Always an Adventure
If you’re a regular around here (and I hope you are) you’ll already know that we’re spending over five months on the road, staying mostly in Airbnbs. Which means five months of trying to figure out a new house every couple of days. It is more of an adventure than you might think.
Some places are quite easy to figure out and hosts have gone above and beyond to make people feel welcomed and comfortable. Others like their guests to be a little more self sufficient. And some seem to take delight in setting things up to be a great challenge, like a cross between the Krypton Factor and the Crystal Maze. I just imagine them going around the house before you get there, giggling to themselves and thinking “can’t wait to see how they figure THIS out!”
Take this Airbnb we’re currently in. It is an incredible old house with stunning views across St Emilion. You could never get an experience like this any other way, it’s like stepping back in time. But because you're staying in someone else's house, you need to get used to a few little quirks. Here’s a couple of examples:
The oven speaks what I believe to be Arabic (please feel free to correct me in the comments if you know otherwise). I’m sure it’s a top of the range oven that is probably very easy to use, if you speak Arabic. If you don’t, it’s a bit of a challenge and one I have yet to solve.
The stove top is wonderful, incredibly fast induction and very useful indeed, but you have to complete something akin to a Vulcan death grip to get the thing to work. Once it locks you out, it’s like Fort Knox to get back in. It took four of us about a half hour to figure it out. It feels like an initiation test and there were high fives all round when we passed.
There are lights, and there are mirrors. However those two things are rarely in the same place. I’ve put my make up in the dark for five days now and I believe there are circus clowns that look better than me in the morning.
Talking of lights, the switches in here have baffled all of us. You need some double handed combination moves to get the lights on and then turned up so you can see a hand in front of your face. I used to be a Street Fighter fan back in the day and I tell you it’s not unlike getting Ryu to execute a hurricane kick to get the lights on in this joint of a morning. One push out of sequence and you have to start over.
There’s no kettle. The kitchen is very new and well equipped but for some baffling reason there is no kettle at all. There are few things in life I need, but one of my non negotiable, can’t live without, mandatory must haves is a cup of tea in the morning. So the morning ritual involves a saucepan of water, a Pyrex jug, and a fight with the Fort Knox stove.
The toaster has been doctored in some way so that when the toast is done, not content with just popping up, it fires it across the kitchen at great velocity targeting the nearest bleary eyed human/animal. Lucky for us the WonderDog only likes toast that has been buttered or has marmalade on it, otherwise she’d beat us to the punch every time. Keeps you on your toes though.
But it’s not just this place. Every single place has it’s own little idiosyncrasies and curve balls that make it unique. Like the place where the shower was so small, every time Mr T bent over to get the shampoo, he’d knock the temperature dial with his arse and then there’d be 10 seconds of what can best be described as “singing curseries.” I cried with laughter every time. Or the place that had a WiFi code so long it took us two hours to crack it. I think the Pentagon probably has less complex nuclear codes. Who are these people stealing WiFi in deepest rural France? Or the place that only had one toilet, on the bottom floor of the house when the bedroom was at the very top, meaning a hazardous nuddy dash in minus degree temperatures down two flights of stairs in the pitch dark for a pee.
But the quirks make for the best stories and the biggest laughs, I wouldn’t swap them for the world. The best memories are usually the ones involving a belly laugh and there have been many of those on the trip so far. There have been very tense moments when everything seems to be going wrong, but once you muddle through and figure it out, it’s a wonderful feeling. When you get out of your comfort zone and tackle each day as it comes, your perspective is completely changed. As I keep telling Mr T, we’re like intrepid explorers…only in a brand new car…with mostly all the comforts of home…staying in really nice places, with great food and wine, discovering new places that people haven’t been to for at least 15-20 minutes.
Eat your heart out, Ernest Shackleton and Sir Edmund Hillary! Let’s see what tomorrow brings.
