Tom Curtis' European Vacation

Hand down, best Spring Break….ever. Our Curtis family vacation put Chevy Chase to shame, no doubts there.

I don’t EVEN know where to start! It started with mountain climbing in the north before my fam got here... That is a story in itself so I will blog about that in a few days. For now let’s just focus on the top 10 moments of the family vacation.

(Disclaimer: I dearly love my father and without him I would not be where I am. That being said, he alone provided us with endless entertainment on the trip; thus, the following is not meant to hurt him in any way, just relive the funniest freaking family vacation EVER!)

1.I had the great idea to convince my dad driving in Italy would be a good idea. The good news is the rental car company can only take out $500 of his account after the accident (and that covers the parking ticket and forgetting to fill ‘er up with gas upon return, too!), no one was killed the first time he rode over the pedestrian plaza, no one was killed as he backed out of the plaza down a one way street, and the officials apparently didn’t see him swing a U-turn on the freeway when we got to the toll booth by mistake.

2a.We rent the car in Rome. Not only do we have NO idea where we are going but this is all in Italian. And let’s face it, even when we DID know where we were going that didn’t make much difference. At one point we LITERALLY drove in circles around Florence for two hours. At one point Callan was throwing the map on the floor in the front seat announcing he was now “quitting our freaking family and sitting on my lazy ass for the rest of this vacation!!!” , my dad was scolding “why don’t you shut the heck up?” and my mom was in the back telling the boys to stop fighting. Are we having fun yet?!?

3a. We were lucky enough to meet hundreds of wonderful Italians, a true cultural gem! However, this was really only because we were lost at every, sinnnnngle city we came to. Because of this, my dad developed a wonderful spirit of language study while in Italy. He told every person we saw “gracias” instead of “grazi” but said it with an Italian accent figuring that would do just fine….then when we finally got to Spain where he could ACTUALLY use the Spanish, he told people “gracias” when he meant to say “hola”…apparently he was randomly thanking these people for just being alive???

4a.The circus continued in the car at every new hotel. 5 people, 6 suitcases, 5 backpacks…….Kennedy, my mom, and I sat squished in the back of the little Euro car and eventually we got used to the loud thud at every bump. The sound was Kennedy’s head hitting the roof of the car.

5a.As we passed the town of Liverno, I had that feeling in my gut this was NOT a good idea to get off the freeway to eat here. This small piece of hell on Earth eventually saw me screaming: “Dad, this is a road for pedestrians!” In the end, as it replays in my head, I see three heads (Callan, Ken, and Mom) ducked and covered in their laps so as not to be identified later on. My dad has his hands in the air (both of them) and starts to scream “AM I DRIVING?!?! AM I DRIVING?!?!” The looks of terror on the faces as we shoot across the pedestrian plaza of Liverno interrupt the book sale going on in the plaza as we zigzag out of the way of people and tables. We eventually backed up a one-way street to get out and then circled three times trying to figure out how the h-e-double to get out of this town without being caught by the police.

6a. By the end of this adventure, having the drunken cabbie take us to the Milan airport seemed FAR safer than the Audi rental. As my dad threw the keys to the lady at the Eurocar desk, I believe the exact words were “oh thank God, I am so freaking sick of this damn thing!”

7. The first day in Spain was a little rough. Without the car, out laughs were gone…..so we thought. I took my family to Segovia and explained we would go see the Roman aqueducts. My dad, however, thought I meant “aqua duck” like the rides in the Wisconsin Dells. When he asked me if we would be riding on a river or lake, I knew the Spain fun was just beginning!

8. We returned and my pops wanted to do some quick snack shopping Jingles. After the 5 minutes it took me to figure out he was taking about the “corte INGLES” we headed over. The hotel was great; things were calming down for what would be out last day together in Madrid…that was until……

9. Kennedy wanted a fake Burberry wallet. I knew where the street vendors are in Madrid; a big row of them right near the Sol metro. We headed down there and I stepped up to do the haggling in Spanish. As soon as he handed me the wallet, someone yelled “policia” and the street vendors all grabbed their bags of goods and shot off running. Before we knew what happened they were gone, the police were there, and I was holding a boot-legged Burberry wallet in my hand….I slid it in to my pocket as fast as I could and took off while my family was still at the corner going “what’s happening, what just happened?!?!” All I could see was me being deported for buying this illegal wallet….just our luck! But in the end, it WAS our luck….I didn’t even buy the thing as the vendors were long gone. Basically, I stole from thieves….only our family.

10.I have lived in Madrid for 7 months and never had anything bad happen to me. My dad comes to Madrid for 2 days and gets robbed. We were on the packed metro and a gypsy opened up my dad’s fanny pack (that alone should be #11) and took out his wallet….all kinds of cash, credit cards, etc. on the last day of vacation. Too bad for that little gypsy b**** she messed with the wrong freakin’ family! My dad actually realized it was HER and started to yell….then he grabbed her so we knew this was for real! So in pops my mom and she starts stripping the girl trying to get her coat and scarf off!!! All of a sudden the wallet drops to the ground (a tag team as it had been passed off) and we get it back. I had by now made my way to them and realized what just happened. SNAPS for her that I speak Spanish so she picked the wrongggggg train that day! I spun her around and started screaming as loud as I could in Spanish that she just robbed my dad. Then I started yelling that we weren’t tourists, that I live there and know their gypsy tricks, team of thieves, etc…That caused a lot of commotion in the train now since people understood what I was saying. Well, that and the fact I may or may not have said some things about their mother and what I though of her, but I’ll keep this the PG rated version. It was all so fast that they hopped off before we could do anything or even react more. In the end, we got it back and have a great story about the day we robbed thieves and foiled the gypsies! We’re such a classy bunch, no?

All in all, hands down, best family trip ever. So many laughs!!! Seriously, my dad really did do a fantastic job driving in Italy....I really DO think the pole he backed into with our Audi jumped in the way of the car. Now, after this longest blog in the world, I’m off to the bars where I will be for about the next week trying to recover from the family’s visit!