-Europe: Part 2-
In many ways our tour began in Paris- and for me, that was the perfect beginning. Paris had been the city I had been wanting to travel to the longest, and I had spent so much time reading about it that I already knew my way around- something I realized everyone else found very useful when we would wander off in our smaller groups.
I remember being in awe of the beauty that the city had to offer; but, I would be dishonest if I didn’t say that our first impression of Paris was not the best. You see, Paris is a city that underwent what is termed as “the Beautification” under the creative architectural eye of Georges-Eurgene Haussmann between 1730-1798- wherein the poor of the city were forcibly moved from their slum homes and the entire centre of the city was demolished, only to be rebuilt in the glorious form we have come to know it as today. But, that is only half the picture.
The other side of the beautification is the reality that the slums of the city were simply moved outward- meaning that the first image you get of Paris when entering is one of dreary, grimy, and almost otherworldly compared to what we grow up seeing of it in movies and on tv.
One important thing to know is that Contiki tours get you where you want to go, and they are great value for the dollar; but, sometimes the hotels you stay at are a little less than ideal. For instance in Paris we stayed at an Ibis hotel on the outskirts of the city, one where we were greeted by a woman clearly on heavy drugs, one whom just walked right through our group- plowing through anyone in her way without even realizing what she was doing. Everyone was a bit taken aback; but we laughed it off due to the fact we were all extremely far from sober once again.
Once inside the hotel we learned we needed to use a seven digit key code to take the elevator to our rooms, and that our rooms also had another different seven digit code. This lead to four of us cramped in a small elevator attempting to get our code to work for over ten minutes, during which the elevator doors would close and the elevator would ascend, only for it to come back down. Everyone knew there were going to be a lot of us ending up locked out of our rooms just due to the complexity of getting in the door.
Once we managed to unpack everyone decided we would do the thing that screamed Paris the most- drink champagne at the top of the Eiffel Tower around midnight. This was the one time on the trip that the whole group decided to do the same thing, and so we began to climb the 1665 steps to the top (there was only one elevator working due to maintenance and we were told climbing would save us two hours waiting).
My excitement as we climbed was palpable. I was literally in shock that I had finally made it to a city I had felt connected to for over fifteen years, that I was taking in the view of one of the most iconic places in the world while my feet touched the steel structure so many people only dreamt to see in their lifetime. I felt a level of such deep gratefulness I find it hard to describe; but, to this day I remember how alive every part of my being felt as fifty strangers from around the world took on this once in lifetime adventure together.
The sun had just begun to set when we made it to the first observation deck of the tower, with everyone in awe of what we were all seeing- sharing with each other our thoughts about Paris and catching our breath before the second portion of our journey further up the tower. I will never forget how cool it felt to see day turn to night as we ascended the tower, reaching the top at 11:30pm. Everyone was barrel able to breathe; but, we were all excited for our alcoholic reward. That was when we learned some people really enjoy the suffering of others.
There is a small window bar at the top observation deck of the tower that sells the champagne- one where an older (much older) French gentleman with white handlebar moustache smiled at us as he turned the open sign off and closed the glass partition- shattering our fairytale booze filled ending of our first night in Paris.
We pleaded for him to serve us before going off for the night; but all that smug French fuck did was grin and shrug before walking away in to the darkness- never to be seen again. I can say French fuck because my moms family is French- and I am half French- and we are fucks, it is true.
Our group reaction was one that I am sure annoyed the hell out of anyone around us as we all moaned like children that we had spent three hours climbing the Eiffel Tower for a drink only to be turned away before midnight even came around.
We began our descent in defeat as we rushed toward the ground, and the nearest establishment that we could find that had a terrace and served adult beverages so we could chain smoke cigarettes and honestly soak in the fact that we were all privileged enough to be traveling the world and partying while everyone else we knew were back home doing relatively routine and boring things like work or god forbid having children.
