International Road Trip Horror Story

During the summer of 2001, I took a bus tour across Italy, France, Austria and Switzerland with a group of fellow students. It was an all-inclusive package: airfare, hotel, tours, and food all for a remarkably cheap price. I soon found out, however, why we got such a discount.

Straight off the plane we meet Boris, the "best bus driver in Europe" (these our the words of our travel guide, not my own). Boris spoke no English. He also spoke no Italian, German, or French. And so our travel guide, whom the student group association had apparently hired at Trade Ready, or picked up off the side of the road, was the only one who could speak Russian with Boris. The two had a good laugh together, then enjoyed a sip or two of the vodka Boris kept under the driver's seat. (I am not making this up).

Now, what law of nature is it that says whenever one gets lost, one ends up in the worst part of whatever city one happens to be in? This happened as soon as we got near Rome. Boris stops for the travel guide, who I will call Dave, to ask for directions - right outside this run-down building hosting an upside-down American flag, with a gang of thuggish looking men standing around outside, looking like they were just waiting for a bus full of tourists to murder.

Okay, so we didn't get murdered, but when we get into town, we see an accident up ahead. The road is completely blocked with standstill traffic, so Boris does the only thing any sane driver would do - he waits for the traffic to clear. Ha ha, no! - he pulls up onto the curb, of course, and starts barreling down the sidewalk, with women and children and the elderly with walkers having to dive out of the way. The whole time Boris is laughing maniacally and Dave is saying, "See? Best bus driver in Europe. He get you there on time!"

The next time Boris gets us lost is on the interstate. We are cruising along, admiring the Austrian countryside: "Oh look at the beautiful old church with stained glass windows!" An hour and a half later: "Oh look at that beautiful old church with the stained...wait a minute!" Boris, realizing he is lost, pulls off the highway and starts making a series of right hand turns (I later realize that this is his general driving strategy, and the reason we get lost in every major city in western Europe) and ends up in a cow pasture, with the wheels stuck in mud (I hope it was mud). To comfort themselves, Boris and Dave do another shot of vodka.

Later in Austria, we are boarding the bus after a quick shopping spree. The idea of this tour apparently is to drop us of in some random city, and tell us to come back in an hour. I guess the theory behind this is that a large group of unsupervised high school kids can't possibly get in that much trouble in an hour (they don't know high school kids that well). So we are on the bus, driving off, and here comes a dump truck. Boris swerves - toward the dump truck. We sideswipe it with a horrible screech of grinding metal. The truck driver gets out and Boris keeps driving, laughing of course, with the truck driver shaking his fist after us and cursing in German.

At the end, Dave asks Boris how he liked the trip. He turns to us, and replies in English, "Italy, Austria, Switzerland, France....BAAHHH!" Then he laughs like a madman and tips back his bottle.