One summary of a trip to Europe

No, this isn't a cop out, I will eventually tell a little story about each place I visited, but before I forget, here are two lists to summarize my thoughts about my trip relating to things I missed or didn't miss from the US.

Things I did not miss while in Europe:
- SUVs
- Bad drivers
- Masked discrimination
- People who are fakely nice
- Big modern buildings all over
- Materialism in every aspect of life
- Too many extremely obese people
- People like Paris Hilton making headlines
- Not feeling safe walking alone in the night time
- Public transportation that doesn't cover the entire city
- The average person having no knowledge of the world
- The average person not caring to know about the rest of the world
- The general lack of beautiful historic buildings and a rich history in general

Thing I did miss while in Europe:
- My cat
- My Internet
- Cheap diet coke
- Big cups of coffee
- Friends and family
- People respecting lines
- People being fakely nice
- Free water at restaurants
- My apartment, especially my bed
- Sushi in particular, and ethnic food restaurants in general
- Being able to use a credit card to pay for a $2 purchase without feeling guilty

Back and not too happy about it

About 24 hours ago, my plane took off from Paris, and 9 hours later landed in Chicago. I was not a happy camper. It is always sad leaving Paris, because there are always sweet memories there. One of the most romantic moments in my life was in Paris about a year and a half ago, and that was where it remained. Nothing ever came out of it, but I'll always have Paris. Very cliche, but now I understand why it is so!

Now, let's get to the less romantic stuff and talk about another exciting flying experience, and by exciting I mean full of crappy surprises. The flying part itself doesn't even bother me anymore, I have done it so much, it's like "OK, whatever, another flight!" When I was a kid, I never flew anywhere, so it was a little exotic the first time it happened, but that excitement was long lost. What I never managed to get was a decent flying partner, meaning, I always end up sitting to someone that I could have the least in common with. Never someone my age, who is normal, and wants to just chat, at least every once in a while. Again yesterday, I got on the plane, and granted this one had way too few young people, there were some nevertheless, and none of them sat next to me. Finally, an old lady, that I later discovered had just turned 70, came and sat down by me, and the walk from the door of the plane to the seat got her out of breath, and I thought that I would have to watch her the rest of the flight to make sure she doesn't suddenly stop breathing. We didn't talk about half the flight, then we started chatting and didn't stop till we landed. It's really comforting to know that I have a lot of things to talk about with a 70 year old. But I do have to say, she had the spirit of a 20 year old. I mean this lady was born in 1937, imagine all the things she's been through, but she was on a plane, talking about the 10 days of fun she just had with her sisters in Paris, and how they rented a little apartment by the Eiffel Tower and toured around the city. I love it!

One of the things we had in common was our hatred for one of the flight attendants. She was this older lady maybe in her 50s or early 60s, probably close to retirement. She was the crabbiest person I had come across in the past 3 weeks. She was yelling at passengers like they were little kids, and so loud that everyone around heard her. If you weren't finished with your food or drink when she came around collecting trash, she rolled her eyes, and when she'd come back later she'd say: "NOW are you done?" I mean, I have never seen anything like this, I may actually report her to the airlines. She was SO rude to people, that I was afraid to ask her for a sugar for my coffee when she walked around. She did not smile once. I don't expect everyone in the services sector to be always charming with clients, but when you're a flight attendant, you have limits of how you can behave with passengers who aren't even being rude, and just have normal requests. It was something else. I think her name is Pam, and I am sure this will not be the first time Pam gets complaints.

Last, but certainly not least, there are two people that I'd rather not run into or see wherever I go, and usually I don't. One of them works in the city where I work and not too far away from me, so sometimes I spot him from afar and change my route slightly. The other, I have not seen in years, but last I heard he was living in California, married to a woman who will surely become one of those women who wear mommy jeans and shirts and vests with mommy floral patterns. You know those jeans with the high elastic waist and enough room in the butt area just in case she needs to ever wear them with Depends. Anyway, I hadn't even thought about this guy in years. I get to the gate to sit around before my flight, and he was right there. The funny thing is that the first thought I had was: "what is he doing in Paris?" I am sure it wasn't vacation, because I didn't see his wife with him, so I am not sure. Maybe he was connecting there from somewhere or just ended there by mistake. He's not the type who would go abroad to absorb the culture, you know, the people who think they're world travelers because they have been to Disney World.

