffered through tummy trouble in their rooms, by having a sauna and massage. The hurricane shower was all mine alone, and the huge hot pool had just one other occupant, but the massage room was raucous and as loud as a poker night, filled with old Chinese men chain-smoking, drinking, and watching a war movie on the bigscreen TV while kibbitzing at high volume -- it was like a Shriner's convention or Sons of Burney retreat except everyone was in a towel and there were no captions. The attendant was not happy with the condition of my feet and kept trying to give me a pedicure, and the contrast between what I (American guy) consider effeminate pampering and what I expected from a massage (quiet, healthy) and this loud, smoky macho huddle was unnerving. I should have stayed in the pool.

Andrea, no more massages for me, either, in a foreign country! My story is a massage experience, too! My husband & I were helping a team of people in Cambodia with a school expansion in a very poor tiny village. At the end of our time there, we stayed at a nice hotel in Phnom Penh before flying back home. Our local hosts showed us the hotel breakfast area, pool, etc. and said the spa area was very nice.

I decided to book a massage since the brochure looked very nice - similar to one you would see at a Hawaiian resort.

The massage started as normal for the first couple of minutes. Then she jumped up on top of my back! She proceeded to pound my back and shoulders. Did I mention that I had specifically reserved the mildest option and showed her the info, too? Whew! I started making painful noises on purpose and motioning to push less hard.

I’ve never enjoyed a massage so much...when it stopped!! Quite the experience!

This is the best I can do:

My friend Amy has been my best friend for 59 years, but we have rarely traveled together. We are both gardeners, so we went to England together in 2004 and 2007, staying in B&Bs. I usually picked the gardens to visit and booked the B&Bs, because I like to research places, but once Amy booked a stay at the last minute and that is how we encountered the owner, Helen.

Helen turned out to be an extreme animal rights activist and all her constant chat, in a high quavery voice, was about things like badgers being caught in cruel traps and being torn apart by dogs. Fox hunting. Cosmetic testing on animals. Lots of gory details.

So, for instance, while we’d be eating breakfast Helen would tell us about bears in China getting their paws cut off, and she kept showing us postcards and photos of rescued bears with commentary on each one like “You can see this one is STRESSED because his NOSTRILS are FLARED.” We (politely) begged her to stop and she would begin to leave the room, but then come right back in to tell another gruesome story: “And now in Vietnam….” And when we cried out in mock horror, she said “Well, I’ll just say it’s about CATS AND DOGS….” When she finally left us alone, we got the giggles until we were sobbing.

In my room one day, I washed out several pairs of underpants, dried them as well as I could with towels, and draped them around the bathroom. Helen took my almost dry underwear without asking and put it outside in the garden on the clothesline where it then got rained on. She brought it inside and dried it goodness knows how (ironed it?) and then brought it upstairs to our rooms and for some reason she counted each one, slowly, into an appalled Amy’s hands. When Amy escaped and brought me my underpants, we had to have another giggle session.

Finally, when we checked out, Helen carefully wrote out our receipt on a pad that had carbon paper between the pages to make a copy. We hadn’t seen carbon paper in years and made some kind of reference to it and Helen thought we were implying that her receipt method was too slow and asked us, “But what do you do if you just want a quickie?” I started giggling so bad that I had to go back into my room and Amy has never forgiven me for abandoning her.

To this day, Amy and I are liable to disgrace ourselves (usually in public) and collapse laughing if anything reminds us of our time with Helen. It's hard to explain to people why we are laughing about something awful like squirrel electrocution.

Way back in 1988 my husband and I were in Barbados on our honeymoon;

My wife & I also honeymooned in Barbados (1993)

We had an early flight out so it was dark as we are being driven to the airport. After about a half hour in the cane fields my wife & I started looking at each other. And thinking...are we getting out of here alive? We arrived safe & sound a few minutes later

We also wanted a special dinner one night so picked a place out of the "book" in the room. We walked out past the front desk & chatted w/the cabbie about the place we wanted to go to. He looked at us funny...and asked us again. We said yes! It looks great. We pile in & he takes off.....one house down. Here you are! LOL We laughed about that for a long time. We walked back to the hotel

Andrea, truly outrageous! Glad you made it through, to now relate the experience from 16 years ago! I’m glad that nothing’s exceeded it in the meantime.

