RYSZ.COM - European Trip 1990

My European Vacation 1990

Back in 1990 my best and oldest friend Matt asked me if I wanted to go to Ireland with him. I have known Matt since we were in grade school. He was a member of a local Drum Corp and they were going to Arklow, Ireland for a competition. He had been there the year before and had arranged that we could stay with some people he was friends with. The plan was to spend a week in Ireland and a week traveling across Europe.

Ireland July 2-8

When we arrived in town I was struck by how many bars there are. There are only a few thousand people there but I counted 15-20 bars!!!! I think it was the same day we arrived we went to visit some of Matt's other friends just to stop in and say hi. I recall seeing lots of portraits of Kennedy and of course at every house we had to have some tea.
The weather was awesome that week. Apparently it had rained for over a month straight and the day we show up it was sunny and in the high 70's. Our first embarrassment was that they attributed the good weather to the arrival of the Americans! I kid you not!!!! I was sort of a party pooper on this trip due to the fact I had attempted to drown myself by drinking a 2 liter bottle of Purple Passion a few days before (girl trouble).
I never saw any sights while we were there. Each day was filled with competitions and such. At night we would go to the bars and hang out. Towards the end of the week we had a memorable night at one bar. The entire bar was filled with band members from all over the world and some of the people got up and played some music. Eventually some of the Irish played some songs and I sang along with them. Thanks to The Pogues I was familiar with some of the songs. What an amazing experience to sit in a bar thousands of miles away singing folk songs! The bars close early there so they close all the shutters and lock the doors and we all had to keep quiet but we stayed there for a few hours more. Seems it is a common practice there. The other major event during the week was a parade through town with all the marching bands. They had a reviewing stand setup which was basically a trailer with the side cut out. Each band would perform in front of the reviewing stand. The second embarrassing thing to occur was when we (The Americans!!!) were forced to go up on the reviewing stand along with the Mayor and other visiting dignitaries!!! Now the mayor is all dressed like a sterotypical mayor and here is the two Americans standing up there in t-shirts and shorts (we got teased by all the guys for wearing shorts). I swear they treated us like royalty. They were not to keen on my name. "Rysz, yes it's polish." ...awkward silence... "ummm well my Mother's name is Reilly."
BINGO!!!!!
Oh I was long lost family then. They wanted to drive me over to the next town because they knew of some Reilly's who lived there. From then on I was called "David O'Reilly". It was a fun week. On to England!

Europe July 8-12

We flew over to England from Ireland and in the airport Matt was pulled aside by British Customs. Maybe it was his buzz cut and Revo sunglasses but in any case they pulled him aside to question him. They asked if he was travelling alone and he said no and pointed to me!!!! DOH! I was questioned as well. No harm done. We spent the afternoon in London and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe then took the train and then the ferry over to Cherbourg, France.

Europe July 8-12

Paris, France

We visited The Louvre museum and saw all kinds of famous works of art like the Mona Lisa and the statue of David. It was kind of cool because you saw artists with their easels there painting the works of art on the walls. We also paid a visit to Versaille to check out the palace. Of course we had to visit the Eiffel Tower but we just stood under it because the lines to go up were way to long. We also ate at McDonald's one time! We didn't eat much when we were in Europe. We would go to grocery stores and get crackers and such to eat. We also didn't stay in many hotels. We slept on the trains. I think we stayed in just 2 hotels. One in Paris and the other in Nice. America will always rule the world if only because we have real toilets. In Europe, you have to pay to use the bathroom. Usually like 10 or 25 cents. I had to go bad and paid the woman and walked into the bathroom in the train station. Ok there is the urinal wall... I need a toilet. I opened a door and saw what looked like a shower stall, there was a hole in the center of the floor. I walked back to the woman and shrugged. She followed me back and pointed to the hole in the floor. Ummm That??? She kept pointing so I figure it was the place. Nothing like squatting over a hole in the floor to take a dump. In my book, this does not qualify as a civilized society! Oh when you flush the toilet on the train it dumps it onto the tracks! I swear! There is miles of a lime running down the center of the tracks. there is even a sign in the bathroom warning not to flush in the station!

