When travelling on a budget the first essential item to be downgraded is food. Having worked as a tour guide, I’ll admit it’s really frustrating to see travellers avoid local cuisine in favour of two-minute noodles. They’ll say they are doing it to stay on budget and will often skip major sites, but somehow have enough cash to spend on nightlife and shopping!
With that in mind, I want to share with you the true story of three of my guests in their mid-twenties holidaying in France. Prior to joining a three-week European tour, the girls spent a week in Paris on a very tight budget, and decided to pool their money and rent an apartment instead of staying in a hostel.
The girls made a group decision to eat well for the week but stay within their budget. They bought baguettes, canned tuna, tomatoes and few other basic items to survive the week before embarking on their European tour. The trio were quite content with their food purchases at the local Parisian supermarket and proud that they had shopped on the cheap.
The week in Paris was going well, they had seen the sights and fell in love with the city of love. On the fifth day a French mademoiselle arrived to clean the apartment. Mademoiselle went about her cleaning duties but halfway through started waving her finger at the girls and speaking gruffly. The girls couldn’t speak French and had no idea what was going on so the only word they could understand was ‘no’.
The mademoiselle became more frustrated and angry with the girls and pointed to a sign on the back of the door that listed the rules for the apartment. Still perplexed, the girls tried to communicate in broken Frenglish. Nothing was working and after minutes of confusion Mademoiselle shouted “No, meow meow!” and this time pointed to the empty cans of tuna on the kitchen bench. She shouted again becoming even more frustrated “NOOO Meow Meow!”
The penny finally dropped and the girls realised exactly what she was saying. No cats allowed. The girls each looked at the empty cans of Pawsitively tuna still sitting on the kitchen bench and then at each other. They had been eating cat food.
Mortified and feeling sick to their stomachs, the girls made a pact to never tell anyone that they had spent 5 days in Paris dining on cat food. I guess one of the girls broke the pact, which is why I’m telling you this story. Sorry girls the cat is officially out of the bag!
*Tour Amigo does not support eating cat food.
