Following our 2001 US trip, the plan was to visit the Land Down Under in 2002.
But funding the flights was scuppered by Chris’s libido.
His sister was buying a new car. Chris went along to give his opinion, but due to wanting to impress a ‘really fit’ saleswoman, he decided on the spot to buy a new car himself. The payments for which meant that there was no way he could afford Australia.
He didn’t even get a date out of it.
On the plus side: the prospect of driving on the German Autobahn with no speed limit was irresistible.
So Europe it was.
I had been wondering whether this unreliability and impulsiveness was worth the hassle.
We’d known each other five years, and the characteristics and disorganisation that were initially amusing were now infuriating.
The plan to tour Europe began with four of us.
One of Chris’s work colleagues and a female ‘friend’ of Chris’ coming along.
She was in a relationship with someone else, but her and Chris were indulging in extracurricular activities.
The fact that it wouldn’t just be the two of us winding each other up meant I put any concerns aside. Unfortunately, Chris’s work colleague dropped out as (the irony!) he got the opportunity to go to Australia instead. Then a week before we set off, the love triangle resolved itself. She told Chris she was breaking things off with her boyfriend and it was him she wanted.
And the very next day changed her mind and disappeared on holiday with the boyfriend to rekindle their passion.
That left me, and a lovelorn Chris.
Joy.
Other than booking ferry crossings nothing was planned, we had one thing in common at least; the preference to make it up as we went along.
Arriving in France it was time to decide where to go: Luxembourg! For no other reason than it was a drivable distance in one afternoon, and we didn’t know anyone that had ever been.
It might not have much of a cultural footprint (other than two seasons of Patriot – which I’m still not over that they cancelled.) But we were taken with the notion that it wasn’t a typical tourist destination.
Turns out Luxembourg was the place to be. The Tour De France was setting off from the Grand Duchy that weekend. There were no vacancies in Luxembourg City, but we found a campsite outside the city and squeezed in amongst the cycling fans. In the onsite bar we asked the barmaid where to go in the city. She recommended her favourite nightclub where she’d be heading after her shift. Chris was instantly smitten with the prospect of meeting up with her later.
The night started well. Luxembourg City was buzzing. Everywhere was packed.
We randomly found ourselves in the main square just in time to see The Scorpions whistling the intro to Winds Of Change.
As the drink flowed Chris became focused on getting to the nightclub. It had only just opened when we arrived and half an hour later it was still just us and the bar staff. Chris was determined to find the beautiful women of Luxembourg so back out we went asking a taxi driver to take us to them.
The driver responded with a lascivious grin and assured Chris he knew just the place. My powers of deduction kicked in and I knew exactly what sort of establishment he was thinking of.
Sure enough, we pulled up outside a strip club, the driver looking pleased with himself told us we’d find what we were looking for inside.
Chris looked incredulous that such a misunderstanding could have occurred.
But that didn’t stop him skipping straight through the doors. Inside was a long room, bar at one end and stage at the other with a nubile young lady doing her thing on it. Nobody was paying her any attention until Chris went and stood right in front of her. For the second time that night – he was in love. And was convinced that she was too, from the way she had looked at him while she writhed around. I tried explaining that she was just doing her job, but logic wasn’t cutting it.
What did was impatience. After she didn’t reappear, he got bored – and was off again.
At the end of the street was a busy four lane road with a crossing.
The lights were changing and traffic setting off but Chris marched into the road to the sound of braking cars and angry horns. He laughed, banged on the hood of one car and carried on to the other side where he turned a corner and disappeared from view.
By the time the lights changed and I was able to cross he was gone.
I realised I’d made the major error of letting him take the instructions the barmaid had written down for how to get back to the campsite.
I didn’t even know its name. Based on experience, I figured he was most likely to have headed back to the nightclub to find the barmaid. I made my way back across the city, paid to go in for the second time that night and found that since we’d left, the beautiful people of Luxembourg had indeed arrived.
No Chris or the barmaid, though.
I got in the first available taxi with a driver who spoke only German. Which I’m not exactly fluent in but I do have a bit of a homing pigeon instinct for finding my way. And despite the language barrier, my first time in Luxembourg and it being dark I somehow directed him to the campsite.
Where I found Chris snoring loudly in the tent. I got into my sleeping bag feeling pretty pissed off.
The night wasn’t over yet though.
Sensing someone next to him through his drunken haze Chris put his arm round me, whispering sweet nothings while calling me by the name of the female friend that had recently dumped him. I pushed him off and he came straight back for more.