Nice, France

Lots of naked people on the beach. Beautiful blue water. Many of them quite attractive but also many old people.... *cringe*. I got sunburn on my feet. Very bad sunburn so bad I had to lather up my feet with suntan lotion just to get my shoes on. Also on the way to Nice we ran into two American girls who we shared a cabin with. It was nice to run into some Americans. It was also kind of scary because someone was robbed on the train at knife point so the police inspected every car. Cannes is right next door to Nice so we headed over there to see where all the celebs go for the movie festival. Matt and I started our American tradition of not paying for buses here. It didn't seem like anybody was paying so we stopped paying. We figured we were Americans and did not need to pay...

Monte Carlo

A 30 minute trip by train gets you from Nice, France to Monte Carlo. We knew we had to dress up to get into the casino's so I brought one nice set of clothes to wear. What a awesome place! It all sits on a hillside overlooking the harbour with lots of very large and expensive boats. Matt was sure the last train left at Midnight or 1 AM, so we got to the train station after several hours of gambling only to find the gates to the station locked. Now we only stayed in two hotels on this trip and the Novatel in Nice, France was waiting for us 30 miles away. We didn't know what to do so we started walking. There was not much along the road and finally Matt decided it was time to hitchhike. Thankfully a french kid stopped and picked us up. We said "Nice" and he took off. Didn't speak a word of English and drove like a maniac. We got into our room at like 6AM grabbed a couple of hours of sleep and left.

Milan, Italy

Even after watching Sesame Street and the Electric Company I could not remember the Italian word for water. I could remember Spanish and German and I was so thirsty I kept pointing to the tap in the cafe and the guy eventually figured out I wanted AQUA! My feet were so burned I could not walk far. I remember sitting on a park bench with my shoes and socks off while Matt laid on catching some rays. We went to a museum and Matt got yelled at for using his flash on his camera.

Barcelona, Spain

We had to change trains once we entered Spain. They do not use the same gauge track as the rest of Europe. This was one strange and interesting place. Taxi drivers are down right aggressive! They came running over trying to help us into their car, it was annoying. We managed to escape them and Matt had a bad feeling about Barcelona so he offered to pay for an expensive ( and hopefully safer) hotel. We went out to dinner and walked around the streets. It was amazing how many people were out and about and it was almost midnight. I remember seeing large groups of people wandering around and also groups of soldiers with automatic weapons. That kind of freaked me out. The next day we visited the Rambles. Which is sort of like 42nd street. Well without the porn. This place had street peformers like a woman dressed like a statue and she would not move. People were selling all kinds of animals on the street. Parrots and even monkeys! We had considered going to one of the little islands but the ferries only ran on certain days and it was not one of those days. We walked around and saw the sites. Oh yeah, seeing an armed guard in Burger King was a lot of fun as well!

Holland

I wanted to go to Amsterdam but Matt was against it so instead we went Scheveningen Beach and Den Haag. Lots more naked people! This beach was strange. The water was not clear like France. In fact it was very muddy and shallow. You could walk out for a long way and the water was only waist deep. There were so many people on the beach it made it hard to walk around.

Back in Ireland July 12-15

It was a fun week until 2 days before we were leaving... The whole week I had not had any alcohol. I still felt sick even though it had been almost a week since I poisoned myself on Purple Passion. I finally felt like a beer so I had a beer at this bar we were at. I think it was the "Old Ship". We were hanging out with the daughter of our host family and her husband. We were all drunk and enjoying ourselves. We stumbled home and I went to sleep. The next day I was violently ill. I had the runs like you would not believe. I was so sick I spent the last 2 days in Ireland in bed. Food poisoning from dirty beer taps!!!! I could not go to far from the house because I had such bad diarrhea. My last two days were spent in bed. The day came to fly home and Matt had decided to stay longer but I had not the money or the time off from work to do the same. Besides I was so sick I just wanted to go home. I didn't know how I was going to survive the 5 1/2 hour flight home. Our host offered me a alka seltzer tablet and after taking it I threw up like like 5 minutes later and behold! I felt better! I wish I had known all I had to do was barf!!! So my flight home was ok. I was still sick for 3 or 4 days after I got home. Food poisoning is not fun and I do not recommend it!