A Wandering Widow Post
“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”
Charles Dickens
Wow. I wasn’t sure I’d have enough of these for a full post but had to put some effort into narrowing them down to my Top 5. It is me, after all, Queen of Awkward is Adorable. It’s good when you can laugh at yourself because everyone else is laughing at you anyway. Here are my top travel bloopers revealed, and boy are they revealing.
M or M?
When I was in Portugal, I was in a bit of a hurry one morning and not functioning on a full night’s sleep. I hustled into the restroom of the hotel lobby, without actually looking at the sign. I’d seen the sign on the other door, and it had an M. Logic would dictate that the only remaining door would have an F. Yeah, logic in my country. Not so logical when M stands for Mujeres (female). You can imagine my sleep-deprived confusion as to why there were urinals in the women’s restroom. Fortunately, the men’s room wasn’t occupied at the time. Although it took me an embarrassingly long period of time to process this data and retreat to the other door.
Lock the Door
I promise restrooms aren’t the recurring theme here, but this next one was classic. Not all bathroom doors lock the same. So when I was at the Starbucks in Edinburgh one day, I thought the door was locked. It wasn’t. OMG, I could have died, but the nice lady opening the door backed right out. (Probably because I was shouting at her to get the hell out.) Lucky for me it was a woman since it was a unisex restroom. I quickly learned to double and triple check to make sure the door is locked, no matter where I’m at. So much so, that I accidentally locked myself in the restroom at my cousin’s house in Romania. Fortunately I figured it out before having to yell for someone to let me out.
You Told My Kid What?
Local slang and innuendo can trip you up quickly, and Belfast is home to my most memorable inadvertently inappropriate comments, like the time I told my friend’s kid the reason I hadn’t finished my book yet was I was too busy playing around in Belfast pubs. FYI, when someone spits out their drink, it’s a good indicator that you just said something different than you’d intended. Oops. Sorry, Gary!
I Said What?!?!
Also in Belfast…ladies, don’t ask any guy for a ride. And if they offer you one, it’s not to drive you somewhere in their vehicle. I still laugh (and blush and cringe a little) to think I was talking about boats and how I like to ride topside whenever I have the choice. At this point, all I can do is laugh and hope people cut me some slack for being a foreigner. At least I’ll be memorable, right?
The AirPod Incident of 2018.
This one still makes me laugh out loud. Remember when I was busy being the Queen of Dubrovnik? After a room service order that included a lovely bottle of wine, I decided to take a bubble bath in the biggest hotel tub I’ve ever seen. Since I like my music but try not to be the loud jerk next door, I had my AirPods in. But after a half bottle of wine, I WAS singing out loud and didn’t hear room service come back with a comped bottle of wine (I’d forgotten to lock the deadbolt when they’d left the first time). I thought the poor guy’s eyeballs were going to fall out of his head as I jumped up to close the door, sloshing water everywhere, not thinking through that I should have stayed right where I was under the bubbles. So here’s this bubble covered naked American belting out Crazy Town’s Butterfly at the top of her lungs, and this poor kid probably thinking he’s going to get fired.
At least he didn’t drop the wine.
Feel free to share your travel bloopers with me so I don’t feel like the only dork out there.
XOXO,
The Wandering Widow
Live Now. Dream Big. Love Fierce.