What Can Go Wrong?

I've had quite a few mishaps while traveling and since this is the day before I leave for Rome for four months I will use it as an opportunity to explain that I don't always have the best of luck.

The first place I ever went outside of the United States was Poland with my grandmother, her sister, and my sister. Gwen and I signed up because it sounded exciting but it turned out to be a religious pilgrimage and she and I were the only ones under 67. (I was 9). But we had a good deck of cards, the older people spoiled us with ice cream, and we had fun. After the twentieth church tour and one of a castle, our bus stopped at what I would remember as a weird fenced in and rather eerie place. Grandmom Menton told me to wait in the bus, but I was sick of playing rummy and the it was starting to smell like old people, so naturally I ran to follow her into the museum. Now, of course, I know the history behind the concentration camps but I remember being very disgusted by the piles of braids, glasses, and prosthetic legs. When the guide talked about the "gas chamber" I thought she said "guest chamber" and got excited for the crippled children that were sent there because I thought they would be taken care of. I'm glad Grandmom never corrected me and made me stay outside during that part of the tour, because it would have added to the nightmares I had for the rest of the week. Lesson number one: even if the smell is getting overwhelmingly geriatric, it might be wise to stay on the bus.

The summer after my sophomore year in high school I went to England and Scotland with the Girl Scouts. Scotland was a last minute trip and we made arrangements to sleep on the floor of the Girl Guide's hall, little did we know that the entire city of Edinburgh shuts down at 6pm preventing major shopping excursions that we would undoubtedly have undertaken, and the key to the hall sticks. We were stuck on the stoop for hours trying to sleep on some cardboard boxes that my mom scrounged up from nowhere. Then the caretaker's son comes stumbling up the road from a pub, but this drunk and confused man would turn out to be our savior because he woke up his mother and she let us into the warm. Lesson number two: learn when a city usually closes up shop and how to turn a key before you leave your warm place to sleep.

Gwen and I went to Paris in January of 2008 and due to snow in Chicago got put on a direct flight. This sounded like a good deal at the time but our luggage had already been sent to Chicago, where it missed the flight to Paris. So we get to Paris in the morning without luggage, but with a promise that it will be delivered to our hostel the next day. The hostel room turned out to be not much more than a hole in the ground with a full size bed and a cot sized bed. Gwen claimed the full which upset me until we realized it wasn't much more than a wooden plank with sheets and the cot had a little bit of cushion. We spent the day shopping which sounds fabulous but when you're jet lagged and in the same clothes for 36 hours its very difficult to get motivated. We found outfits and it was a blessing because the suitcases didn't come until midnight of the next day. Lesson number three: always pack a spare set of clothes in your carry-on, even if it's just underwear, and test out the beds before claiming them.