French travel tips, thieves and a Hungarian massage
Mary Anne Lewis
Scene Writer
4 September 2000 — Day One
Call me out of town! I got my ticket and I used it. So here we are, 36 kids who don't really know each other, 36 kids alone together, here in France. Soon, we'll be calling Angers home; right now, we're working on its pronunciation. I've never been; I hope it's nice.
Day one and mistake one: "So how do you feel about arriving in France?" asked the flight attendant, in that cute French way of his. A proud smile on my face, I responded in a language other than my own, "Je suis très excitée!" Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the problems of literal translation. "I am very excited!" earned me my first dirty look as a foreigner, for what I learned just a few moments later was that this French phrase is often used to describe a completely different kind of "excited."
6 October 2000 — Day 32
Travel tip: If the woman at the desk smiles at you and says, "Here's the key to your room. Good luck!" don't trust her. Find somewhere else to stay.
We had what is now the oh-so-infamous "Chambre Huit," a room found only by following some rather frighteningly simple arrows with sloppy handwriting and concealed by an out-of-place opaque shower door in the middle of the hallway. We had the doctor from Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" as a neighbor downstairs on the left and some dental torture instruments in the room on the right. As good as a sleeping pill — as you can imagine — among the sounds of eerie music coming from downstairs and drilling coming from the evil dentist's crypt next door. The television's refusal to be turned off was very calming as well.
2 November 2000 — Day 59
Italian thieves tick me off. Four naïve American girls combined with a stench, kept dense and putrid by the tight area of a not-so-spacious couchette, makes for quite the travel legend. The origin of the smell made his presence known when he emerged from under Katy's bed. While we screamed, he smiled, as if to say, "Screw you all, you silly girls. I'm here; I smell; you're scared, so I'm in control," until he realized that screaming could bring the police, and that could land him behind some bars — and we ain't talkin' chianti wine!
9 February 2001 — Day 158
Today I was spanked by a large Hungarian woman, and I liked it! The baths in Budapest are famous for the wide range of treatments available, ranging from mud to thermal, and for the variety of naked bodies. If you have an ounce of modesty in your body, it is guaranteed to be gone by the time you leave, whether because of the fact that you and everyone remotely close to you is naked, or because the woman giving you the full-body massage seems to be enjoying it almost as much as you are. Large women throw around their weight, and there isn't an inhibition in the place. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Mary Anne Lewis would like to thank Greer Kuras, Kerry Walsh, Katy Disinger, and Casey Fitzpatrick for contributing information for this article.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Scene Stories for Monday, February 19, 2001
