After a week in Italy Carey and I were heading to the South of France. The drive alone made the 4 hour detour worth it. No wonder there's a toll every hour, how else are they ever going to pay for the 10,000 tunnels that make up the hwy from Italy to France? Of course when we first started going through the tunnels I did what any mature adult would do, hold my breath. Carey got a kick out of this because some of the tunnels ended up being ridiculously long and watching me starve for oxygen really seemed to make his day. After about 40 minutes of huge tunnels with very small gaps in between and no end in sight I started to feel pretty light headed and had to call it a day on the breath holding. I've got to hold on to the precious brain cells I've got left.
When I was imagining the South of France I had pictured us lounging on the beach, working on our tans with a bunch of topless ladies with hairy pits. Surprisingly enough that's not at all how our 3 days there went. We were staying in a small town just outside of Cannes called La Napoule and a seriously awesome hotel called Corniche d'Or for about 50 euro a night. This got us a room with a balcony (about 3' by 6') which had a view of the town courtyard just a few steps away from the most amazing grocery store and bakery known to man. We did spend one day at the beach, which was absolutely beautiful. The bulk of our time was spent people watching from the balcony and of course me kicking Carey's ass at every dice/card game possible while eating countless baguettes.
One day after stocking up at the market across the street with a few liters of wine (which is very cheap but substantially less drinkable than cheap Italian wine) a problem arose. Long story short I had somehow dropped both of our pens down into the much larger unused patio below. I was feeling pretty good at this point, a little tipsy and still kicking ASS at dice. I had to get those pens back asap. We had noticed earlier that other guests from the hotel hung up their room keys as they left on a hook at the front. Being suspicious distrusting Canadians we never did this. How perfect for this situation though! I would just cruise down and grab the room key for the room below us.
When I got to the lobby area there was only one man there t checking out the brochures, so I felt pretty safe snatching the key and running back up the stairs. Thinking back this probably looked extremely conspicuous. I climbed three flights of stairs to the door of room 7 and knocked on it a few times waiting about 2 seconds before letting myself in calling out "house keeeeepinnnggg" just to be safe lol. Once I was in I saw that someone was in fact staying in the room but luckily was not home. I then clued into the fact that I was really breaking into some guys room and started to PANIC. What if he caught me in here? What would I say? I don't even speak french. Great now I'm going to be raped, beat up and thrown in jail all over a couple fricken pens. I ran over to the patio doors, yes there are 2 fully separate locked french doors between me and the patio. There's no real way of getting through them fast or quietly because they are both probably 50 years old. When I finally got onto the patio I grabbed the pens and looked up only to see Carey pointing at me and laughing like a hyena. Maybe next to him I could be inconspicuous? In this moment next to him I look like a god damn ninja.
I closed and locked the 2 french doors and front and lightning speed desperate to get out of this situation unscathed. I felt instant relief once I was back out into the hallway. Now all I had to do was return the key to the hook. I ran down the two flights of stairs into the lobby to see the man who was looking at brochures earlier sitting behind the desk on the computer. Turns out he was the owner, great. As I was making my way to the key hooks when I noticed a man coming in the front door. This distracted the owner at the just right time and I replaced the key to the room 7 hook, turned and ran up the first flight of stairs. I couldn't help myself and I turned back from the top of the first flight to see which key the man was going for. Of course he's reaching for the only key that's swinging back and forth, room 7. He turned and looked at me while trying to process the situation. I did what anyone would have done, sprint back into my room, shut the door and double locked it.
When I got back onto the patio I started to tell Carey the turn of events which almost lead to my capture. Had I been 30 seconds later I would have been caught red handed with a key that was not mine or worse, in his room! It's then that I hear the patio doors below us open. The man comes out onto the patio and looks directly up at us. I smile and wave, giving my most Canadian "Bonjour!" I was obviously shitting my pants on the inside. He had clearly realized I broke into his room but could see that nothing was missing so didn't have grounds to say anything about it. Yep, I totally got away with it.
We celebrated that evening by heading out to an Irish bar. Quite random but I guess you can find an Irish bar pretty much anywhere. Met a strange dutch man and proceeded to booze heavily with him for the rest of the evening. Overall it's a bit blurry but I do remember one shot he bought for us which changed my world, tequila, sambuca and espresso. Seriously the most revolting thing to hit my lips since the raw hamburger I accidentally ordered the night before.
Waking up the next morning it was all I could think about. Why is it that when your extremely hung-over your mind keeps taking you to the WORST drink you had of the whole night before? It's like having a bad song stuck in your head, but much worse. I don't usually suffer from hangovers that aren't cured by a double cheeseburger, this morning was an exception. Of course this is the day we have to make the 4 hour trip back to Italy and drop our rental car off in Milan. Actually I think the only time I get THIS hangover is when I have some impossibly long painful thing I must do the next day. Carey of course was totally fine and not feeling nearly as sorry for me as I am feeling for myself. After a couple pukes which resembled slug slime and black liquorice we were ready to go. I forced down a croissant and settled in for ride. It was sad to leave France. I was leading the winner’s board by a cool 10 games. Who knows if I'll ever find another place where I'm actually luckier than Carey? Goodbye France.
We had booked a hotel in Milan for 1 night and were heading out on a 6am train to Innsbruck, Austria. We made it to drop off our car with literally 3 minutes to spare before they closed. Somehow close calls seemed to be a reoccurring theme on this trip of leisure. Anyways, Milan was sort of like an Italian Vancouver but less beautiful. Seriously, it’s not that special and hardly worth staying in for more than a few hours. Our hotel was extra ghetto but at least it was walking distance to the train station out of there.
In the morning we hopped on the train, my first ever train ride actually. Europeans got this right; trains are the way to travel. After a scenic trip 6 hour ride we had arrived in Innsbruck. This place is a MUST SEE. The buildings are all pastel colors that reminded me of easter eggs. The town is in a valley between a few massive snowy mountains. Sadly we only had 1 day there. We made the best of it and cruised around town for the afternoon and ending up in some sort of farmers market for a few steins of beer. One of the BEST things about Europe as a whole is that you can get a beer ANYWHERE you want. No one is judging you for cracking a beer at any point of the day. As we sat in this market and got a little drunk I remember thinking, does life get ANY better than this?! Well, turns out it does. We picked up our motor home rental the next day......
