Remember Stalker Boy?
Well, because our mums were such good friends, I ended up being press-ganged into a week in Austria with him a couple of years ago. All well and good, I thought, I can put up with him for a week as long as I have pretty mountains and chalets and so on and don't have to look at his ugly mug 24/7 (the sight of him in swimming trunks was nearly enough to make me like girls).

Anyway, we have an okayish week, marred only by him yelling at his brother for breathing, the previously mentioned swimming trunks, and his obsession with the Sound of Music meaning we had to go to Salzburg three days in a row ("Ooh, I'm standing where Julie Andrews stood, dear! Take my photo!"). No, the worst bit was getting stuck in Salzburg Airport because our plane was delayed for six hours (something fell off it, apparently).

Having not found this out till we went through security, we were stuck upstairs in the departure lounge with him being a total plane-spotter (I tried to get him to take photos in the vain hope he'd get arrested and give us all a break) and banging on about how the week before he'd worked out the route on his flight simulator (as used by 9/11 terrorists, you know, dear...). I've never been so glad to see Birmingham in my life.

On a previous trip to Austria with my parents, we went on an organised trip to Salzburg with a tour guide named Hans, whose assistant was also called Hans, and so was the driver. He wore lederhosen. This was in 2002, the year that Prague and a lot of cities in Europe flooded. The rain started just as we got to Salzburg and didn't stop for the entire time we were there. The coach on the way back had air conditioning but no heat, and it was two hours back to the resort. The coldness. Fortunately I've just come back from Austria again and there were no psycho stalkers and no attempts to freeze us to death.

Similarly, the year before I went to Bremen with the school on an exchange trip. The flight itself was okay, but when we got to Hanover to land the plane swooped up and down in a circle several times (this was about three weeks after September 11), before the pilot decided we were going to land at Bremen instead. Cue weepy drama-queen girls convinced they're going to die every time the plane turns, and again Stalker Boy talking about ghosts and flight simulators. Followed by two hours in a coach to Saxony.

I regularly make what I believe to be The Worst Journey In The World - the stupidly long trip from Leicester to Cardiff to visit my elderly mad relatives. For trips like this, I like to keep Highway To Hell on my iPod and listen to it a lot.
( Maladicta, Thu 7 Sep 2006, 14:44, Reply)