I knew he had a one track mind. But this was ridiculous. The fact he was still asleep didn’t stop his amorous advances and he was too drunk to wake up, I fought him off by delivering an elbow into his ribs, putting a backpack between us and the foghorn of snoring started back up.
It takes a lot of provocation to invoke fury in me but I was well and truly over that line.
Ready to pack up and find my own way back across France, and go home.
I was still awake as the sun came up. With no prospect of sleep I got out the tent and sat reading to calm myself down. A group of Dutch cycling fans emerged from the tents round me laughing at the extreme snoring from within. If only they knew the rest of it.
Finally he awoke, unable to remember anything after The Scorpions. I filled him in and he found it hilarious.
So hilarious, he called his parents to tell them everything.
Having had a few hours of not sleeping on it I decided to carry on with the trip and wait until we got home to face up to the fact:
That as friendships go: this one was a bust.
We drove on through the German Alps and into Austria. In a small mountain village we went for a drink to be served by an Irish barmaid. Of course. When we told her we were heading to Switzerland she said not to bother, it looks like Austria but costs more. She suggested Croatia instead. Which was a lot further away, but why not?
Other issues came to light.
One was music. There was only one CD he wanted to accompany the many hours of driving; The Best Of The Pogues. Specifically one song. It might have been July but Fairytale of New York was on repeat. The CD would go in and he’d skip straight to it then back to track 1 so that we’d get FONY again as it played through. Sometimes as the CD ended he’d go back to it for a third airing. We agreed to disagree on listening strategy.
Food was the other big issue. Second night of the holiday in the German Alps the one restaurant in the village was an idyllic wooden chalet, high on a hill. The waitress didn’t speak much English but we got by on mime and sounds, it was quite charming having her miming horns and mooing. Steak it was, then. It came rare which was fine by me but Chris wouldn’t touch his. Fair enough I guess, not everyone is as keen on a bloody steak. That was the spark he needed to eschew anything other than pizza.
Every day when it came to finding a suitable location to eat, it had to serve pizza.
And it was always a margherita. Most days it was pizza for lunch and again in the evening.
Sometimes we found restaurants where he could get his pizza fix and I could order something else but I still ended up eating a whole lot of pizza.
The nadir was in Italy where he declared that they weren’t as good as the frozen ones from the supermarket back home. In one Austrian restaurant, he got his usual while I struggled to work out what else was available and this waiter wasn’t in the mood for charades. I recognised “Schwein” for pig, and ordered.
What turned up was a large plate of fried pig in various shapes and sizes. I couldn’t tell what part of the pig they originated from but I guessed they may well be the parts I’d prefer not to ingest. Ah well, best not to know…. it tasted fine.
In amongst all that, we packed a lot in.
Swimming in a lake high in the stunning Austrian Alps, the leaning tower of Pisa, the dramatic Ligurian coastline in North West Italy with tiny fishing villages clinging to the cliffs and the picturesque sunflower fields and rugged beauty of the Verdon gorge in Provence.
Aside from the tension between us there were other cultural eye openers.
The standard of driving got worse the further east we went. To get to Croatia we had to drive through a thin sliver of Slovenia. We were part of a long line of cars moving in the same direction. You wouldn’t have thought there was room for overtaking but there was a constant stream of lunatics accelerating past us in the face of oncoming traffic.
It was like a massive game of chicken.
They’d scorch past as many cars as possible leaving it until the last moment before swerving back into the line.
You had to anticipate when an overtaking car was going to do this to hit the brakes and allow them space to carry out their evasive manouvre without hitting us.
Reaching Croatia with frayed nerves, we stopped at the first town, the beach resort of Opatija. The hotel said it was a 2 star establishment.
That was being generous. The lock on our door was loose, which became more of a worry when we were woken in the early hours by someone trying to get in.
They gave it a good go, the door was rattling and realising that it was locked (just about) banging on it and angrily shouting something we didn’t understand.
There was no way we were opening the door to find out the problem, and they eventually gave up. The shower had a design flaw in that it didn’t even reach waist height so the only way to clean more than just your legs was sit or kneel in the basin. Its not that Croatians are particularly short, maybe they just like inconveniencing tourists.
Venice, meanwhile, had weird parking rules.
Obviously you can’t drive into the centre, unless you’re James Bond and your car turns into a submersible.
We parked in a multi-story on the edge of the city, the attendant told us to park up, leave the car unlocked and give him the keys.
