Dumb Things I’ve Done While Traveling :)

Is there something about travel that makes us feel invincible?  As in, “I’m away from my normal routine, let’s live on the edge?”  Where things like stomach illness and gravity and looking like a total fool perhaps may not apply just because we’re on strange soil around people we’ll probably never see again?  I’m not sure what explains the decisions we make when we leave the comforts of home for the beauty of a foreign land (maybe nothing does), but for whatever reason, I’ve done some pretty oddball things.  Below is the short list:

1.  Sitting in St. Mark’s Square

This is a poor idea on multiple levels, as you might imagine.  Look behind me: see all those flying rats? (some would call them pigeons).  They are insidious.  Especially because, up until about a year and a half ago (and definitely during the time this picture was taken), it was legal in Venice to SELL BIRDSEED.  So of course a few enterprising Venetians set up shop in the middle of Piazza San Marco and promptly began taking advantage of sucker tourists who willingly spend their Euros to feed these evil, divebombing creatures.  This only leads to more birds.  It can get messy, if you get my drift.  You gotta keep MOVIN’ when you’re walking around there…and even then you run a risk of…let’s say needing to change before dinner.  I guess I am living on the edge here because I escaped unscathed, but still…not such a bright idea.

Also, Piazza San Marco is possibly one of the most crowded squares in all of Italy…definitely in all of Venice.  The ground I am sitting on is generally obscured by umbrella-wielding tour guides and their herds, hordes of confused foreign tourists and people waiting oh-so-patiently for entrance into the Basilica.  I could have gotten crushed!  How did I manage to look so chipper?

2.  Not reading a foreign menu carefully

Overconfidence in foreign language skills is often unfortunate.  One evening in Florence, in blissful ignorance, I ordered what I thought was a €12 steak.  I was pretty impressed when they brought out what looked to be around half a cow, which was tasty and delicious.  Such a deal!  THEN I got the bill – €48.  Oooohhh…€12 per ounce.  

Similar mistakes have led me to order the following in various countries: pigeon (Fes), beer mixed with Coca-Cola (Munich), a stuffing sandwich (Galway), fried ham hocks with the skin on (Vienna) and probably more I blocked from memory out of horror.

Luckily all but the beer were decent.  Why the Hofbräuhaus even has that on their menu is beyond me.

3.  Three words: Mexican. Rope. Swing.

Deep in Baja, past Ensenada’s taco stands and into the rolling hills where tiny farms spot the landscape, there is a place called Rancho Casitas.  There is no electricity and very little running water.  There is very little to do unless you have to tend your herd of cattle.  Therefore, entertainment must be found elsewhere.  Enter the rope swing – a giant cord with a thick knot on the bottom that hangs over a shallow ravine between densely-packed oak trees and over a section of very hard dirt.  The bottom of the knot hangs precisely 6 inches from the ground.

This presents several problems.  To jump, you need to sit or stand firmly on the knot (not easy), leap off a high, rickety wooden ladder (try not to whack the quickly-approaching ground with the low-hanging rope) and survive the wide arc that swings you smack dab into the unforgiving surrounding tree trunks as you twist helplessly about.  There are no ERs nearby.

I think I aged about 10 years after one good turn.  Still, like St. Mark’s Square, I’m just grateful to have escaped intact, though perhaps with a bit less dignity than before.

4.  Underestimated Paris

To someone from Los Angeles - a city so spread out that if you don’t own a car you will have no friends and no groceries - virtually any European city seems compact and adorable.  So on my last visit to the City of Light I figured I could hit all of Paris’ major museums from my fantastically central location at the Hotel du Louvre.

Wrong.  Not every museum is a brisk stroll, though the Orsay, Louvre and Centre Pompidou were.  Having conquered those 3, I was in the mood for some fantastically blurry Monet, so I headed in the direction of the Marmottan.  Easy right?

No.  The Musée Marmottan is so far on the outskirts of Paris it’s halfway to Boulogne.  In actuality it’s only about 5 miles, but that’s as the crow flies – I walked in about a thousand different directions, thus making it much harder on myself than necessary (in true Leslie fashion). I walked through neighborhoods that apparently so rarely see tourists I was eyeballed constantly, as if the neighbors were thinking “This chick MUST be lost.”  Also I made the poor decision to do this on the same day I saw the Eiffel Tower, which took me at a weird angle so I couldn’t even go toward the Marmottan in a straight shot.  By the time I reached the museum I thought my feet would fall off - and I am a pretty avid walker.  Needless to say, I took the Metro back.  Shoulda done that in the first place, but then again – Angeleno.

5.  Showed up in Dublin on a Friday night with no hotel reservations

No matter how good the company, when you’re rolling a suitcase around Temple Bar at 11:00pm, clearly looking like a lost tourist searching for accommodations, surrounded by merrymaking Irish twentysomethings who have little to no sympathy for your plight, you do feel kinda silly.  Then when you end up in a party hotel with a bevy of men outside on the streetcorner shouting “Fook you, mate!” at 2:00am, you’re so tired you can only see the humor. 

God, I love Ireland.

What about you? Done anything incredibly dumb while on vacation you’re willing to ‘fess up to?  

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