There’s a big biannual international conference for members of my profession, and in 2008 it was held in the town of Rijeka, in Croatia. Rijeka isn’t easy to get to; from the UK, flying in to Trieste is as good an option as anything. Since there was a big UK contingent heading to the conference, and a lot of us were on the Ryanair flight from Stansted, the conference organisers provided a bus for us.

We didn’t have long to wait in the arrivals hall; within a few minutes a guy had appeared and shouted that attendees at the conference should follow him to his bus. Thankfully, it was pretty comfortable, because the journey was loooooong. As we passed got closer to our destination, the average speed at which we were travelling dropped and dropped and dropped. It’s less than 80km between Trieste and Rijeka; but it took well over two hours to make the journey. Fortunately, the journey was quite sociable: everyone knew at least a couple of other people, and so there was plenty of conversation to pass the time. Two people seemed to be keeping themselves to themselves rather than engaging in the normal chat and banter, but that was their right. It was slightly strange that noone recognised them – but so it goes. That happens.

Eventually, we arrived at our destination, and the driver started a short tour of the hotels in the area, dropping people off.

I was booked into the hotel that was last on his route. The couple whom noone knew was mildly agitated by the time we arrived there, not having heard the name of their hotel called. One of them asked the driver when they’d be getting there. The driver looked puzzled; there was no hotel on his list that matched theirs. He asked to see their booking. They showed him a piece of paper. He looked at it, and looked at them with a sense of wonder.
"Your hotel is in Slovenia," he said.
"Yes."
"This is Croatia."
"..."

At the airport, they’d heard him call for conference attendees, followed him, and climbed aboard. They had been going to a conference, too. The problem was, it wasn’t ours. Since we didn’t stop at the Italy/ Slovenia border, they hadn’t realised we’d left Italy; they’d thought that the Slovenia/ Croatia border marked our entry into Slovenia, rather than our exit. Hence they’d not realised that they were in the wrong place, and had spent most of the afternoon on the wrong bus, and were now at the wrong conference venue, in the wrong town… and the wrong country.

Did we snigger at the likely intellectual calibre of the people at their intended conference? You betcha.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 19 Jul 2011, 11:03, 4 replies)

Having been to many similar things....
you would have thought they would have overheard the conversations and realised that people were (probably) talking about things no where near similar to their area of expertise and started asking questions.

Nice story ;)
(Studentken is looking for motivation on, Tue 19 Jul 2011, 12:31, closed)

I'd been thinking along similar lines.
They must surely have heard some of the conversations and thought, "Hey, they're talking about philosophy and making catty remarks about people of whom I've never heard. Why?". Very odd.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 19 Jul 2011, 14:25, closed)

Oh god,
I once took over 12 hours getting from Rijeka to Trieste, most of it in a huge traffic jam that turned out to be caused by a simple T junction and a complete buffoon of a police man failing to direct traffic. We weren't at all happy.
(Roopy all is not what it seams, Tue 19 Jul 2011, 13:35, closed)

I seem to remember that there was a massive delay
caused at a T-junction somewhere near the Italy/ Slovenia border. But the real problem is that most of the major roads in that part of former Yugoslavia seem to be single-carriageway. And used largely by tractors.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 19 Jul 2011, 14:26, closed)