Well, I could not believe it, one of the two people I would never want to run into was on my flight. Wait, actually now there are three people, counting that blogger low life who got on my last nerve with her stupid emails a couple of months ago. But she's also the type that would think going to a big city is an adventure, so I would definitely pass out if I ever saw her in an airport abroad.

Anyway, my biggest problem now is that I'm back here and I have to get back to reality but 10:30 tomorrow morning, at the latest. But hey, at least I didn't have luggage problems this time, so it's all good.

More deep thoughts

Well, unlike most people, I love France and I love the French. At least they are predictable. Once you know how to deal with them, and know what to expect from them, you know and that's that. And heck, knowing the language helps a lot. When I say I don't know German, I really DO NOT KNOW GERMAN! To me, people can be completely making up the "German" words they're saying. In French, while I don't understand everything, there are so many familiar words and I am capable of some communication, like when I order something on the menu, I know mostly what will be on my plate, and I won't be surprised with a cow's head. Of course, that's the problem, I enjoy most German food too, but I'd love to know what's in it without asking for the English menu like a dumb tourist.

HOWEVER, despite my love for France and the French, watching French TV movies is like watching a bad porn. You know the porn you're watching is bad when you start concentrating on the plot, i.e., being distracted from the main purpose of the movie. So basically, the nakedness starts annoying you and you find yourself looking forward to the end of a sex scene so that you can get back to the plot. Well, some French TV movies make you sit there and look at the characters talk and interact, and you can mute the movie and still enjoy it the same. In fact, actually listening to the dialogues and the bad acting make you want to pull your nails out from their roots with rusted pliers to ease the pain of the badness of the movie!

Goddamn tourists

I really don't have anything against tourists. OK, I lied. I have a huge problem with tourist groups. Families and a few people here and there, usually can't cause a big problem with their combined ignorance of basic walking rules. It's the big groups that really get on my last nerve. The most prominent of the peoples who can only travel in groups are Asian people.

If you have ever gone anywhere, other than Asia, and maybe even in Asia, you would know exactly how annoying Asian tourists are. They love going to places and visiting historic locations, they just generally don’t like to spend the money to actually go into anything, so they take a bazillion pictures of the outside of every building. The few that do actually pay the money to go into anything, disregard all rules regarding taking photos, and use their cameras inside, despite the fact that there are signs in every room of every palace or museum that specifically have a pictures of a camera with a line going through it. Maybe in Asian countries that means “go ahead and take as many pictures as you want, and please, do use your flash if you are so inclined.” The funniest thing I saw being done by an Asian tourist was a lady in the gift shop of a museum, who did not want to pay 10 euros to go in and see a palace from the inside, so after having taken a picture from every possible angle from the outside, she figured that she did not want to pay for souvenirs either, so she took pictures of every souvenir and book displayed in the gift shop. I was about to go Asian on her and take a picture of her, but I just don’t have it in me to do that, so I decided to just savor the memory in my head and share it in writing with the world.

However, Asian tourists have very fine competition for the most annoying tourists’ award: young Italian tourists. For some reason, everywhere I went there were HUGE groups of Italian teenagers. I think all of Italy decided to send all its teenagers in field trips to Vienna during the week I was there. I can totally see why a country would want to rid itself of its teenage population. They were loud, obnoxious, and disrespectful to other tourists and anyone who is not completely deaf, or who became deaf from having been within 10 feet from these screaming little shits.

The whole idea of orderly lines is lost on most of Europe, which is something I got used to, and the fact that no one says “excuse me” in Germany or Austria. But the Italian kids took it a step further and with their hot headedness, if you even tried to scold them with looking angry at them if they shoved in front of you in line, they mockingly say “prego,” which either meant they were saying “the pregnant American wants to go through” or “please, after you” or maybe “she looks angry, give her some Prego pasta sauce to shut her up!” When I was in line to get into one of the museums, the Italian teenage mob came storming and somehow I went suddenly from being 5 people away from the entrance to last. I must’ve huffed and puffed loudly enough that the lone respectful kid of the group (he was probably retarded) said apologetically “prego” and gestured for me to go. I was shocked, but as soon as I tried to go, some of his friends made fun of him then they started screaming something in Italian, which isn’t really all that different from the way they usually talk, and I am pretty sure they were saying something about not letting the stupid angry American get her way of expecting Italians to act civilized and they shoved in front of me, one of them mockingly saying “hallo, hallo, me go!” Luckily, I know two words in Italian, and while yelling "ICE CREAM" at someone may get some point across, I thought “fuck you” would work better. So I put half of the Italian words I know to good use with the universal hand gesture. And since I am Mediterranean, much like these little shits, I did it with my best "I can be an angry hot-headed brown-haired person too" look.

