It should surprise nobody that I could probably dominate this thread.
Fast forward a couple of years; my parents are taking us on a tour of Europe that summer. We're skiing the Matterhorn in Zermatt, drinking beer in Salzburg, eating food that has paprika on everything in Budapest and finishing it off with Vienna.
After some really amazing and unique hotels on the first three stops, we're going vanilla in Vienna with the downtown Marriott, but our rooms are in different parts of the hotel and different floors. Mom calls our room the night we check in to tell me to come get my ski boot bag; the cardboard box we'd carried things in was done.
Now I'm in my bright red pajamas ready for bed, and my bro is in the shower. I figure there's no point in changing clothes; it's not like I'm going to be leaving the hotel and strolling downtown Vienna in my red pajamas with my ski boot bag slung over my shoulder.
So, I head upstairs, go down a hall, down a hall, down a hall, down a hall... knock on my parents room, "Oh my yes, that box is done for." Grab my ski boot bag, go down a hall, down a hall, down a hall, and enter the stairway.
Did you catch it? Did you see what happened? Because I sure didn't at the time. I also didn't know what "notausgang" meant yet, despite having taken a year of German (of two) at Texas.
I go downstairs and find the door is locked. No problem; I'll just go back upstairs and... locked.
I check every door. Other than one leading to a penthouse/office of sorts at the top, the only door open... is the emergency exit leading out of the hotel.
That's what notausgang means, by the way.
I sit on the steps and think. I've only got one way to go: Out the door, around to the front, and back through the lobby. I'll keep my head down and if anyone asks, I'll just say I'm lost. And I'll just hope things aren't too busy.
On a busy road, at 8pm on a Saturday night, in downtown Vienna. Riiiiight.
So I sling the bag over my shoulder, make sure my shiny red pajamas are buttoned up tight, and step outside.
Right outside the door (I could see them before I left, the door was glass) were some similar-aged youths hanging out. One of them, a tall blond guy, asks me in a thick Southern California accent: "Are you Lenny Kravitz?"
I'm white.
I look up at him. "No. I'm lost."
I make my way down the street, and sure enough, downtown Vienna on a summer Saturday night is PACKED.
The hotel doorman didn't even flinch. I was far from the weirdest thing he'd seen.
The LOBBY was packed. Not just from people going out to/coming from their evening plans, but at least one major event going on in the ballroom next to the lobby.
Can I at least have the elevator to myself, NO, some man in a suit joins me.
"Good evening."
"Hello."
I get to my floor and a full family of Indians barges on before I can get off, as a final indignity before I'm at last able to make it to my room.
"Where were you?" my brother asks.
"I'm not going to give you the pleasure of telling you."
But almost immediately relieved that the whole thing was over, I called my parents and told THEM what happened. And they called me "Lenny" for the rest of the trip.
Turns out, he WAS in town that weekend for a show. Took a photo posing by a concert ad we saw in an underground mall the next day.