A suitable four-star hotel was selected. A slightly odd driver called Mongi was booked to take us to said destination. Bikinis were packed. Aftersun was put in the case. We arrived at Gatwick with enough time for a Wetherspoons' breakfast and a wander round duty free. All was good.
"Tunisia," I smugly thought to myself. "Finally I get a chance to show off a bit. In South Africa TheBloke (TM) was all Afrikaans when he needed to be. Finally I can get my own back and swanny around in French, knowing he won't understand a word. I am so great."
We arrived at the hotel. Thoughts of travel luxury quickly evaporated as the first French I used was on the phone to reception about ten minutes after we arrived.
"Il y a beaucoup de fourmis dans la chambre." ("There are lots of ants in the bedroom")
Then, half an hour after we arrived, "Il y a beaucoup et beaucoup de formis dans la chambre."
Swifly followed by, "Maintenant les fourmis volent." ("Now the ants are flying")
This finally culminated three hours later in an admittedly slightly hysterical, "Non, ce n'est pas bon. Il est dangereux ici avec les fourmis." ("It's not OK. It's dangerous here with the ants.")
Which wasn't quite what I'd meant to say, and I did struggle not to laugh after I'd said it. I mostly meant the poisons they were using weren't safe and I just wanted to change room. This, however, wasn't possible until the morning.
Morning came, the wallet I left in my room was 10 dinars lighter, as the maid had obviously (correctly) surmised that we weren't the type to tip and had therefore decided to do the hard work for us.
We moved room. Into a room with a broken air conditioner. I called reception, still smug in my French, and expecting TheBloke (TM) to be well impressed with my linguistic mastery.
A bit of thought went into this one... I wanted to say the air conditioning was broken. Broken... "ne marche pas", so far so good. Air conditioning... I think it's "circulation". That would make sense.
Ten minutes later I told the befuddled man at reception that the traffic in our room was broken.
Tune in tomorrow to hear about:
- How I keep accidentally lying to people who try to sell me things
- How I managed to entertain three different members of staff whilst unclothed and TheBloke (TM) being elsewhere each time
- Flashing most of Tunisia whilst on a water slide
1 comment:
Huh. I didn't know that was the word for "ant".
However, I did know "traffic".
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