Ask us in person if you've got questions
Matt just found this on his laptop, a good 445 days after we typed it while driving back to London in a reliable green Ford Mondeo. It seems like an appropriate way to wrap up the Hilarity. Oh, and we should mention that half the hilariteers are now embarking on another epic European adventure.
Written on December 17, 2006 at 4:16pm.
Well we're now making our way back on the M20 from Dover to London, having waved goodbye to the Continent from the decks of a ferry this afternoon. After the hilarity of a sign at the docks at Dover wishing us a "Ferry Merry Christmas" (ha!) we decided it was time to write up a list of one hundred random moments of hilarity from the trip.
Some have been discussed before, and some have escaped the website thus far. Ask us in person if you've got questions.
- Matt showering naked (duh) with the Estonian Mafia
- Cranky, bloody Cranky
- Shopping for food
- The Holy Grail is closed for renovations
- Matt's shrunken jacket
- Yoghurt? Milk?
- Our pilgrimage to the The Church of the Assumption
- Slovenian days as planned by "Pappa"
- Shower screens
- A Slovenian multi-course feast as prepared by Mamma
- Condiment teats
- Miming for "Do you have bike parking spaces?"
- Presto buttons
- Apparently limitless variations on hand soap dispensers
- Awkward service-station toilet line-of-sight issues
- Our tour of the Colosseum
- Bumping into Lou and Sam on a spinning bridge
- The spinning bridge
- Slightly damp tents
- Miming for towels
- The French version of Deal or No Deal
- Pedro's
- Swimming in the Med
- Girls leaving gifts on Si's hostel bed
- Simon, Patron Saint of Shower Gels
- Mot's hair growing more hilarious each and every day
- Hostel breakfasts
- The Vienna Laundry Party
- Rescuing Canadians from the Czech Republic
- Ex-Soviet now-hostel creepiness in Plzen, Czech Republic
- Polish border guards. With guns.
- Unmarked German Autobahn traffic police
- AFL teams on pub crawls
- The few Americans who reinforced their stereotypes
- Every classical painting we ever made fun of
- The Great Jacket Heist of Monaco
- A soggy tent
- The Stationmaster
- Unconvincing breasts in classical art
- Monaco's all-singing, all-dancing changing of the guard
- The tent blowing away, with Matt in it
- The Milkmaid
- Being watched over by the Preem bear
- Brown goo in a tube
- Flagons
- Swedish mechanics
- The Poo-and-Review toilet
- Italian motorways around Bologna
- Throwing rocks at cans
- Posnan's being completely full
- Beer fridges by Norwegian rivers
- Beer fridges by Barcelona's beaches
- Street drinking (in most countries)
- Belgian beer recommendations
- Wheat in our frozen vegatables
- The "EINE EURO!" woman on the train
- Animated crosswalk men in Bilbao
- Mot's fascination with funicular railways
- Bears in a moat
- Matt trying to check into the hostel at 8am
- Snoring dude and his friend, Surly man
- Spirit of Tasmania's new career
- Matt's inability to remember the name of any place we stayed
- Plopsaland, rounds one and two
- Busking piano accordion quartet
- Matt writing Simon a note in the dark
- Ambiguous "horse burgers"
- Our improv headlight deflectors
- Walking down a dark, empty alleyway in Barcelona to the sound of El Mariachi music
- The Hostel International overly-zealous stamping procedure
- "A pair to wear, and a pair for spares"
- The cry of "Who wants to drink some f-ing vodka?!"
- The Adelaide Girls' re-enactment of flamenco dancing
- Lou's socks
- The wrong town in Slovenia
- CandyUp
- Matt's overexcitement about Kufola, and the inevitable gutting disappointment
- Church bells ringing at 12:45 at night (that's 15 tolls)
- The secret "head to the toilets and turn left" casino
- Rain on the Cinque Terra
- Petting zoos in Amsterdam
- A variety of Google Maps-suggested wrong turns (including, but not limited to, one suggesting a left-turn off a 30m-high bridge and a deserted, dead-end country road in Germany)
- Assembling a bike rack in the snow
- Driving in Rome
- Other people's haircuts in Spain
- Tesco in the Czech Republic
- Emergency choc milk
- Every Australian-themed pub we saw
- Stumbling for wireless internet in Koln
- Si's never-ending Spot this Comic Sans quest
- Matt's never-ending quest to identity the prime-number-ness of every. Damned. Number. Motorway numbers. Exit numbers. Room numbers. The list goes on.
- Group photos in Bled, Slovenia
- "Mot's oddly shaped head"
- Mot's ability to break things
- Pisa photos
- Matt insisting we listen to The Bee's Chicken Payback every morning in the car
- Driving past Hell
- "The Bunnies"
- Jodi's photos
- Rewiring a van
- Reattaching an exhaust using a butterknife
- Ceiling-level powerpoints in Amsterdam cafés
- Geek jokes with Sam
- Matt blaming everything on the Currywurst
- The menu at White Trash Fast Food
- Evangelical couch-surfers
- The senior-citizen tour of the Vatican Museum
- The Saint Gerome vs. Saint Sebastian smackdown in Madrid (ding-ding!)
- Rediscovering Sphinx
- "Our Northern (English) Friends" in Prague
- The constant cat-and-mouse game between street vendors and police in Rome
- Cooking pasta on the balcony of a hotel room
- Polish educational children's tv shows
- Frasier revoiced in Czech
- Matt's unerring ability to flood any bathroom
- Mot receiving a job offer while in a field somewhere in Slovenia
- Rock skipping with Mot "One Bounce" Wilmot
- Explaining the name Mot to Americans ("Maaaart?")
- Licking a waterfall in Slovenia
- Our Pakistani kebab-shop friend in Madrid, shouting us free drinks
- Frequenting a Spanish bar famous for a gangster shooting
- Austrian border patrol people with a sense of humour
- The omni-vend
- "Being tucked-in by Mister Wilmot"
- A shop filled with shiny things in Amsterdam
- Being yelled at by French people
- Matt wearing everything he owns to bed
- Passenger-side tollbooth maneuvers
- Bottle of Simon
- The noise at the end of the Astronomical Clock in Prague (imagine a chicken being strangled with a party whistle in its mouth)
- Steph
- Feeling slightly underdressed at the Swing Orchestra in the Vienna Philharmonic hall
- Pilsner Urqell's Beer World promotional video
- Mot being mistaken for IT support at a hostel
- Our many varied dormmates, bless each and every one of them, those we met and those we didn't
- Gina: Hilarity member by-proxy.
- Complimentary beers in Vienna
- Driving past El Moron
- The Prince of Biscuits
- Si falling through a chair
- Passing time on the ferry trip to Norway
- Matt talking his way into a politician's office in Spain using a Google-translated printout
- The omnipresent Zara, the Ness and Kate's fascination thereof
- The creepy receptionist who-never-slept in Prague
- Toilets that auto-deodorised with a vengence ("in places I'd rather not be unexpectedly de-odorised")
- The parental sixth-sense when the van broke down
- Every reception desk person who tried to keep our passports overnight (and never succeeded — good luck to you all!)
- Listening in on phone calls to Judes (Hi Judes!)
- People asking Matt what he does for a living
- The never-ending battle between the glove-box and Simon's kneecaps and shins
- Bimbo Sandwich trucks
