-tonnes of interesting travel stories to share here:
First travel lesson: Never ever travel with a large group of seniors, unless your parents are paying for the trip.
This travel story was back in 2014 before I travelled only with le gf. I travelled with my parents and their twenty two senior friends across Europe for three weeks. It was a vacation consisting of a one week cruise from Venice, Italy, to Croatia (Dubrovnik, Splitt), Greece (Athens), and Ephesus, Turkey, followed by a two week land tour of Vienna, Austria, Prague, Czech Republic, Budapest, Hungary, and Plitvice Lakes national park in Croatia.
I can tell you right now that the overnight train trips in Italy and the Czech republic are full of shady passengers. For example, we were taking an overnight train from Italy to Prague. Five stowaways, Czech guys, sat in our seats even though we booked those seats in the train months before the trip. Of course, the guys pretend to not understand English even though we showed them our tickets.
Finally, we found one of the train staff who told the guys to leave the train at the next station in the middle of Czech countryside so that we can sit in our seats.
It was also a logistical nightmare when you need to help unload over twenty pieces of luggage in your party of twenty four people off the train in 3 minutes at each train station. All I can say is that seniors have the strength to move luggage but have slow hands.
The worst train ride was a brutal 6 hour train ride from Budapest, Hungary to Croatia. Why did it take six hours?? The train company was doing track maintenance throughout the day. The train operators had to get all the passengers to take two diesel buses and transfer to two different trains on other tracks in order to get to Croatia.
The worst part of that train trip were the pickpockets and thieves on that train from Hungary to Croatia. When we were sleeping inside our compartments, I noticed two Czech kids sliding open our compartment doors (doors do not lock) in order to jack the luggage which belonged to my parent's friends.
I was wearing sunglasses in order to block out the sunlight from the windows and didn't shave for three days. -tried to look as gangsta as I could to scare thieves. Then I looked at the Czech kids and yelled out in some German that I learned from a tour guide.
Those kids were about to grab the luggage when I yelled out "Bist Du Dumm?" (Beast do doom)
(Are you dumb??) I glared at the kids right away. They closed the sliding door of the other compartment and ran away.
-best use of the German language in my life.
The scariest story of my travels in Europe in those three weeks had to be the story of the one of the seniors who went missing for over six hours on one afternoon. We were in Prague for our first day. This particular senior, who we later found had a stroke just before going on this trip, went missing for over 6 hours.
Two of my Mom's friends decided to go to file missing person report at a police station. Other seniors decided to go out at night in the pouring rain to look for the missing lady.
They were yelling her name in Cantonese throughout that night on the streets hoping to find her.
Thank goodness that lady found her way back to the hotel. Two Czech locals who spoke English gave that lady directions to walk back to the hotel. Apparently, she forgot the hotel address and got lost while buying groceries. The Czech locals used their ipad and Google map to give directions to the lady and walk with her to our hotel.
Then two of the seniors had to go back to the Prague police station to cancel the missing person report.
The best stories about this European trip were about the hot Czech ladies in Prague.
Wow, this town is full of babes.
One lady worked at a boutique in Prague. She was very easy on the eyes. She talked to me in broken English so I decided to chat with her while my parents and their friends were trying to bargain for prices on clothing. Veronika was the boutique staff's name.
Her best questions and funny stories about tourists were memorable:
Veronika: "Are you Japanese? We are trained to say Konnichi Wa to Asian tourists"
Veronika: "The only way that I can tell Asian tourists' in term of the country where they come from is by what they say. Thailand tourists always say "Ka ka, cup cup'. Japanese tourists are very polite. Chinese and Korean tourists are the loudest and rudest people that I met. Chinese tourists from North America use iPhone, and Asian tourists from Asia use Samsung phones. "
I asked Veronika a few questions of my own. "Do you use Facebook?" "I can send you a friend request". She said "No, I have boyfriend". She was straightforward. I'll never forget her beautiful blue eyes and those huge hooters.
