Only 39 replies? People, we can do better! Come on, fess up!

I was eating lunch in an expensive restaurant in Paris (can't remember the name of it, but it's supposedly the oldest house in Paris) and I ordered prawns, and they came with the shell still on them. Now, I had been told that it was very rude to eat with your hands in France, so I was trying my very best to eat these prawns with my knife and fork (if you've never tried it - Don't - it's not a walk in the park) and as I was clumsily trying to pry the prawn out it's shell, I somehow managed to fling a large chunk off my plate and into the middle of the floor. I'm not kidding - this thing flew high! I discreetly picked it up before a waiter stepped on it or something, and had a good laugh with those at my table.
Only later did I find out that shellfish is an exception....

OK. How about the time I arrived at CDG and had to wait 3 hours to catch a train to Angers?

In my "this is the beginning of my 8 week trip through Europe" excitement and jetlag fog I managed to lock the key to my suitcase into my suitcase.

I found the welcome desk for the airport. In hushed tones I explained to the kind lady what I had foolishly done. She called maintenance then said I should wait off to the side.

I was standing there thinking it wasn't too embarrassing yet. That's when I spotted the maintenance man across the terminal walking my way. How did I know it was the maintenance man that far away? He had a pair of 4 foot long, bright red bolt cutters with him.

I felt everyone was watching him as he approached the welcome desk, had the lady point and then walk over to me. It really wasn't much of a lock. He used the small set of sidecut pliers he had to break it rather than the huge bolt cutters.

I said my thank you's then slid out of there as fast as I could.

When Marcy and I were on the plane back home from Paris a few days ago, I said to the nun in front of me, "Excusez moi, mon soeur." as she was blocking the aisle. (She took up a lot of space in her old-fashioned flowing habit, complete with whipple.)

Marcy got to our seats after me, nearly convulsed with laughter. "Did you say 'mon' to that nun? That's masculine!"

Oops. Luckily "Mr. Sister" didn't come after me with a ruler to correct my glaring grammar error.

What a great thread! I have never seen this one before!

My most embarresing moment was in Venice. We had been in Italy for two weeks or so. Guess I sort of overdid the eating part.

So in Venice we went back to Harry's Bar for a drink. Enrico remembered my husband and just assume we are going to have dinner. We had not planned to but did not have the heart to tell him that.

So we get a great table on the main level and we ordered lightly. But Enrico is sending over extra dishes. I had on a very elegant linen suit that was so tight around the waist (due to the pounds I had put on after arriving in Italy) I could hardly breath.

I went to take a sip of my wine and the button on my skirt waistband popped off. It not only popped off but it went "clink, clink, clink" and rolled across the room. I looked at it in horror!

A waiter quickly grabbed a silver tray, ran over and picked up the button and put it on the tray and then strolled across the room and presented me with my button. As the entire room watched!

Mortification does not even begin to describe how I felt, LOL.

I said something stupid like "mille grazie" and popped the button in the purse. And prayered the skirt would not fall off when we left the restaurant. It didn't, in fact could hardly get the skirt off when we returned to our hotel. ((*))

We were in Monterosso, Italy, and we went inside an olive oil shop. The owner was up on a ladder, arranging VERY TALL olive oil bottles on a shelf FULL of very tall olive oil bottles.

We stood there watching for a second, when he bumped one of the bottles and it started to waiver. OH GOD....it wasn't going to happen! IT DID! The domino effect, right before our very eyes, and tons of the bottles went crashing onto the hard tile floor. Olive oil slick all over.

We all stayed put, except for me. Don't ask me where my brain was, but I picked up my 5 year old daughter, and decided to leap the puddle. IN FLIP FLOPS. I landed right in the oil, slipped, recovered, slipped again. I looked like I was a baby deer on ice. With a child on hip.

Everyone gawked at me like "what did you THINK would happen?!"

I played it cool, and tried to hide my limp. I confessed to hubby when we got back to the room that I threw my back out....

Oh yeah...and I got preggo that day! ;)

I have a story a lot like Grandmere's, above, using up my only ticket getting my luggage through the exit turnstile of the RER. My "incident" was very early in the AM, at Luxembourg, and I was traveling alone. My solution was that I -- a 50+ "sophisticated" woman in a long black cashmere coat-- shoved the luggage the rest of the way through and climbed over the turnstile. Pretending to be invisible, of course. Everyone else seemed to pretend I was invisible too.

A few years ago I spied a purse in a market in the Dordogne that had a rotating lock on it - the kind where you select a 4-digit "password" and set the lock to that number, and then have to rotate each digit back to that number in order to get into it. I immediately thought of Fodor's and all the posts about people getting pickpocketed and robbed on vacation in Europe. THIS'll be the answer to THOSE problems I thought as I handed over my euros to the purse stall vendor - just wait until I get back home and post about my fabulous discovery!

I carried the purse with me for the rest of my time in the Dordogne and fell in love with it. Not only was it totally secure, it was a nice souvenir - one of those stiff, black leather, boxy types of things that French men carry their business papers in.