This isn’t standard procedure at home:, there’s no way I’d leave a car unlocked in public place. He said it was in case they needed to move the car. Which begged the question of why and where they might move it to. He couldn’t help us with that.
Sensing our reluctance, he told us the roof level was reserved for people who preferred that their car remained locked with a guarantee it wouldn’t disappear to a mystery location. Obviously, that cost more. But whether this was a shakedown or not we accepted it.
After two weeks, eight countries and 2,500 miles, we returned home.
There was one last issue to deal with before I could extricate myself from this friendship; money.
Chris had waited until we had crossed into France to let me know that he was so short of funds, I’d be covering the majority of our accommodation and fuel costs.
Two weeks camping at the French ferry terminal didn’t seem like fun. So I had no choice.
Having waited until his next pay day, he then asked if he could pay me back in instalments. There had already been so many last straws this one didn’t even register. No, I informed him, I’d like all of my money now.
He duly paid up.
And that was the last time I saw him.
Some of this stuff is fairly petty, like the pizza and Pogues – but it was all a continuation of a pattern we’d fallen into.
The lack of reliability and forethought were the real issues. Which all the little stuff piled on top of to leave me thinking this was all more trouble than it was worth.
And finally, despite the sense of adventure and stunning places we visited, it wasn’t worth it.
Sometimes you have to make a clean break.
Any future adventures would be on my own terms.
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Sounds like quite a journey! Glad you arrived at your destination intact!
I felt your discomfort and disappointment from here.
I would imagine that many folks have a story about someone who they consider to be a friend, that let them down.
I don’t mean as much a specific instance; we all make mistakes, and I’m a huge proponent of forgiveness and starting fresh.
What you described felt systematic. We all know you are a light-hearted person, and self described as having a long fuse.
But that had to sting.
Yeah, systematic feels like the right word. Just took a while to realise it even though early on I got a warning. We knew each other through work, about 6 months after we met he said he needed a new housemate as his had moved out so I moved in.
The utility bills were in his name so each month I gave him my share for him to pay the bills. Then we got a red notice from the electricity supplier for non payment. Turns out he was so bad with money he was using my share to keep himself afloat rather than paying bills. The bills were in his name so I left it with him to sort his mess out. On the more ridiculous side he went on holiday for a week with his girlfriend leaving the sink piled with his used dishes. I moved the dishes out the way and got on with my own stuff. He came back to find his unwashed dishes waiting for him and was incredulous that I had just left them. Touché.
The clues were there all along! I was only there 3 months when the landlord gave us notice to leave as he sold the house. I was glad to leave it behind and neither of us suggested getting another place together. If I’d lived there any longer the friendship probably would have ended a lot sooner. Not having to put with him everyday made it easy to forget what he could be like.
I wouldn’t recommend driving in Slovenia if you want to stay intact. The Autobahn even without a speed limit felt way safer!
The Autobahn is safer than US freeways. People follow the rules so the “No speed limit” thing is really quite safe.
The North American trip seemed to go so well that this isn’t how I expected it to end. I’m sure you’ve moved on to new friends and experiences and, hey, you got your money back, too!
I wouldn’t have anticipated at the end of our North American trip that just over 12 months later it would work out that way either! There were a few incidents after North America that made me question the value of this friendship and look back at how we interacted. The European jaunt just confirmed what I’d been thinking over the previous few months.
And yeah, I got my money back so at least he paid up. On the other hand it should never have got to that stage where in the first place. You live and learn.
I’m currently spending my Presidents’ Day trying to bake some proper tea cakes,* so it’s nice to get another installment from JJ!
My goodness, your friend sounds like a handful. And that’s me trying to be my absolutely most polite.
He seems to fit the stereotype that I call “The Dandy Lion,” because:
I’ve worked with a few of them, and they will hit on literally every woman they see. It would be impressive if it weren’t so pathetic.
Yet your friend also seems uniquely annoying, beyond the Dandy Lion stereotype. Just incredibly high maintenance, and the relationship only goes one way: his.
No thank you! I completely understand your decision to break it off.
I haven’t had an extended relationship with anyone quite like that, though my roommate from grad school was a handful in his own way.
He’s an extremely smart guy, but was experiencing a bit of a crisis in grad school, and he coped with his stress with alcohol. Not so rare, but he’s someone who does not seem to have an internal switch to set a limit.
So when he drank, it was like Dr. Jekyll turning into Mr. Hyde. Except that Mr. Hyde was a bit more like the Tasmanian Devil. Literally running about town, getting into trouble, getting kicked out of bars. I woke to a knock once morning and found two policemen there, kindly dropping off my roommate who was found sleeping outside of a shopping mall. And he was drunkenly yelling at the cops for not letting him be!
