I wondered the same thing the first time I browsed this forum for about 20 minutes a few months ago. But when I went back a few hours later and saw the way the messages move to the top, it became quite obvious. Therefore I think the inquirer is being a bit disingenuous. Unless it's his first hour using the site and he's not the shy type about asking a question right away, I don't believe he really can't understand this. someone please tell another story to get this thread back on track. I've already told three in about the past two weeks.

My family and I invited a friend that we thought would be fun to travel with on a group tour of Italy. As a family we travel well together. Inviting her was a big mistake. She talked non-stop (we couldn't get a word in edgewise), complained about everything (hotel, foods, her roommate, etc.). We ate dinner at our hotel every night. To top it off, she "didn't like" what the hotel was serving for dinner one evening and decided she would like a chicken breast. While saying chicken in English she pointed to her breast. We all felt sorry for the waiter. He called another waiter over that spoke English and she placed her order, but what an embarassing moment. Needless to say, this was our last trip with her. She has hinted around several times about joining us again, but we just ignore her. <BR> <BR>

My husband, mom and I planned a short trip to Vienna. I invited a single, female coworker because at the time she seemed very friendly and somewhat lonely, and I thought she and Mom could room together. Mistake!! We're white and she's black. Not an issue to us but she was so sure we (as are all whites) were racist to the bone. Everything we said and did was misconstrued. The fact that my mom grew up in the southern US was enough to make her racist. They shared a room and this woman would lock herself in the bathroom for 2 hours every night while she soaked in the tub. She would go in after my mom and clean everything (she brought her own cleaning supplies) before even brushing her teeth. Mom had to come to our room to use the toilet! Mom was brushing her teeth one morning when the other banged on the door like the hotel was on fire. She was going to use the microwave and saw some burned food in it and assumed my mom had left a mess and demanded an explanation, then refused to believe that Mom hadn't even used the microwave. When we all went out together, she refused to walk with us and stayed 10' behind us. When we agreed to meet for dinner, nothing could please her and she'd either gripe about everything or just leave (which we preferred). The final straw was the last day when I called their room and asked for Mom (and I was still trying to be nice) and she screamed at my mom in the ugliest most hateful voice. Needless to say we never spent time with her again.

Tough crowd, I'm getting outa here (thanks, Joe).

This thread has undergone an interesting evolution. At first some of the stories seemed kind of mean. Later ones were either really funny or rather insightful.

I posted a while back about "Ann" and "Nan" which was a true story told to me mostly by the person I'm calling "Ann". They are two elderly ladies who are friends of mine. I have tremendous affection and respect for Ann, and also like Nan. Lately I've been spending a lot of time with Ann and talking to Nan quite a bit on the phone. These two ladies obviously truly care about each other, but each thinks the other is a bit strange. Each one tells me stories about the other, usually qualified by "but she's really a good person" or "but we're really good friends" and by the request: "But don't ever tell 'Ann'/'Nan' I said that about her." They're constantly complaining about each other, but in some deeper way are very loyal to each other. Each one thinks I agree with her criticisms of the other, and in a way I do: Ann truly is eccentric and can talk forever and evere, but I love her, and Nan truly has some odd attitudes, but is a fine person. These ladies will probably be friends until they die, will enjoy doing things together for a long time, but they'll always fall short of meeting each other's emotional needs, and will always be convinced (not without reason) that the other is a little nutty. But if they ever travel together agin, they may just kill each other. Their friendship fascinates me. <BR> <BR>Thanks for listening.

I enjoyed your story of Nan and Ann, x. It would make a good short story.

Thanks. But I don't think they'd like that very much, though "Ann" is smart and self-aware and intuitive enough to recognize her own and everyone else's quirks and to value all her oddball friends anyway. It's fun knowing them, especially "Ann" who's 20+ years my senior and one of my favorite favorites. (I hope she's around a long time, and when she learns to use a computer, I hope she doesn't get on this site and read this!)

Sometimes an unexpected turn of events can change the way you view a travelling companion. For the past 15 years or so, a friend and I have taken a trip together every year. It started out as extended weekends to places like New York and Boston, but as our kids grew up and we got more adventurous, we've extended the scope of these holidays. Our personalities are such that I tend to do most of the planning, and while she has been agreeable about going along with my suggested itineraries, it's always troubled me that she seemed to be passive and didn't participate much in what was going on. She, on the other hand, found me to be a bit controlling and felt that she was trailing along after me. We get along very well at home (have been friends since high school, over 40 years now) and couldn't seem to resolve these travel issues very easily. But a couple of months ago when we went to Hawaii, it turned out that my driver's licence had somehow expired and she had to drive the car we rented. It made all the difference in the world! She was alert, interested, much more involved in figuring out what we would do every day, and I thoroughly welcomed her input and her willingness to explore places and stop when we saw something that looked interesting. We're both grateful to the Ministry of Transport for forgetting to notify me when my licence needed renewing (it's not necessarily annual and the dates keep changing, so it really wasn't my fault). We couldn't have predicted the extent of the difference this would make, but from now on we're going to share the driving!

