From Prague, we cut back across the continent, through Germany and France, catching the ferry at Calais over to the United Kingdom, where we stayed until the beginning of April. 

Most of my family still lives in Scotland, so our two weeks in Glasgow were, not surprisingly, whiled away in pubs, where my countless Glaswegian relatives seemed to relish any opportunity to try and get us into scraps with complete strangers.

One night, at a club called Jaguar, Jason, one of the friends from back home we’d met up with in Austria, hit the head and, being an affable sort, attempted to strike up a conversation with the drunken lad teetering next to him at the urinal.

“Hey, how ya doin’? he said. “I’m from Canada.”

“Yeah?” replied the Glaswegian. “Well, fuck you, Canadian.”  

So much for Scottish hospitality.

About a week later, in Bristol, England, Glynn and I finally got into a drunken brawl.

With each other.

Shamefully, it was over a skanky chick who claimed to have at one time slept with Slash from Guns ‘N’ Roses. The dispute with Glynn erupted soon after I realized that, as I was making out with her, she was giving him a handjob.

With our livers on life support, we caught the ferry back to Calais where we hatched a master plan to visit Euro-Disney (Disneyland Resort Paris) on opening day.

Terrible idea. Thousands of screaming Euro-kids, their Euro-parents and ridiculous Euro-beer prices had us sprinting (figuratively speaking) for the exit after only a few forgettable rides.

After budgetary concerns forced us into spending a couple of uneventful days in Paris checking out la Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame cathedral and the exterior of the Louvre, we rolled south with Jason, Marcus and Kurt (who were in an orange van, dubbed “Pumpkin”) to Lagos, a beach resort situated on the southern tip of Portugal.  

After driving for more than 24 hours straight, we picked up some road beers for the final leg and arrived late at night in the Portuguese Algarve. Along the way, the Banana’s muffler took a direct hit from an unidentified foreign object and the resulting hole – coupled with the fact it was now hanging off and dragging along the various roads behind us – caused our van to rattle and backfire like a battered gas lawnmower. Consequently, our van could be heard well before it was seen.

We were knackered, but still felt as though a quick drink at a local tavern was in order. Since it was already too late to get a room, we decided that, afterwards, we’d park on the road running along the beach and sleep in our respective vans.

We ended up at a Canadian-themed bar, where Glynn took off his maple leaf boxer shorts and traded them for a few free beers. Staff soon had his shorts tacked to the ceiling. 

Hours later, with Pete already unconscious in the back of the Banana, Glynn and I scoured the street running along the beach for any sign of the Pumpkin, since its crew had bailed from the bar soon after we’d arrived.

Then, trouble.

“There’s something wrong with the van,” slurred Glynn, shitfaced, as he pressed down on the accelerator after stopping at an intersection to puke out of the driver’s-side window. The engine roared and rattled, but the van barely moved.

“Give it more gas,” I suggested.

He floored it.

“Fuck!” he said.

Being in no condition to diagnose mechanical problems, we thought it best to find the Pumpkin as quickly as possible, park and tackle the trouble with comparatively clear heads in the morning. Problem was, we couldn’t find their van, and the only way to make ours move was to floor the gas.

Back and forth we drove, roaring up and down the road, searching for our compatriots. After several dozen passes, we finally realized the futility of the situation and gave up the search.

We parked our van in a vacant spot, climbed into the back with Pete and passed out.

Many hours later, laughter snapped us from our comas.

With the searing southern sun already high in the sky, Glynn and I stumbled out from the van, where Pete, Jason, Marcus and Kurt stood, inspecting something at the rear of the vehicle.

“What a couple of idiots,” Pete said when he saw us.

While sobriety and sunlight did little to clear up the how of our mechanical mishap, it did help with the what: the van’s back right wheel, the one attached to its powertrain, was missing its tire. 

From Portugal, we stopped to check out Expo ’92 in Seville then headed west to the Spanish coast, which we traced north into France before driving south through Italy, eventually catching a ferry bound for Greece.

We spent the better part of two months island hopping, the first stop being the notorious Pink Palace on Corfu, where we managed to take our debauchery to a whole new level, punishing our livers and the female guests for seven straight days.

It was a raucous place and during our week there we became friendly with the resort’s manager, a cool Canadian cat who seemed to have a different girl on his arm every night and, I thought at the time, surely had one of the best jobs on the planet. 

About a year after I returned home from Europe, I walked into a Money Mart on a rainy Friday night to get some change for the bar that I worked for. The employee, sitting behind the bulletproof glass, glanced up from his book.

“Can I help you? he asked.

“Yeah, I need some change,” I said, sliding a stack of bills under the glass towards the familiar face. “Hey, didn’t you used to manage the Pink Palace in Corfu?”

“Yeah,” he said with more than a hint of longing.

“I was there last year,” I said. “We drove the Pumpkin and Banana.”

“Yeah, I remember you guys,” he said as he organized my rolls of quarters and loonies into a plastic bag and slid it back to me under the glass. “How you doing?”

“Not bad,” I said.

And that was that. 

I stepped back out into the rain, turned to look back through the store’s glass and watched as the former manager of the most debauched destination in Europe buried his head back in his book.   

Of course, by then, things had changed for me too.

(If you liked this, you may also be interested in reading Cokehead - Volume 2: Wham, Bam, Amsterdam!)

Next Month: Volume 4 - Chariots of Higher
Graeme discovers he’s born to run … out of coke.