Back in Paris the next week, I am at the Rivoli métro stop. My sister was planning to take a group of people on a tour later that month and had asked me to purchase 10 carnets and 10 museum passes to save her time. The lady at the window at the station gives me an odd look when I ask for 10 of each and says "vous avez dit DIX?" I say yes, and she begins to count them out. I, meanwhile, put my purse up on the counter and begin to rotate the digits to my code. "Hmmm...très utile," says the woman, eyeing my purse. I agree, and we begin to chat about theft in the métro and petty crime and so forth. But my purse isn't opening.

I reset the code several times while the lady begins to eye me strangely again. Then she asks me if I know the combination. Yes, of course I do. I keep trying over and over but the purse is not opening. A line has formed in back of me, a line full of people speculating on what the heck the lady wrestling with the purse is doing. The lady at the window tells me to step aside and calls for a station maintenance guy to see if he can help me. He disappears into a closet and comes out with a toolkit. Now everyone in line is having a fabulous time watching the maintenance guy attack my purse with pliers and wrenches.

Nothing will open the purse. I'm leaving for the USA the next morning, and all my valuables are in that purse. The maintenance guy says he can saw the top off for me (voluble laughter from people in line), but suggests I first take it to a luggage store.

So I bid adieu to my friends at the station and go up to the rue de Rivoli. Down the block is a store selling purses and luggage, and in I go to throw myself on their mercy. The first lady I talk to listens to my story and immediately asks if I bought the purse at her store. When I say no, she abruptly says she can't help me and walks off. An assistant motions for me to come over and asks if I have tried all the possible combinations. I tell her I'm no mathematician but I think that might take a very long time. She offers to help, takes the purse, and after trying the combination I tell her is the right one, begins to try variations on it. She works on this for a VERY long time, and I'm feeling guilty because I could have done the same thing. But she says there is a trick to it and she's done it before. In about a half-hour's time, she's got it! I feel compelled to buy a purse from the store to show my gratitude - one WITHOUT a lock.

Fantastic, funny stories! ((*))

I'm proud to say I've NEVER had an embarrassing moment in Europe.

Slipping on that pile of dog poop on the marble sidewalk in Montpelier and sliding until I came to rest actually sitting on the pile and having to walk back to my hotel to change wasn't the least bit embarrassing.

Looking up while walking along the harbor seawall in Rhodes where there were fisherman, and falling into the water and being fished out by them wasn't embarrassing either.

Standing at the train station in Switzerland trying louder and louder in broken German to find out which platform to go to while the guy nodded his head until finally saying in perfect English, "I know what you're asking, I just don't know which one" wasn't the least bit embarrassing. He turned out to be an ex pat from Texas.

Sitting at a pretty restaurant in Sirmione by the water, my partner wasn't the least bit embarrassed when a bird flew over and dropped right onto his menu, splatting all over our table. The waiters cleaned it all up, only for another bird to come by and dump all over my partner's head. It was running down the side of his face. But I don't think that would be embarrassing to anyone.

And why would I have been embarrassed when the Paris taxi driver couldn't make sense of the written address I had given him and I kept insisting that it was correct. How was I to know I had given him the Rome address instead?

Nope, glad I've never been embarrassed in Europe.

Good grief Patrick, LOL, they remember you two all over Europe I am sure!

Great stories, and would imagine a lot of high clothe cleaning bills?

BTW, aren't you glad the Paris taxi driver didn't drive you to the address in Rome? ((*))

Many years ago a girlfirend and I thought we would try some sake - had heard about it and gotten good reviews so thought - 'what the heck?'

Ordered it, waiter brought it to the table: large steaming tea kettle type vessel. We poured it in the little sake cups, toasted to new experiences and drank.

Hmmm... tasted like hot water. Okay, we thought this is something new that takes some getting used to. Had another. Still tasted like hot water. Looked at each and said 'well, nothing special but now we've had sake'.

Waiter comes over and askes how our sake is - we honestly say that well, not what we expected, tastes like hot water. He lifts the lid on the tea kettle to expose a carafe filled with the sake sitting in hot water. Seems that the kettle full of hot water was just to keep the sake hot and we had been drinking the hot water, not the sake. He looked at us with a 'how do you find your way home at night' look.

We then drank the 'real' sake, loved it, had two more carafes and then truly couldn't find our way home that night....

Live and learn, eh?????

Great Stories!

I was studying in Florence in 99 and I had only been there about a week. I had a week of Italian lessons under my belt, so I knew just enough to get me into trouble. It was the weekend and I was going out of town, and I was at the train station. A very nice couple came up to me and started speaking to me in rapid Italian. Of course, I didn't understand a word, so I said "Non parli Italiano". They looked at me odd and continued speaking. This went on for a few minutes with them talking and me saying "Non parli Italiano" before they gave up and walked away. Only after they left did I realize that instead of saying "I don't speak Italian" I was telling them "You don't speak Italian". I was so embarrassed and felt horrible!

