funny,scary, or just plain memorable travel stories

[Annette33]

Besides being hosts, most of us are also avid travelers. I bet we can fill the entire world map with plenty of pins of places we all have been to. That to me is the most fascinating aspect here in the forum: that we "meet" people from all around the globe and connect  -  a big thank you to Airbnb for making that possible  🙂

Travel is one of my passions, encountering the unexpected and being open to it, is always a thrill, be it  exchanging money on the black market in Chile to finance my trip to the Eaaster Islands, getting cornered by a nasty East German border guard when crossing the border back into  West Germany, or having a helpful Italian dude hop into my car when I was hopelessly lost in the traffic in Rome and driving me to my pension, oh traveling! So I have been to lots of places around the globe and never get tired of exploring more. 

Would be so fun to hear YOUR stories - let's share, I go first:

Here is my funny story:  So as a 22 year old, blonde, tall girl from Germany, I just had to escape the drudgery of law school for a few weeks, and so I scheduled an imprompu trip for myself to Northern Africa. Convincing my then boyfriend was not that difficult, as a young American in Germany he was open to anything. So off we go in my 1956 (!) VW beatle, with just a few clothes, a backpack and tent stuff thrown onto the back seats.

Through France, Spain, Portugal , we eventually crossed over to Marocco - and it was like arriving in another world all together! As a young woman, I quickly learned,  I was not supposed to go by myself to the market, to look into people's eyes, to engage them into conversations...it surely was a man's world there.

Anyhow, we adjusted, I put on long pants, no more shorts, mostly put a scarf around my hair, tried to "quiet down", so all can be happy now with my presence I thought...well.... another few hundred or thousand miles east, we get into Algeria. To get the visas had been very difficult, at that time it was not a country to see many Westerners come through, certainly not carefree young students.

Somehow, I don't even remember the city, I think it was Oran, we connected with local students, and not being able to tent camp in the concrete jungle of the big city, we happily accepted the offer of one of the students to spend the night in his student dorm. "But you must be very quiet", he implored us, "this is a dorm only for male students". We took the first hurdle , getting me in without anybody noticing. 

Sharing the narrow twin bed with my boyfriend wasn't optimal but we sure had a good night's sleep anyways.  But waht do I hear very early the next morning?? Somebody is banging keys, and it sounds like each door down the long hallway is getting opened, some jabber jabber talking ensues, doors are closed, then the next door gets unlocked and opened - clearly that sound is getting closer and closer, it will just not go away!

What to do?? Not having enough time to think it through, sure enough our door is  getting unlocked and opened, 3 guys in blue overalls are staring at me in total bewilderment as if I had just descended from Mars, then they start wildly hollering and gesturing in my direction. I pull the bed sheet up as high as I can over my birthday suit, try a smile and a vague "bonjour", ( second language in Algeria is French).

But I still can't hide that I am female. It also doesn't help that my American boyfriend is oblivious to the situation at hand, we both don't speak Arabic - so being a type A and speaking French makes me the designated go to person. "Je m'appelle Annette, mon mari s'appelle John",  I go and I point at my boyfriend , thus elevating him in no time from boyfriend to husband . (I thought that was a wise move, considering their culture. ) I reassure them that we love their country, "j'aime bien l'Algerie", I add.

So the 3 guys calm down a bit afterv that proper introduction, turn their heads away from me and  tell me in broken French that they need to check the heat radiators - which are behind the bed! Boyfriend jumps out of bed to make room for them, grabs the bed sheet to cover himself up, well great: now I am really totally uncovered. Mustering my last bit of chutzpah left I wave them over, say something like "eh bien, pas de probleme,"  and scoot out of the bed, grabbing an old sweatshirt I see over the  chair next to the bed.

Dignity restored, I just start laughing like a silly goose. Well - they all joined in! They then decided withing 10 seconds that the heating system was in fine order and headed out to the door to the next dorm room. I put my finger up to my mouth, wispering "shhhhh" - and they get it! They do the same thing, put their fingers up to their lips, making "shhhh" and off they go...

Still wondering after all these years if they kept the story to themselves, but something tells me that they probably bragged to all their male friends about finding this naked  German girl in the all male dorm.....

[Terri38]

Red Square, Moscow.
We (my teenage son and I) wanted to see Lenin's Tomb.  To do that, you had to go through a checkpoint about 200m away from the entrance.  The checkpoint is manned by two guards armed with AK-47s and you have to empty your pockets, go through a metal detector etc. 

We don't speak Russian but when the built-like-a-tank guard wants something of yours, you give it to him.  In this case, the guard wanted the stuffed toy seen peeking out of my son's jacket pocket (collecting stuffed toys as souvenirs is not your typical teenage thing, but kids with Asperger's Syndrome are not typical kids!).  I let my son know that I would ask my cousin to find another Nessie (as I wasn't sure we would get this one back...) 

The guard slings his AK-47 and waves his metal detector wand over Nessie.  We assume he is checking for explosives or some other nasty and just wait it out.  Nope!!  He just wanted to hug a Nessie!!

Armed guard, built like a tank, grinning and hugging a google-eyed Nessie.  We got our Nessie back. I wish I could have taken a photo of that, but I didn't dare!