LOST

we were going to running of the bulls in Pamplona spain, but we couldn't fly directly into spain, as it was going to cost to much, so the cheapest option was to fly into a near by country and use our eurail pass, to get down to Pamplona, so we decided on Tours, pronounced "to-rez" in france. the plan was to spend one night here then get on the train the next day down to spain. this was my first experience with a prick of a thing called "language barrier" and tours not being much of a tourist destination, we were like fish out of water.

We were staying in a decent location, so we decided to go out for dinner then go to bed, cause we had a massive train ride the next day. after a bit of walking around we stumbled into a huge square with pubs and restaurants around the perimeter. we started off drinking steins, if you don't know the size of a steins its a lot bigger than a pint, but a bit smaller than a jug, so its a fair effort to put one away before it goes warm. we started with rounds of 3, which pretty much started off the night of pure destruction. i think we necked about 6 each then moved onto another bar, this bar we went to had a massive jagermiester shrine that poured shots out of it, it was gnarly looking big deer head thing. we decided not to have any and just sit back and have a few more beers as we met some poms and they seemed pretty cool, i also saw a skinny dude walk past that looked a lot like my good friend Stefan of break even bondi gero fame, so i chased this dude down and got a photo of him, i think he was freaked out and the photo was blurry, what a bummer.

After a bit of time went by alex, leon and myself finally started having jager bombs, this session haunts me to this day and i wont drink the shit anymore, it just doesn't taste the same, i think it scared my throat and i pretty much spew up if i have one now. so we lined up six, two each. after that another heap were lined up, the number i cant remember, but it was more than 2 each. after that i only remember in parts and have had a lot of flashbacks from this night haha.

this is what apparently went down after drinking fucking jager, we were sitting at this table outside talking away, everyones chatting away, and i tilt my head to the side and unleash the biggest power spew in history and turn my head back into position to say "what" before anyone could say anything to me first. i get a glass of water, i'm 100% again and keen to kick on, leon bails home, so me and alex stay out to go to some nightclub. this bit is a bit of a haze, but me and alex still cant remember if we got into the night club, but i have a memory of standing inline but i don't know. so after a while of whatever we did, we decided to walk back to the hostel. now this was our biggest mistake, we hadn't written down the address and couldn't remember the name of the hostel, plus no one spoke a word of english. we had no idea how to get back cause we had walked down a load of streets, took turns and everything just trying to find somewhere to drink. so we were fucking lost in france.

so we walked along that until we found something familiar, but nothing was coming up, everyone we walked past we asked if they could speak english, all we would get is "no". this was becoming a joke, after an hour of walking around we came across to girls that spoke english, that were exchange students from the states, they had no idea where any hostel was in tours, plus alex freaked one of the girls out cause he kept asking to french kiss her haha. so after a bit more walking around, getting photos on top of cars and what not, we decide we head to the train station, because we had spent time there the day before sorting out ticket and we knew there was a mcdonalds which would be open. so we started on the mission to get a burger.

on the way a police car came past, and we waved it down for one last chance of finding this hostel, the policemen didn't speak english but i guess understood the word "lost" and hostel" which he had no idea was, he waved on a cab, and we jumped in, old mate driver didn't speak english ether, and the word hostel, wasn't even registering with him, so jumped out and kept on going to mcdonalds, by now it was like 4-5am and we were fucking tired, along the way we had a few lay downs, but knew we had to keep going. at one stage alex took a tarp off a table and chair set up from a restaurant and said we could use it as a sleeping bag if we had to sleep on the streets, i remember him saying " i've done this in north bridge before one night when i didn't have enough money for a cab, this shit is real life", he went on to tell me about he's night in north bridge when he slept on the street and drank a bottle of port with some old bloke, funniest shit ever. we think mcdonalds is never coming, and we pull up to sleep in the doorway of a restaurant, nice and undercover. we lay for about 5 minutes, then said "fuck this lets keep going"
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were walking and walking, until we hit familiar territory, the train station and the big maccas sign, it was a great feeling, and we started to run down the street to our destination, but i knew something was wrong, there was no lights on in the mcdonalds store, we run right up to the door to find no one in there, it was closed, we couldn't fucking believe it. we had been lost for over 3 hours and our safe place wasn't even fucking open, the amount of yelling and kicking of bins that went down for the next 5 minutes was hectic haha. it was nearly 6 am, and the store didn't open till 7 am, so after we had let out our rage we sat down with backs to the wall, we thought we might as well sit it out, get a feed and find the hostel in the morning when it was light, as we had walked from there the day before.

next thing i know, i'm being woken up by a mcdonalds manager with a broom poking me in the guts saying something in french, i guess he was telling us to piss off homeless scum or something, me and alex looked at each other and knew we had made it through the night, and were going to be rewarded with a burger. 7 am sharp the doors opened, we both got large quarter pounder meals, which never tasted so good.

but it still wasn't over it was now 7.30 and we still had to get back to the hostel and get back to the train station by 11 to catch the train to spain. the next bit is fucked up cause we headed off again to find the hostel and it seriously took 15-20 minutes to get there, and we didn't take one wrong turn. so we pretty much we spent all night lost as fuck when the hostel was pretty fucking close. we got back at about 8 and went straight to sleep, leon wake us up at 10 and said to get our shit together and get out of here if were going to get on this train. the train ride was the worst the next day, i was so hung over. never again.

PHOTOS FROM LOST