Many years ago, in the early 1070's, I was working for an environmental engineering firm, ih their Madrid Office. I started to go to a friendly, nearby, Basque bar/restaurnt to eat the lovely seafood and to practice my rudimentary Spanish.

I noticed one dish they often served at the bar; a wonderful skewer of alternating bacon and huge shrimp that had been grilled over an open fire. It seemed to be partivularly popular with young lovers, one of whom would hold the skewer while the other slid a prawn off with his or her teeth. Something right out of Tom Jones. Looked delicious!

Anyway, I kept listening for the name of the dish and, when I was confident, called the bartender over and said in my best Spanish, "I'll would like two ******s, Por Favor."

His head snapped up, startled, and he said, "You want WHAT?" I had mis-heard the word for the dish, and had used a very rude word, similar in meaning to the equally rude word, "Fanny", in England. The word used in the States to describe this particular part of the female anatomy begins with and "P" and ends with a "Y".

"I would like two ******s", I repeated in my bravest manner.

He turned to the crowded bar, and loudly announced, "This guy just ordered two *****s!" That got everyone's instant attention. He turned back to me and asked, "Did you want to eat those here?"

A bit confused and still innocent, I stoutly replied, "Si, Como no?" (Sure, why not?")

That brought down the house!

The guy on the next stool, who spoke English, quickly explained the reason for the hilarity, and I was an instant friend of the restaurant. I could not buy a drink all night, and my order of ******s was on the house as well. Luckily, I toughed it out and ate every one of my shrimp, despite the good natured shickers of the patrons.

Every time I came into the bar after that, I was greeted with a shout. Not like on Cheers, however, but with a rousing, "Here comes our "****** eater!"

These are great, but Patrick, =D> yours takes the cake (for me anyway.) Your brevity, style and building to crescendo are just perfection. Bravo =D>

Speaking of cake, I must admit Grandmere's first story is a mystery to me too. Isn't foret noir black forest? Wasn't it a black forest cake which is exactly what you thought, a dark caked baked in an oven?

LoveItaly, I have been there with the buttons more times than I care to a

Ooops. That great sake story reminds me of another time we "weren't" embarrassed.
In Tokyo we hunted up a restaurant we read about. We finally found the building, but realized that it was several floors of restaurants. We went into a rather nondescript door and found what was sort of like a fire escape stairwell. We went up until we came to a door that had the name of the restaurant in English under the Japanese sign. We opened the door and walked in. We saw that we were on the wrong side of the room, so walked all the way across the room, with groups of diners sitting in their "pits". When we got to the main entrance we realized we had come up the back way and they had us remove our shoes and put them in lockers. That's when we realized that we had just walked in our shoes all the way across everybody's "tables". But why would that embarrass us?

Just thought of another (there are many- my memory just tends to selectively eliminate the MOST embarassing...)

Going through Rome airport, security checkpoint. Seems pretty laid back, no-big-deal checks. UNTIL... Security official informs us that our bags may be opened and checked past this point.

In my delirious and sleep deprived state I off-handedly comment, 'Well, I hope whoever checks this bag opens it slowly because it's going to EXPLODE'.

Needless to say my feeble attempts to explain that there was not a potential threat just that a bag overpacked and FORCED to close is an accident waiting to happen and that opening it could be a treacherous undertaking fell on deaf ears.

Next on my list of Italian phrases to learn:
"No explosives in this bag, I promise!"

also:

" Nice badge, love the whole 'official' look. Will I ever see my children again?"

Upon our arrival in the Brussels train station at the start of our first trip to Europe 25 years ago I felt a need for the WC.

Outside the men's was a very elderly woman at a card table tending the dish of coins. I was aware that I should drop a little change for the use of the toilet, but I thought it would be okay to pay after I was finished.

Wrongo.

In the middle of my "relief" I sensed a "presence". I turned to see, to my horror and chagrin, this five-foot grandmother standing at my elbow with her hand out in an obvious gesture of, "Pay up."

I felt very...uncomfortable.

In Paris I was going to dine in a swanky intimate restaurant with a boyfriend. I had just purchased that afternoon a snug fitting cashmere sweater with the cutest little pearl buttons, so I wore it to the romantic evening dinner.

I wore a light wool jacket over the sweater and as I swept through the door anticipating romance, the maitre'd helped me with removing my jacket.....and the little snug sweater too! The lovely little pearl buttons had opened under my jacket and they both were down to my wrists when I and the maitre'd noticed!

You know how they keep their cool? Well, he was the coolest and all he said was "Madame?" like it was a perfectly normal happening. He held up my jacket while I slipped my arms back in and rebuttoned and then nodded approvingly and showed me to the table.

Some of the diners saw what had happened, but they were French so they just politely nodded too.

I was glad that I had also purchased lovely new underthings that afternoon, but I hadn't anticipated showing them off in the restaurant.

Oh SeaUrchin, much more embarrasing then my button rolling across the restaurant floor. Remember what our mothers told us about underwear being clean in case we were taken to the hospital in an emergency??? They never warned us about restaurants! Too funny ((*))