Most of us had come on this tour to explore places we had wanted to see for years- to learn new things about what just one day before had been only a story in history text books for most of us. What none of us expected, at least I think, is that we would connect so deeply with each other. Don’t get me wrong- not all of us were best friends; but, we were all kind to each other, and everyone did have their little groups to break off in during the day to go do different things with.
The amount of things I learned on the tour have brought me to so many more interesting places over the years in so many different ways. I would say one of the first ways was giving me the chance to meet people from all different walks of life, and learning about who they were, where they came from, and where they were going.
It was amazing just how vastly different some of us lived from each other- like my frigid ass from Canada chatting it up with people from Africa where it’s so hot I would melt upon landing. With cultures so vastly different from each other, one would never dream of having friends from such far off places; but, I, like many of us came to learn that for every difference we all had, we had many things in common. I remember knowing at the time that this journey, and meeting these people along with all the others I would meet along the way would change me; but, I had no idea just how much, and I had no idea that it would form the next decade of my life.
There are so many stories from this time in my life that I could write a whole book on that alone, and so in the spirit of brevity I will give you a run through of some of the biggest moments over our next few days in Paris. It will be done in the style of “one time”.
One time in Paris I ate escargot for the first time- as a very picky eater who has a thing about textures and also eating things that can be found on a sidewalk. Our whole tour had some, and each of us had the same visceral reaction of gagging and chugging our entire glass of champagne to chase it down. I felt entirely valid for once when it came to rejecting food. Get me to the nearest fried chicken establishment, stat.
One time in Paris I went to the Red Light district where my table of friends and I drank a bottle of champagne each in less than two hours before walking in to a sex shop, where one girl Liza knocked over one sex toy by accident, and while trying to put it back managed to knock more things down; refusing to stop trying to make it better until the whole wall of toys collapsed and we were cussed out of the shop by the owner who called us “Stupid Americans” and he was mostly right because three out of five of my group were American- but my drunk ass felt the need to correct him and state that I was in fact Canadian as I ran out behind the rest of the group.
One time in Paris my friend Emily broke her glass at the bar and I tried to get low to the song Low by Flo-Rida (It was 2012 Vibes because it was 2012 bitches) only to fall in to the broken glass and get a piece lodged into the palm of my hand. Which lead to me taking the glass out and see blood gushing from a decently deep wound, only to then ask the bartender for pure vodka to sterilize the wound so I could proceed to fist-pump the night away Jersey Shore takes Paris style. Who had time for the hospital when you’re only in Paris for two nights? Not this freshly minted twenty year old.
One time in Paris I chain smoked five packs of cigarettes in two days because I was drunk and everywhere we went sexy French people were smoking which made us tourists want to smoke, and before we knew it we all sounded like ninety year old spinsters.
One time I had such a great time in Paris that I made it my mission to make Paris just a regular part of my life; but, more on that later.
Our next three days consisted of bussing it through France to Theize in the Beaujolais Region, where Contiki owns Chateau De Cruix, a few hundred year old Chateau that is connected to a vineyard in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by wine grapes and luscious green slopes and complete serenity- or so it would seem.
The chateau was stunning, and it even had a pool. Most importantly it had a nightclub in the basement with serviced bars throughout the property. What was even more amazing was that we weren’t the only Contiki tour there.
Two other tours were staying at the same time as us, with a total of one-hundred-and-seventy travellers from around the globe in the middle of the gorgeous French nowhere with nothing better to do than, you guessed it, drink.
We drank so much that the peace and quiet around us was drowned out by singing and just random fuckery of all kinds.
We would later come to realize we all got so drunk as quickly as we did because the peachy wine spritzy drinks we were partaking in due to the fact they tasted like Sprite and Peaches and were cheap actually contained fourteen percent alcohol- and we had all been double fisting them the entire afternoon. In hindsight we did have a chance to turn things around after learning how much booze was in each pretty little test tube like bottle; but, we were young, dumb, and up for fun- so we continued drinking.