There’ve been many accounts of a toilet down the hall, but this time it was in the hall!

And after the massage service, did you leave Sergei any tip?

I am undecided.

Is it a good thing I have no contribution to this topic or should I feel like I've lived a dull life?

Hmm.......

Ok Nancy, your tale had me cackling as well!!!! Oh my goodness.

Nicole's thread brings to my mind not outrageous but my fun experiences. You never know whom you will meet or where that meet will take you...

Sitting here drinking coffee, another fun experience I am reminded of:

My first trip to Rome, I stopped into a cute fashion store selling scarves, sweaters, knit hats, jackets, vests, gloves - made in Italy...tags sewn on claimed it, lol, but who knows....

Anyway, items were very inexpensive. I bought some merino wool, solid-colored scarves for 10€ each. They are sort of a lacy knit and the ends of the scarf have a scalloped, cascading edge; very pretty. If you loosely tie or wrap the scarf, it almost resembles a waterfall.

Anyway, lol, I decided to go back to Campo de' Fiori to get another color. I love scarves and wear them all the time.

I arrived at Campo. (I took the receipt for the address.)

I saw some city workers in the piazza. I walked over and asked one if he could direct me back to the shop's street.

He looked at the address, smiled, crooked his arm and said he would take me there. His co-workers were laughing and said something in Italian.

I hooked my arm through and off we went. Haha.

He was a jolly guy, tall and big - we were laughing so much, people were looking and smiling. It almost seemed liked he was the Lion (I did write "big guy" lol) and I was Dorothy skipping off to our next adventure on the cobbled piazza.

The man brought me to the edge of the via, pointed and told me, "it is there" - fun morning :)

Well - not as revealing - or potentially painful..
In '77 - a gradschool buddy and I did the Europe on $10/day trek.. When we hit Paris we spent an evening with another classmate (French) and his girlfriend. They took us to their favorite cafe near the Sorbonne for dinner. When time for desert- they insisted on ordering. Out came a sundae titled "Jeunne Fil's Delight" (roughly translated - young girl's delight)... I took one look and handed it over to my travel buddy - classic banana split arranged "curve-up" complete with scoops/balls of strawberry ice-cream strategically placed beside, chocolate sauce, whipped cream and a cherry on the tip. The entire cafe had a great laugh when she realized what it represented. Guess her 5 years of french classes really didn't stick.

I still wonder if that cafe is still open and the students are still having the same fun.

@nancys8 - Your post totally made me smile and laugh. I think everyone knows a "Helen" like the one you experienced on your trip, and I loved the story. The only minor thing I would say (and please don't take this as any criticism), is that one doesn't have to be a militant animal rights activist by any means to agree that those things Helen mentioned are atrocious and unacceptable - I think most decent people (in 2020) would agree. Having said that, I realize this is not proper conversation for a B & B host... highly unorthodox, but "colorful" for sure.

Thanks for sharing your story, it truly made me laugh hard - especially the underwear and the "quickie" comment.

@Andrea (I don't know why you're getting called "Nicole"...LOL 😆) - That's a great story, cannot be beat. I'm from Poland myself so it was an interesting read, for sure (I've never known any Russian residents in Poland due to Soviet history/ occupation during Communism that would make them highly unwelcome, but there are plenty of Ukrainians). Call me crazy, but that's what's great about solo travel...I don't think you'll get these kind of memories from a group tour because they're too risk-free (purposely so). Any kind of massage (or Turkish bath) overseas is bound to have some cultural faux pas...it's inevitable because it requires close personal interaction. Inevitably, there are cultural differences about personal space, modesty or lack thereof, etc. The woman who did one of my baths shouted one word commands: "Turn!, turn!" before dumping a sudsy bucket of water right down my face (I had contact lenses in...which was a BAD idea!)

