Blog tour ~ extract: How to Survive Making Yourself Look Silly While Dancing with the Mafia at a Bavarian Nightclub by Simon Yeats

I am thrilled to share an extract today ~ thanks to Rachel’s Random Resources for organizing.

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Genre ~ travel memoir, humor memoir

Publication date ~ December 28, 2023

Get your copy on Amazon  

Extract:

While staying with the family of a girl in Bavaria, I inadvertently got on the wrong side of the girl’s mother.

If there is one thing that budget world travelers love more than a warm bed, a home-cooked meal, or their parents wiring them money – it is a mate’s mother doing laundry for them.

However, this can also lead to the embarrassing situation of the mate’s mother emptying the pockets of my other jeans and finding the package of novelty condoms I bought in Amsterdam. Then telling your friend what she found. The joy of having clean clothes is replaced by the shame of avoiding eye contact with the mother over dinner every night for four nights. All the while trying to come up with an un-insulting explanation about how I had no intention of using them with her daughter.

I bet Rick Steves never faced a situation like this.

There is no reasonable story to explain condoms in the pocket of a pair of jeans when staying with the family of a girl who is a just a friend. Even less so when they are the glow in the dark kind. The mother now thinks I am a pervert. This is the worst situation I could find myself in. I would rather walk along the beachfront of Copacabana drunk after midnight. Happily go trouncing through the dark woods near Mt. Fuji looking for the right house to sleep in. Gladly lure a Thai prostitute away from her place of employment then refuse to pay the bar fine.

The feeling of embarrassment is the absolute worst. Every night I want to excuse myself from the dinner table, go to the bathroom and throw up. In a gesture as benevolent as the Germans joining in with the Allies to play soccer on the Western front during WWII, the mother says nothing to me directly about the discovery. But I can tell from the way she glares at me while dishing out my plates of sauerkraut.

She is not at all happy she found them.

If I wanted to smuggle diamonds, or barrow bonds, or even hard drugs,

through airport TSA security, here is how I would do it. Put the contraband into a normal carry-on bag. Do not disguise it or wrap it up. Leave it out in the open. Now place a folded item of clothing over the items being smuggled. Now put a packet of condoms on top of that. When the TSA agent opens the bag and sees the condoms, I would expect to get a subtle condescending glance implying, “so who thinks they are going to get lucky?

Then the TSA agent would zip up the bag and send me on my way.

But if I take a packet of condoms and wrapped them in a sock. Then stash the sock at the very bottom of an obscure side pocket of my backpack. Or, better yet, at the bottom of a rolled up sleeping bag, in its cover, and leave it in the car. When Suzanne’s mother went to do my washing. The first thing she would find would be the condoms.

This is the strange thing about condoms. If left out in the open, everyone tries to ignore seeing them. Hidden away in my suitcase or filled with heroin and stashed in my small intestine, people find them in minutes. Do not ask me why.

Book blurb:

The best has been saved to last. Book 3 of a hilarious series of travel misadventures and dubious personal introspection by Australian author Simon Yeats, who from an early age learned that the best way to approach the misfortunes of this world is to laugh about it.

Simon shares his comedic insights into the unusual and uproarious elements of living life as an Aussie ex-pat and having a sense of Wanderlust as pervasive as Cholera in the 1850s.

From how to outwit the Italian police while trying to find parking in downtown Genoa, to how to negotiate exploring the Roman ruins of Plovdiv, Bulgaria while on crutches, to how to impress the German Mafia with 80s dance moves, to how to leave a lasting impression on a crowded bar in Gothenburg, Sweden after combining alcohol and antibiotics.

Simon Yeats has gone into the world and experienced all the out of the ordinary moments for you to sit back and enjoy the experience without the need to rupture a disc or succumb to Dengue fever.

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Author Bio –

Simon Yeats has lived nine lives, and by all estimations, is fast running out of the number he has left. His life of globetrotting the globe was not the one he expected to lead. He grew up a quiet, shy boy teased by other kids on the playgrounds for his red hair. But he developed a keen wit and sense of humor to always see the funnier side of life.

With an overwhelming love of travel, a propensity to find trouble where there was none, and being a passionate advocate of mental health, Simon’s stories will leave a reader either rolling on the floor in tears of laughter, or breathing deeply that the adventures he has led were survived.

No author has laughed longer or cried with less restraint at the travails of life.

Social Media Links –

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