Needless to say, he could be a handful, to say the least. But he did eventually chill out, and curb his ridiculous stress drinking. And I still meet up and hang out once in a while.
I wonder how your friend is these days. Have you checked in at any point?
*I can already hear Paul Hollywood telling me, “with an enriched dough, you should have left more time for proving.”
He didn’t quite fit the Dandy Lion but there are similarities. He aimed to woo with his sense of humour rather than being primed for the club but he had that scattergun approach that the more women he tried this on with would increase his chance of success. And he didn’t necessarily want a harem, whenever he was single he was desperate to get into a relationship and once he was in a relationship he wasn’t exactly keen on staying in it.
High maintenance is definitely right though and what finally drove me mad. It wasn’t malicious on his part or that he intentionally used people for his own means, just that it never entered his head how he impacted on other people.
Glad to hear that your own story worked out better and he changed his ways. I haven’t checked in with Chris, life moved on and while it’s possible he changed I’ve not felt any need to go back.
Best of luck with the teacakes. How have they turned out? Hollywood handshake worthy?
Not handshake worthy, but good enough to enjoy with some tea!
Yikes! Chris sounds like a real “see you next Tuesday…” A clean break was definitely the best decision here.
I was just in Luxembourg last summer, and while I got no Scorpions performance, it was a lovely place to spend a couple of weeks, with little day trips to France, Germany and Belgium. Like to the level that my wife and I were considering moving there after we retire (if it were more affordable alas).
I noticed the synchronicity of you commenting last week about being in Luxembourg. You’re only the second person I’ve come across since my visit in 2002 that has been there. Its size and lack of cultural imprint means it gets overlooked. Delighted to find a fellow visitor. Aside from my travelling companion it was a nice place. Not sure it’s somewhere I’d spend a couple of weeks but it is very conveniently placed to get into France, Germany and Belgium.
WOW!
What a horrible, horrible “friend” to travel with!
I was with my cousin in 1992 for the entire summer, and while we didn’t get along (we split up in Berlin, met up again in Rome, but didn’t talk the rest of the trip), it never reached these depths.
Following that trip, any advice I give people concerning traveling started with this:
It’s also funny that we Americans get called “insular” when your travelmate would only order pizza that tasted like the frozen slabs from Tesco. I’ve seen it too often in England – one minute hearing us Americans criticized for not traveling beyond our borders (though it is almost the size of Europe), but on the next hearing about their ONE trip out of the UK to Ibiza and slamming the non-British aspects of it.
I think you’re being harsh on the Brits abroad. Some of them develop such a sense of adventure that they’ll replace their usual lager of choice with a San Miguel or even another lesser known Spanish brand. 😆
But yeah, we have had a reputation for that insular behaviour which gives the rest of us a bad name. I don’t think it’s the same as it was, it still exists but it does feel that there’s been a generational shift so it’s not as pronounced now.
My British friend would get beyond annoyed if she encountered another Brit on her travels here in the States or in Europe. She couldn’t stand their behavior, and was always like ‘I got off the island so I could have a break from you lot, aragh!!’ 😁
Come April 1st and we’ll be in Disneyland. We had friends over yesterday who have been a few times giving us some tips. She told us that when there last summer she had an American woman express surprise at her accent as she was a different colour to the other Brit women – as in she wasn’t an off-putting shade of orange or mahogany from too much fake tan and with painted on eyebrows to match. While our friend informed her that this wasn’t common to all Brits she couldn’t help but spend the rest of the holiday spotting them. Which was quite easy as they’re generally accompanied by a man in a football (soccer) shirt.
In our friends words, ‘nobody in America gives a shit about your football shirt’. They’re only wearing them out of some tribal instinct to show off to other Brits.
So, i wouldn’t go as far as to say I want to avoid other Brits but there is a certain class of Brits who unfortunately are the ones that draw attention to their nationality that I like to avoid.
Getting caught up on the past week – ugh, JJ, that sucks. Getting trapped with what turns out to be the less than ideal travel companion, ruins the entire experience no matter where you travel to. Kudos for tolerating him as long as you did.
BTW, totally jealous of the Tour de France experience. That’s a bucket list item for me – spend a day on a mountain stage, hang out with those crazy bike fans, that would be awesome!
No mountains in Luxembourg and to be honest, we didn’t actually see any of the cycling but I would love to experience a TdeF mountain stage.