Backpacking through Europe in 1994

Day 41 • October 17 - Part 1, 1994
Tours, France

My Photographs from Tours

Day 41 / 10-17-94 / Part 1
Tours, France

Wow, I’ve been in France for over one month, today I’m leaving for Denmark and I haven’t written down one thing that I’ve done. Well, I have some time to kill now so I’ll try to remember the highlights.

The first week was very hectic. For starters, it was so good to see Olivier again that I wasn’t thinking too much about anything else. Rachel was with him, and the first thing that struck me about her was how French she looked. Long, dark, tousled hair, dark eyes, dark eyeliner, sexy black dress that revealed a little too much of the black lingerie underneath. As Olivier put it, “She is quite attractive!”

We went back to Athee su Cher (the street where they live) so I could shower and change (I hadn’t in over 48 hours).

I slept in the afternoon and that evening Olivier and I got drunk and talked about old stories, like the first time my Mom farted in front of him; or when he got stuck in Lincoln, Nebraska (about a two hour drive from Kearney) in a blizzard (and couldn’t get back) and Brandy (our dog) shit all over the house and he had to clean it; or when he had sex in our hot-tub. I couldn’t believe it. I lived there for nine years and never did, yet he did in the nine months he lived with us.

Anyway, another reason the week was hectic is because Olivier had the week off from work, so he and Rachel wanted to do a lot of traveling. First we went to a farmhouse with no hot water or toilet to visit Rachel’s grandmother. The next day we went to the village of Angers, and the following day to the town of Poitiers to visit two of Olivier’s friends.

We started the drinking before going to a bar – one of the few slang words that is the same home and here: “prime”!

There was karaoke but I wasn’t as big a hit as I was back home at Ravenna or the Palm Garden Lounge.

After a few hours we returned to the flat where I had my first breakdown.

We were all quite drunk and they were teasing me about American’s shyness with public nudity. To make matters worse, they (Olivier and his two guy friends) took their pants off – and left them off! I was quite embarrassed and asked them to please put them on. They refused, and egged me on to do the same.

After about 15 minutes of this I snapped, left the room and started crying. It was the last straw – I was sick of everything being so fucking foreign. I hadn’t understood anything all week: Directions, Plans Being Made, Food, TV, Newspapers – Nothing!

So I just Exploded. Luckily, Rachel chased after me and calmed me down, and Olivier soon followed and apologized. Everything worked out ok and now it’s the joke, but that night I would’ve given anything to be back at the Dome playing Sega.

The next day was much better. We went to a place called Futuroscope, a huge theme park dedicated to sight and technology of movies. They had an IMAX movie theatre, an OmniMax theatre, a 360 degree theatre, two different 3-D shows, and a “Magic Carpet” Theater with a screen in front of you and below your feet – which does wonders for the effect of flying – and three excellent simulators.

Possibly the best though was that I checked out a headset that translated everything into English for me.

When we returned to Tours the following day I was introduced to Olivier’s favorite watering hole called Donald’s Pub. It’s actually a pretty cool place, and reminds me of a cross between O’Mally’s and Copperfields (bars in my hometown), except of course everything costs five times as much. $5-$6 for a small beer. $2 for a Coke. $4 for a shot. $1 for a coffee.

It was this first night there that I met two girls who would become friends of mine, Karine and Corrine. After trying out my new French pick-up lines on them, we spent the night talking.

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