Who wants a Million Euros?

Unlike last night's wine-induced euphoria, tonight I'm suffering from France overkill.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the room was spinning when I went to bed. That spinning only intensified when I actually got in bed - to the point that I thought for sure I was on some kind of carnival ride from hell. I kept asking that they just stop the ride because I wanted off. Didn't happen, though.

I haven't experienced anything quite like that since my college days. Fortunately, after a few prayers to the porcelain god, the spinning finally slowed back down to a manageable level, and I was able to fall asleep. Thankfully I awoke this morning without too many bad effects, but I'm pretty sure I won't be looking for any opportunities to drink a lot of wine again anytime soon.

This morning, I tried to estimate the amount of wine I consumed last night - it started out with 2 glasses of mescal, followed by 2 glasses of a white wine from the Alsace region with dinner, then 2 glasses of a pinot noir, and finally by 2 glasses of a Beaujolais. Eight freakin' glasses of wine in one night. I'm not entirely sure, but I'm thinking that was the equivalent of at least one full bottle of wine. No freakin' wonder the room was spinning. I'm just lucky I didn't pass out on the street as I was walking back to the hotel. It's a good thing I didn't, otherwise one of the very many hot French guys around here might've had his way with me. And that just wouldn't be a good thing.

I swore to myself this morning that tonight would be a *very* early night, with nothing more than a "Royale with Cheese" and a Coke from McDonald's. Unfortunately, when you travel with other co-workers, you're kind of obliged to go to dinner with them, even on nights when your hosts aren't taking you out to dinner and even when you want nothing more than to have a quiet night in the hotel room. Trying to be a good traveling partner, I reluctantly agreed to go to dinner with my co-worker tonight. He wanted to go to an Irish bar near the hotel for pizza and beer, so needless to say, I couldn't escape alcohol this evening. I did manage to limit myself to two beers, though, so I think maybe the bed won't spin out of control tonight. I'm keeping my fingers crossed anyway.

I'm now sitting in the hotel room watching French TV, which is an experience in itself. Tonight's show of choice - "Qui Veut Gagner des Millions?", which is apparently France's version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?".

I don't understand word one of French, but I've had fun watching the show. The Regis is just like Regis is supposed to be - slightly older, gruff but lovable, and wearing a dark suit with a dark shirt and a dark tie. It's like a little piece of home.

The first contestant on tonight's show got up to the 12,000 Euro question, although he had to use all three lifelines to get there. It was kind of funny when he phoned a friend and the phone connection was so bad that the friend couldn't hear the question. Didn't matter. 30 seconds expired, and the guy didn't get an answer. No do-overs allowed just because the phone connection sucked. Anyway, with no help from his friend, the guy got the answer wrong. The funny thing is, I would've gotten it right since one of the four answers was "DeGaulle." That was the only one of the four names I recognized, so that's the one I chose as my "final answer." Turns out, I was right. I have no idea what the question was, but at least I got the answer right. Too bad for the guy, though. He lost 10,500 Euro. I did pretty well on the Fastest Finger as well - I managed to surmise that the question was "Put these TV shows in order according to when they debuted on French television, starting with the earliest." Two of the answers were "Friends" and "Dallas." I put "Dallas" ahead of "Friends," which was correct, but I didn't recognize the other two and didn't get them in the right order.

So that's it for today. Tomorrow is the big group dinner, which I have a feeling means even more drinking and an extremely late night. Wish me luck.

Comments

[Scott C]

Wow, that employee party must have been something. I've been waiting for updates, but I guess the bed is still spinning!! Have a safe flight back home.

PS. I travel way too much for my job, and I know what you mean about dreading the upcoming trip....