When you join a group tour a number of things can happen. True, you spend more time worrying about it than you do actually planning your trip but that’s why you pay the exorbitant amount of money to holiday with strangers, isn’t it? On arriving in the hotel room the day before departure, I was allocated a room with a complete stranger. Not unlike a hostel, you draw an imaginary line through the centre of the room hoping to keep all of your shit on your side. You pack, and repack and hope that the amount of stuff you have is less than at least someone else in the group.
The tour meets in the lobby at 7.30am and almost instantly all of my worst fears are confirmed. They are all still in their teens and look like they’ve just walked out of the pages of Dolly. (Do they even still print that magazine?) With their short shorts and flowing locks in every colour, it is clear that this BFKW is not like the others. Now I am used to being the slightly odd one out. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but most of my friends are extremely good looking people and often I feel a little bit like my BFKs are on the outside of my pants, during this meeting, they weren’t on the outside of my pants but I may as well have been wearing pedal pushers and a sun visor. I am old. Putting aside my grandma insecurities, with somewhat of an open mind I try to listen to the words that come out of these girls’ mouths. But my mind can’t stop chanting that 1. What the fuck am I going to have in common with 20 year old hot girls? (The one I actually live with is sometimes older than I am I think – so she doesn’t count) and 2. How the hell are there no men but the tour leader on this trip and 3. Which one is he going to try and shag?
A four hour drive down the highway is nothing but polite. It’s all where do you come froms and what do you study? My reply is met with stares and silence. “I haven’t studied anything in over twelve years.” It takes a little while for it to sink in when the German girl asks me exactly how old I am. I am honest but I don’t want to be. My head is screaming tell them you are 25! They don’t need to know and tell them you are a secretary. But before I can formulate a more interesting identity I remember the long-haired Jesus American driving the bus has my date of birth and he doesn’t look like he has my back. “32” I say. With nods and varying responses of oohs and ahhs to dead silence the bus journey continues. I sit and curse my decisions to do group travel. What could I have possibly have done in order to get myself into this kind of a shenanigan. I refuse to let myself wallow. We are going to Disney World. This time I am going to see the big castle and how can any human of any age possibly be unhappy in the Magic Kingdom?
I turn my attention to the hot red head next to me. Her English Rose complexion and hair combination would mean that she will be noticed everywhere. She is polite and we make socially acceptable chit chat for quite a while. It turns out she and her friend have been travelling and living in Australia for three months so while our pants may be of differing lengths it seems that there is something to sustain us for a little while. The van pulls into our first stop and seeing as I was the last one in the van I am the first one out. I grab the clamshell door handles and fling the barn doors of the van open. Leaning on both doors I put a foot on the first step when my right hand and the door it’s leaning on continues to open wider. My left hand lets go of the hinged and weighted door and my body ungracefully begins to follow the barn door that swings loose in the breeze. In some kind of stumble, fall, slow motion crouch I find myself on the bitumen with scraped hands and knees on all fours with an entire bus load of hot twenties staring at my less hot arse and face flat on the ground. The hot red head immediately checks I am ok and is ever so Britishly polite by not laughing at my mishap.
With both hands on the bitumen, I can’t help but wish that if I was at least at home, the bus occupants would have cracked themselves laughing and I could have made some witty remark and we could all move on while I was being laughed at. But no, the bus is full of British ladies who have nothing but concern and sincere efforts to check on my well being. Nothing hurts but my pride and as I stand quickly and hold the door like I’d meant to hold it open for them the entire time, I smile and say “watch that step, it’s a big one,” and hope no one notices my gravel rashed knees. After the shame dies down and my cheeks return to their normal colour I notice I have a slight limp. There is a pain that runs under my heel like a bad stone bruise. I pretend it’s not there and hope that nobody else notices that I now walk funny. With a limp and an excuse through Disney World I see probably one of the most magical moments of my life.
The fireworks and light show on Cinderella’s castle is nothing short of magic. Tinkerbell actually flies and the whole thing is remarkable. What isn’t remarkable is finding a spot that doesn’t take away the view of a little person dressed like her favourite princess or little man in his pirate suit. Leaning on the fence trying to take the weight from my now bruised foot and over compensating calf, I stand in what I think is a very handy spot under a tree. There are princesses to my right and a lady on my left. She has teeth but I am pretty sure they are not real and she is masquerading as a mainstream American. I smile at Princess number one and even though it’s ten o’clock at night she is excited. Watching the princesses and the pirate, (that sounds like a title for one of my other stories) I can’t help but feel the same way they look. It is then that a man in grey t-shirt appears beside me and says “Move, you’re in my spot.” Confused and slightly deterred by his accent I don’t quite understand what’s happening. “Move!” The command is repeated and it is now clear he expects me to move on. “Uh, Sorry – there was no one here.” I say. It is then that the masquerading woman on my left pipes in with “Didn’t you hear me say that spot was taken.” It is then that I realise that I am on holidays and my normally passive and apologetic self takes a back seat and I, regardless of the princesses and pirates on my right, tell her where to go. I explain that a simple request with a please is all that is fucking required and that I would have moved if they both weren’t so fucking rude. So I give them the finger and storm out onto the crowds of Main Street. In the commotion I have lost the hot girls and I realise that I may be lost in the 10 000 people hanging out to watch the most magical show on Earth.
The show finishes and I head back to the hot dog stand where I last saw the ladies. Fighting through the swarms, I emerge from the stream of pedestrians to find them all waiting for me. All smiles and laughter, they loved it as much as I did and were genuinely disappointed that I had not seen it with them. I sanitise my conversation with the masquerading rednecks and we move on for one more ride before the park throws us out.
Over the next three days between theme parks, car trips, diners and motels in the middle of nowhere I work out that the hot ladies are quite fun. Each of them very different and together, somehow I think we will muddle through. They are all funny and upon conversation, their age ranges from 19 to 25. The 25 year olds even have a real job, just like I do. I like them all for different reasons but mainly because they remind me of what it was like to be young. To not think too much about what could happen and to spend more time enjoying what is actually happening. About spontaneous piercings, shots, drinking cheap wine and finding $1 sunglasses – most of such events I haven’t done in quite a while.
I still find myself looking at them sometimes and marvel at how much they will learn in the next ten years and I know I wouldn’t go back for a million dollars but for fleeting moments, and they are moments, it is fun to pretend for just a little while. In between those moments I will continue to look after them, to worry about them and fend off the lecherous old men they don’t notice looking at them all, so I can enjoy the moments where I get to dance like one of them – even if it’s just for a moment and still with a slight limp.
life in big frilly knickers 