We drank so much we learned we were fine with breaking tour rules when we hopped the fence that the French fucks who operated the place had put around the pool we were told we wouldn’t get to swim in for our two day visit and jumped in to the pool wearing formal attire. This lead to everyone almost getting kicked off the trip after one of the employees came out and saw us all soaked and we denied getting in the pool. Which, maybe we could have gotten away with if it wasn’t for the fact one girl from my tour left her Louboutins sitting beside the pool.
The employee asked her why all of us were wet and she said she had no idea because she herself had just gotten out of the shower (she was totally thinking she was selling this; but she was a drunk mess). The employee then asked her if the heels by the pool were hers, to which she responded yes.
Long story short, we didn’t get kicked off the trip for breaking the rules because all of us broke the rules. And, of course, this would only lead to us breaking more rules in the future. Rules that more often than not involved pools and us not being allowed to use them and most of them involved either formal attire or full frontal nudity Eurotrip style.
So, we survived the rule breaking and made our way to Antibes- which is near Nice in the south of Franc for two days exploring the Cote D'Azur.
Nice was absolutely stunning, and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea felt liberating as we stupidly played Marco Polo as a group of like fifteen before attempting to sunbathe on the beach which had rocks instead of sand and was super uncomfortable.
I was also gagged to get to visit Monte Carlo, and will never forget how everyone went from backpacker attire to James Bond vibes for one night of over spending in one of the most expensive cities in the world in the smallest country in the world (sans Vatican See of course).
And I would be doing a disservice to forget to mention our first evening in the south of France when we all went to the beach at night time to drink and wander a little, only to stumble on a family party that literally had their own DJ table set up with music blaring, and pizza and cake which they prompted us to share in after they invited us over to dance with them. None of us understood each other, and it was absolutely amazing. I learned that night that the world has so many wonderfully random gifts in store for you, if you're willing to take a chance and go find them.
We had conquered France, and were ready to move on to Italy- where we would visit Pisa, Florence, Rome, and Venice before heading on through Austria to Germany and our tour finale in the Netherlands.
Honestly, I was loving every moment of it because for the first time in my life I felt no reservations about just being myself and also doing some really dumb things in the spirit of living, learning, and having some fun stories to tell later on in life.
To me, stories are worth more than any material item, and that is why I chose to focus on putting my savings in to travel from a young age instead of saving for a car.
I biked to work daily for years, and honestly not having many friends meant I had a lot more time to earn money, and so, years later, I felt so much more comfortable being outside of my comfort zone than I ever thought possible. I knew it even then, that I would have to chase this feeling of growth, and that I would chase it for as long as it had this pull on my heart.
To me, all these little moments end up becoming memories that build who we are as people. I believe this building, this growth happens slowly over time- so slowly that we don’t always notice it as often as we should.
I also believe that growth is both beautiful and uncomfortable. That you cannot grow without changing your surroundings, without taking the time to see the world through the eyes of those around us. For me, this Contiki tour started as a dream vacation and became a life lesson on connecting and understanding the world around me.
I went from uncertain about taking time off school, to certain that I would never go back to school again.
These realizations began to dawn on me as I wandered the quiet countryside surrounding the chateau the next morning to shake off my hangover. I took the time to really soak in what I had experienced even in the first week after landing in London as lonely-boy, only to have already made new friends in places I was starting to learn so much more about through getting to know each of them. And we were only half way through the trip- still twelve days to go.
I do know you once again may be asking why these stories are important, and why they have made it to this blog. For me, these stories tell you who I was, where I was heading, and they will hopefully paint a better picture of how my soon to be marriage to an abusive man just three years later would destroy almost every bit of progress I had made to better myself and feel happy with who I was. I tell you these stories so you can get a better picture of how trusting the wrong person can shatter all you have to pieces.
I do not tell you this to scare you- in fact, in sharing this story my hope is only to help anyone who may be in an abusive relationship in some way survive.