OK, another warning: nudity and adult situations.

My first trip to Sweden was for a tour labeled "Viking's Footsteps" or something like that (not an RS tour). It started in Stockholm. I arrived 3 days before the tour was to start and there were no rooms at the tour hotel so I stayed nearby at an acceptable place. The single rooms were all on the top floor and each had an expansive balcony larger than the actual room. Also, two adjoining rooms shared a single bathroom. Each room had direct access into the bathroom and you were to lock the door leading to the other hotel room when you entered, which worked fine most of the time.

Stockholm was experiencing heat wave when I was there, and it was 35C (around 100F) all day the first two days I was there. The hotel had no air conditioning and not enough fans for every room (I missed out on getting a fan). I sweated through every piece of clothing I brought with me over the two days and had been taking 3 or more cold showers a day and putting on fresh clothing to make life bearable. So that evening I did the bathroom sink rinse of everything I could -- and went too far leaving me nothing dry to wear.

As the evening went on, I was still feeling very warm so I thought I would take another shower to try and cool down a bit. I opened the door to the bathroom, and was surprised to see the person from the adjoining room also just opening her bathroom door. She and I were both totally naked. She said "Eeeek!" I said "Eeeek!!" or something close to that. I began apologizing and backing out of the room as did she. About a second later, her roommate/boyfriend/husband entered the bathroom as well, also completely naked, and asked what was going on (And what was a second person doing in a single room? Not really important to me at the time). She began telling him what happened that it was a coincidence that we both decided to enter the bathroom at the same time. He looked at me and declared that I appeared way too happy about the situation. I really wasn't. So us three naked people stood there with boyfriend wanting to start a fight with me. I just backed out and closed the door. She knocked on the door a bit later telling me she was done. No further issues until checkout.

Oh, and she turned out to be the tour guide for the tour I was on!

Three white flags.
Andrea, Stewart&Vicki, Nancy and Mark: My sides hurt. 🤣

Whose keyboards have coffee all over them now....thanks a lot.... ;)))
Hilarious stories, thank you!

This was just travel in the USA, but it was pretty funny.

I visited NYC with my friend back when I was in my late 20's, early 30's. She is a little older than I am and had spent years living a couple of blocks off of Times Square, so she was a great tour guide. She wanted to visit one of her favorite jazz bars in Greenwich Village, which she hadn't been to in a long time. We walked in, late on a Saturday night, post-theater, and were instantly enveloped in classic shadowy, smokey, music-filled jazz dive atmosphere. Heaven. So we found our way back to a table, sat down, and ordered a couple of drinks. We finally had a minute to look around, and both of us had a moment of "ummm......" I looked at her and said (in a line we still crack up about 20 years later), "Everyone in here is really TALL."

It had become a transvestite jazz bar. We were the only, ahem, women in there and we stuck out like a sore thumb.

But, no one batted an eye (we would have noticed -- what eyelashes everyone had!!!!), so we decided to stay, wound up hanging out for a few drinks and had a great time listening to some fabulous music.

This story is in the TMI category.

Last year I went to New Zealand with my husband. It took three flights to get to Auckland. The longest leg was the flight from Dallas to Sydney - something like 17 hours. I was seated across the aisle from my husband, and there was no one in the middle seat beside me. I was thrilled; it seemed like a good omen.

I was wrong.

