December 7, 2004

A typical Englishman

On Sunday it was pointed out to me how typically English I am :) Have you seen " A fish called Wanda" Where John Cleese explains how embarrasing it is to be English! Let me relate a little story from the weekend to empahsise this point.

At the weekend I caught a flight from Stansted London to Salzburg Austria at 18.25. This flight lands in Salzburg at 21.10 and the last train to Vienna leaves at 21.35 so I knew I would be cutting it very fine (been there many times)!

Anyway at 21.08 I was still in the air just about to touch ground thinking to myself about how much I love jet setting, Not! So the plane lands and thankfully Ryan air are very speedy at getting you off so they can take off again. I ran to passport control and jumped in a taxi at 21.24.

How long to the hauptbanhhof I ask? Seven mins he says, cool that gives me 3 whole mins to get to the platform. Suffice to say I made it but with a bit of running. I plonked myself in the first carriage I came across. A lot of trains in Austria have seperate compartments with a passageway along the side. Very cozy indeed. So without really looking I dive into one that is occupied by 3 middle aged women.

The 3 women where from Tyrol :) and on their way to Vienna for shopping for a week. Being from Tyrol (A mountain region in the Alps) they were of course drinking coipious amounts of home made Schnaps. Now I dont really drink much after getting Alchoholic poisening when I was a submariner (another tale)

So it begins, "here have some schanps" she says. "Oh no thanks its ok" I say. "No no you must you must drink drink" she says. At this point I thought to myself ok just have a small sip and that will be the end of it :( So I took a small sip of what must have been 70% proof homemade aftershave!!! It was like tasting my Hugo Boss! I passed it back and it went round and came back to me within 2 mins. "No no" I said "I am perfectly fine thanks" in my most perfect Cambridge accent. "No no drink drink you must you must" they all say eagerly laughing. Oh God help me I thought how can I get out of this without offending them (typically English)

At that point the ticket man appears and is dragged in (literally) and forced to drink some. I ask him if there is a restaurent car on the train. "Oh yes he says up near first class". Perfect I think to myself. "ladys I am so sorry to leave you but I realy have to go and eat. I will be back soon". Not!

Taking my book I spent the next 3 hours of the journey firmly entrenched in the restaurent car buying one drink every 40 mins :) reading my book and smiling at how typically English I am :)

Mark...

Posted by Mark at December 7, 2004 10:47 AM

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