14 DAY TRIAL // Like any 19-year-old, Luke Harding went out with his friend for a couple of beers in one of Manchester's clubs but instead of waking up with a hangover at home after a night of drinking, he woke up in a toilet at Charles de Gaulle Airport.
After work, Luke and his friend went to a bar for some drinks and then decided to party some more in a club called Tokyo's. When the two thought they had enough clubbing for one night, they got into a taxi and headed home, but only one of them actually made it back home.
Once he dropped his friend off, Luke booked a last-minute ticket for Paris on his phone and told the taxi driver to take him to the airport. The teen passed by security, boarded his 6am flight and woke up in a toilet at Charles de Gaulle airport, “when I first woke up I didn’t know where I was. Then I remembered booking the flight – and thinking 'oh, [hell],'” Luke remembers.
He then started posting photos on Twitter telling his hilarious 500 miles (805 km) drunken detour, and becoming an online sensation.
“It all started off going for a pint after work with one of my mates. Then one thing led to another and we decided to go to a nightclub. We started to get a bit bored and wanted to head off home. The only thing was, by this time we were well and truly plastered,” Luke says according to Metro.uk.
Luke Harding always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, and he thought that night was the perfect occasion to do that. “I found my passport which I’d been using for ID, and an app on my phone was saying something about cheap flights to Paris. It was a spur of the moment thing and seemed like a good idea at the time.”
After figuring out what happened, Luke started wandering around Paris posting photos of him in front of the Eiffel Tower and other Parisian symbols while messaging his mates back home.
The funniest part came when he decided to call his mom and let her know what happened “I rang my mum and said ‘don’t panic but can you pick me up at Manchester airport at 8pm?’ Then I told her what I had done and she went mental at me.”
Luke doesn't regret his drunken adventure to Paris even if his one-day trip cost him $484 (€358), those are the memories worth keeping.