I got talking with the woman in the window seat and she was very pleasant. I told her if she had to go to the bathroom during the flight, she should feel free to wake me up if I was sleeping. Well, after 2-3 hours, she woke up and startled me with, “Oh shit!” These words were, I later discovered, well chosen. She immediately headed to the bathroom. After a few minutes she returned and said, “I need to go back and change my clothes.” She was gone for a while, and when she got back she said, “I need to tell you what the problem is,” to which I replied emphatically, “NO YOU DON'T!” But she did. Apparently, lunch did not agree with her - let’s leave it at that. She made many many more trips to the bathroom and changed her clothes a second time, which I know because she announced it to me. Then a flight attendant came over to clean her seat. The woman kept telling me how embarrassed she was and thanked me for being so patient with her. I felt very sorry for her and did not mind getting up as often as she needed. I JUST DIDN’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!

Great stories. Mine is not nearly as outrageous as some, but I will share anyway. In 1974 my friend and I were toward the end of our 2.5 month trip through Europe, and we had used up almost all of my $1,000 and her $900 that we had started with. We were in London where we met two nice young men that invited us to lunch. We immediately accepted because by this time we were on a steady diet of bread and cheese. We had a lovely meal along with drinks and dessert. We thought these guys were so high class. They said to meet us at the park across from the restaurant and they would show us around a bit. We went out and waited at the park. They came by a few minutes later, laughing because they had just "tennis-shoed it" (left without paying for the meal). My friend and I felt terrible, but absolutely did not have the money to pay for the meal. We did not think so highly of these fellows after that and we quickly parted ways.

Oh my, great stories!

Outrageous stories and very, very entertaining. I must be really boring because I have nothing even coming close to share. I am very much enjoying reading everyone’s “travel tale travails” and thank each and everyone for posting.😂

The closest I ever came to an outrageous flight was my flight to Fort Bragg in 67 for basic training. The three hour flight took more than eight hours including an emergency landing on a foamed runway and fire trucks chasing us down the runway to put out the fire. Thought it was a bad omen to begin my military life.

dlhutto -- wow! I would have been terrified of a guy with a knife seeming to be taking me hostage!

Avi, that reminds me of our tour of China. The guide offered to arrange massage for everybody on the tour. Four of us agreed - 3 women - an 88 year old, a 66 year old, and a 42 year old [me] (being massaged by young men) and my DH Chris (being massaged by a young woman. It didn't take long to figure out that happy ending was on the menu for all of us, if desired.

nancys8, what an awful hotel stay, even for animal lovers! Who wants to be bombarded with that. We were in a B&B in Scotland once and the host over breakfast insisted on relating his life viewpoints, including that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist who should have stayed jailed for life. It was hard extricating ourselves without being rude, and was definitely a damper on our fun.

Mark, flashing your tour guide is probably not the best way to start the trip!

Carroll, you are a hero. I couldn't have coped if my neighbour on a plane pooped herself.

Keep them coming!

Here's another story from the same trip to Poland. Again with some nudity!

Dr Z arrived in Poland a few weeks before us and was picking us up at the airport. She arrived with a young man, and a teeny tiny car. This was our first long trip (four weeks) and we packed HEAVY. We jammed it in the car, somehow, and made our way to the University of Warsaw. Eventually we realized that Dr. Z had just met that guy that day and somehow roped him into taking her to meet us at the airport. That's Dr. Z for you.

Anyway, the day progressed and we were exhausted. It became clear she hadn't arranged anywhere for us to stay as she had promised. Eventually she announced we were staying at her professor friends' house, as they were traveling in Italy.

A day or two later, Chris and I were at the house without Dr. Z. I was in the bathtub and he was relaxing. The owners' daughter arrived to water the plants. OMG -- the Polish was flying! We couldn't understand the words, but we could understand that she had no clue why there were two people squatting in her parents' home. I got out of the bathtub quickly dressed and tried to help Chris. We just kept saying Dr. Z... University... She was yelling and upset and stormed out. We were certain the police would arrive before Dr Z returned. Against all odds the police never came.

Some people just have all the fun and the rest of us have dreary trips with no excitement. My greatest, unexpected experience was when we were in Rome and I accidentally scared three women into thinking I was a pickpocket and chased them down the street. You do have to be careful around slightly overweight, gray hair, 70+, US male tourists.