Linda: I hope there's room for one more incident about "difficult" travel companions....I just returned from my first visit to Europe and, thanks to my travel companion, the experience was terrible. We are both women in our 60's, retired, and seemed to have a great deal in common. True, we had never taken more than day trips together, but we got along well, so when "Martha" suggested that we visit London, I thought it was a great idea. She'd been there before & since we had so many interests in common (art, music, looking for grandchildren's gifts, etc.) it sounded terrific. We made reservations and all seemed fine--until we got to the hotel. When we got to our room, it contained one double and one single bed instead of twins; she immediately announced that the double was hers. No big deal, I thought, although it would have been nice if the selection process had been a bit more open. But next she said that she needed 3/4 of the limited closet space and 2 of the 3 available dresser drawers because "those cheap rags of yours would always look bad no matter where they were kept." I was absolutely shocked at this. But the worst was yet to come....when I turned on the room's TV, she became furious and demanded that it be turned off at once--she couldn't stand all that noise. When I said I intended to watch the news and weather, she jerked the plug out of the socket. That night I discovered that she is also a world-class snorer. I am not exaggerating when I say that guests in adjoining rooms were banging on the walls; the night manager came to the door and asked if there was anything I could do to make her stop. Martha buzz-sawed all through this and never (apparently) heard a thing. I realized that in spite of my very limited budget, I could not stay in the same room with her for the remainder of our visit. The manager was very sympathetic and found me another room, but of course there was an additional fee involved, which I could ill afford, but decided it would be money well spent. The rest of our visit was spend avoiding each other. Thank goodness there were other guests who took pity on me and included me in their outings. Martha, it seems, had made quite a reputation for herself by her dictatorial demands (such as no TV in the breakfast room and refusing to allow anyone else to share the elevator with her--both of which were ignored) and as a result, I was seen as a bit of a martyr, which really didn't bother me. When it was time to leave, we had prearranged shuttle service back to Heathrow, so she sat as far from me as possible. At checkin, she demanded that her seat assignment be changed. This was several weeks ago and I had decided that our "friendship" was over. So imagine my amazement a couple of days ago when I checked my answering machine and found a message from her, babbling away about what a wonderful time we had and suggesting that we begin planning another trip!!! Obviously I will not be going anywhere with her again....but it was certainly a bizarre experience!

<BR>A person and I were in "are we getting serious" stage so we decided to take a trip to Florida to visit some friends of his and to visit some of my cousins and do WDW for a few days. <BR>Cousins house: the had a indoor BBQ grill in their porch so we decided some steaks were in order. The fire department ended up coming and we found out later that "my friend" thought that lighter fluid was needed to start the BBQ. Not a good start. <BR>Off to Tampa: Criticized my driving all the way up from Miami. Refused to drive, even though we were not happy with what I was doing. Getting worse. <BR>Visit with friends: The friends were great, "my friend" ignored me from the time we stepped out of the car in Tampa. <BR>By now I had called Delta to see what the penalty would be to fly home. I don't remember what it was but is seem astronomical at the time. Plus I guess I thought some time alone would make it better. Off to WDW: We hardly spoke the rest of the time. Refused to even walk with me. Would not go into any of the attractions because "I've been here before" Well, I haven't! Never mind. <BR>The flight home seemed endless. I caught a cab from the airport intending on never seeing this person again. But two days later, the phone rang and "my friend" was back to their warm charming self and wanted to know when and where I would like to go for our next vacation! I was stunned! As you can guess, it did not work out and this person to this day does not understand why.I guess I don't know why either.

What does WDW mean?

<BR>WORLD DISNEY WORLD!

I took my sister to Europe last year as a thank you for all that she had done for out mother as her health was deteriorating. The first day (night) in Paris we and the cabbie got lost. We finally got back to the hotel and she was ready to return home the next morning (she had never been out ot New England before except once in her life). We flew to Lisbon the next day and did a city tour and visited several museums. Then we took a train overnight to Madird and she didn't sleep a wink, afraid that we would not get off of the train (Madrid was the last stop). She of course was very tired and somewhat irratable by this time.) Once in Madrid we visited the Prado and took a day tour to Avilli and Segovia. The sight of the 2000 year old Roman Aquaducts really started to turn her around. By the time we were in Sevilla, she even agreed to do the tappa tango with me and a couple that we had met in the hotel. She is somewhat AR but loosend up as we traveled the rest of the trip and now would like to go back. So she started out as a less than perfect travel companian but mellowed out as we traveled and became very interested in the sites, museums etc. <BR>Regards <BR>

"Once upon a time...."

Funny, I had the opposite problem...my dear friend and I just returned from our excellent Europe adventure, the headache for me was planning the trip. I have been to Europe many times and she never, so we agreed that I would make all the hotel and train arrangements. After immense internet and book study, I gave her the details. She seemed to not like any of my hotel or city choices (mostly about costs) which annoyed me terribly. I am happy to say that once we arrived, we were BOTH pleased with my decisions and everything went well, but I sure was nervous about the trip before we left.

Conclusions: Think very carefully before traveling with people you think are your friends. But if you truly are friends, staying friends is much more important than the little annoyances. Be wary of weird strangers, but allow for the possiblility that you'll end up liking them.

What are all these references to top and topping? Will someone please explain what they mean?

I was with the absolute worst travel companion any girl can travel with.When he did'nt like the way things were going on a small trip up into norther California from our town of LA, he left in the night, leaving me alone in a strange town in an unpaid hotel room.And I cannot believe I am that bad to travel with, we didn't know each other that well, so that is probably the reason and lesson to be learned. <BR>The good news was/is: when I called a friend in LA, he sent a plane for me and got me home safe and sound..of course, I had to listen to his lecture on traveling with strange men~

To those who discovered how vile their girlfriend/boyfriend actually was, only after traveling with them, I say congratulations! If you had gotten married, it would have been much worse than a ruined vacation. <BR> <BR>Maybe this should be a prenuptual ritual -- take a trip to Europe to find out if you are compatible.