No nakedness.
A goodly long time back flew from UK to Cincinnati via St Louis to cousins wedding.
Missed my connection so sweating I might have to buy a flight but they stuck me on next connection ing flight
A conversation starts up just behind me..
Man1 .Hey ,I know you
Man 2; Don't think we have met?
Man 1 Yes was a two years
back, you ran over my dog.
Man 2 ,agrees
Man1 ,Damn that dog was always wandering off.

Then they never spoke again.
Also got the last flight out of Toronto once as there had been fault on plane.
The airport was shutting up round us.
Got inside the plane ,and everything was being done ,double time.
The plane stank of kerosene,I not a nervous flyer ( usually) but came very close to getting back off.
A nun on the aisle opositte was working her way thru the rosery beads, which wasn't not too reassuring either.

Outrageous? No.

Did I shake my head in bewilderment? Yes.

Early 90’s ( waaaay before RS appeared on PBS ) 2 friends and I were visiting London.

Took a train to Salisbury then a bus to Stonehenge. No one on the bus but the 3 of us got off at Stonehenge. November skies. Dark grey with patches of brilliant blue. Cant recall a visitors center.
Do recall a small green ticket window.

All I do know is that we were the only people there except for 4 people in hazmat like suits who were near the stones. There was a low hung rope near the path which obviously meant stay out.

While I asked my friends what they thought the 4 people in the white suits were doing out of no where
3 “guards” started running towards them. The Guards Encircled the 4 and slowly in unison the entire group moved as 1 toward the path.

Long story short because one of my 2 friends is Ms. Personable and charms everyone and asked one f the guards. Seems the 4 in the suits where waiting to be teleported to their spaceship.

This one and only Stonehenge visit was so long ago my photos are of it are from 2 rolls of Kodak Extachrome 400. Pasted up nicely in a scrapbook.

I'm afraid that Claudia's spacemen must take the biscuit

Hey - 'Nicole' chiming in - no I do not have any outrageous stories - this one is all Andrea ;)

Speaking of sophomoric, this was before the love of my life became my wife so we were about 22 or 23 years old at the time. We were young and poor and so a vacation meant driving 11 hours to visit her parents. To set the scene, my in-laws had a cat and my wife is allergic and gets very stuffed up. At the time, when drinking, my wife has also been known to take off all her clothes and lie on a cool bathroom floor if she felt hot and nauseas. I’d gone to bed at a reasonable hour but she and her Mom were getting into multiple bottles of wine. About 1AM, my future mother-in-law woke me up to say my wife was having trouble breathing because of the cat and was lying on the bathroom floor. I’m sure the wine was making the situation worse than usual, but she insisted she was struggling to breath and needed to go to the hospital. So, I told her to get dressed and we’d head out. A few minutes later she came back with a knee-length coat on and we went to Emergency. She went in to see the doctor alone and about 20 minutes later came out with smoke coming out of her ears. We got in the car and she looks at me and says “don’t you ever, EVER, let me leave the house with no clothes on!” I had no idea she had just thrown a coat on with nothing underneath, and when the doctor came in to see her and wanted to check her lungs, she took her coat off, also forgetting that she had no clothes on.

What wonderful stories that I am very happy not to have experienced! I also have a spa experience. It was June 20011, we'd moved to Germany in January, but after 2 months in a hotel and going through Army in-processing, then getting our totally empty flat furnished and ready for guests, aside from a quick trip to France we hadn't done that much exploring before my husband's parents visited. As Stuttgart has Europe's largest mineral springs after Budapest, my FIL announced he wanted to visit one of the mineral baths here in town. I figured, why not? MIL wasn't as keen but also didn't want to miss out, so she came. We arrived at the spa in Bad Canstatt and were asked if we wanted to do just pools or pools AND sauna. FIL said both, so we were instructed to the separate changing rooms for the saunas. Upon arriving upstairs, we were promptly confronted with a naked man. My MIL shrieked and literally covered her face.

Yes, the changing area there is co-ed. I grabbed my MIL and took her few rows down so we could change apart from my husband and FIL. Swimsuits on, we walked past an area of indoor hot tubs filled with naked old people. My MIL had a look of terror on her face, but I was determined that if we just got in the sauna, we could relax and figure things out. Upon entering the sauna, which was occupied by another naked man, we sat down, and he gave a sigh of disgust and left. A few minutes later, he returns with a (clothed) attendant who starts chewing us out in German, but I understood the gist - no bathing suits in the sauna. Whoops. My MIL is straight on horrified now. I get us downstairs into the the swimsuit area of the pools but the damage was done, my MIL wanted to leave. But she also refused to believe that we had to go back through the nude area to get to our lockers in the co-ed changing area. It took quite a bit of convincing but we managed to get dressed and out. She still tells the story about how her DIL forced her to go into a weird sauna area full of naked people...

Anyway, it occurs to me that most of my outrageous travel stories involves my inlaws...

LOL, Sarah - the last sentence of your report!

One story that doesn't involve the in-laws revolves around a big Balkan budget trip we took in October 2012. We'd found ridiculously cheap flights into Bucharest and out of Zadar, and decided to connect the rest by train and mostly bus, visiting Serbia, Bosnia and Herzogvenia en route to Crotia.

We stayed overnight in Mostar with plans to bus to Cavtat, near Dubrovnik, and upon having the taxi driver pick us up at the hotel, he asked us where we were going on the bus. We told him, and he said, "I can take you, $100." We paused - our bus tickets would cost $50, so it was double the price, but after more than a week on the road on what had been a pretty stressful trip, particularly in Romania, the comfort of a private driver seemed like a luxury. "Bus take you 5 hours. I take you 2." We looked at each other - OK, why not? We only had a few more days, and the prospect of arriving in Dubovnik and figuring out the bus to Cavtat as opposed to a direct ride was so appealing.

At first our driver had seemed to have pretty good English, but like my German, it is apparently better with phrases he uses frequently, but that didn't stop him from wanting to talk the whole way. He asked if we were Americans; answering in the affirmative, he started informing he that "I am Muslim." "Yes, we know. We're in Bosnia." "I am Bosniak, Muslim!" "Yes, we know." He seemed to expect us to freak out at that knowledge. Then, "I take you to my home. Best burek in Bosnia."

Oh great now we're going to his house? Turns out he meant his home village, which was presumably en route, where he instructed us to go to bakery to "buy best burek" (they were very good) while he chatted with his friends/family and chain smoked for about half an hour. This was our quick ride? Finally he tells us to get back in the car. Then he starts asking my husband about his job. "You live in Germany? Work for US Army? You are CIA." "Nope, not CIA, just a very boring Government Civilian." "Yes, that mean CIA." Luckily he seemed to hold the CIA in semi-positive regard.

He didn't let that go the entire time. He told us he learned all his English from Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, which might explain some of the gaps. As we're driving through areas with land mine warnings, we're also getting closer to the Croatian border, and he's starting to get more agitated. "F-ing Croats. I fought them, I will fight again," and a lot more colorful language explaining exactly what he did in the past and would like to do in the future to "Croat a-holes." We're just praying at this point that this guy doesn't start an international incident at the border.

Suffice it to say, he does not have a good attitude when dealing with the Croatian border guards and they're not exactly friendly either. They have a tense, then somewhat heated exchange in their language while he's talking crap about them to us in English loudly as they inspect his taxi. "Fing swears I used to shoot guys like this." You get it. I'm guessing they can totally understand him as they probably speak English themselves, so that's weird, as we smile and nod to his rants.

After about 15 minutes we're allowed to go through, which our taxi driver seems to take as a personal win, as he's gloating. Cavat isn't too far past the border, and he drops us off in a fairly sullen mood, maybe wondering if it was worth the money for the 6 hour round trip for him. Anyway, we survived, and with a story to tell!