I have to say, I am not all that shocked with the Italians behavior, after all, of all the European countries, theirs is the only one where a girl feels violated just from the way their men, with greasy hair, dressed in their finest wife-beaters, look at her, whistle, and say things that would probably make truckers blush.

I must find a way to move here...

Well, first of all, I made it here in one piece.

I left the U.S. on March 11 around 5:30 PM, I got to Paris on March 12 around 7 AM. So basically I skipped a night of sleeping, because during the flight my body was still on US time, and when I arrived at Paris my internal clock was at sleeping time, i.e. around 1 AM. I wasn't going to sleep and skip my day in Paris, so I stayed up the whole day. Well, almost! I stayed in Paris with relatives, so instead of sitting around their apartment while they were at work, I went out for a walk so that I won't fall asleep. I walked around, ate, and then went to another spot that I haven't been to before: Le jardin du Luxembourg, which is close to the Sorbonne, so it was full of college students. I felt like I was again sitting on the quad like I used to back during my college days. It was really nice, and the French students weren't nearly as freaky looking as today's American college students. Though that may have to do with the fact that they're probably smart, because unlike the US, in Europe not everyone gets to go to college, you really have to do well in high school to go to college. In the US, there's a college for everyone.

Anyway, back to my time in the park. I grabbed lunch, which consisted of what was called the classic American sandwich, and in case you didn't know a classic American sandwich has in it: tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, mayo, ham, and hard-boiled egg. BLINK BLINK... how come I have never had this "classis" sandwich in the US? And you know, nothing says American like putting all of those ingredients in French bread. Wait, I mean, "freedom" bread!

After buying my lunch, I decided to eat it in the park, so I pulled up a chair and sat down and ate my lunch. It was quite fabulous, because you know, what beats eating lunch in a French university quad in the middle of Paris? Not too many things really. It was a little breezy, and the air was crispy, and the sun was shining... Oh, this chair is comfortable... *head falls and I feel myself snore* ... what just happened? OH MY GOD, MY EYES ARE CLOSED! *Must open eyes now* ... but they're so heavy, do I have to? YES, NOW! I open my eyes, and I look at my watch. Hmm, seems like I fell asleep in the park, for at least 2 hours! Well, hell, that was a great nap, it felt really good. I thought to myself: "well, I can walk some more, or I can nap a little bit more in the sun in the park. No one seems to care, and there are other people sleeping. Are French college students better than me? Hell NO!" So, I fell back asleep for another half hour, then the sun started setting, so it got a bit cooler. I got up, and walked a little bit more around the park, and back to the apartment, because there was not enough energy in me to continue with walking around and not falling asleep in less attractive places than the park.

I spent the rest of the day with the relatives, went to bed around 11 PM, and got up really early today and took a train to Brussels. As soon as I got here I went to the charming little room I booked in a hostel before flying here. And it was just as charming and cozy as I expected, in a very cultured neighborhood. TRANSLATION: little room, where I will not put my head on the pillow, in a slightly sketchy neighborhood with foreign poor-ish people in the neighborhood. Eh, it adds to the experience I guess. But I have been to cheap hotels before, and I can't remember the last time where I was in one where the whole thing smelled like an attic. Quite the charm, I tell you. Well, it's just for two nights, no big deal.

Brussels is an OK town. I did all the things a tourist in Brussels is expected to do. I went to the Grand Place, which is the square in the center of the town. Almost every European city has it. That's the place to go in every town, and if you know anything about traveling, the last place to eat is on a place right on the central square, if you're looking for something more authentic and less touristy. Also, I went and had a waffle, which is not eaten for breakfast here, it's a dessert, and you can eat it while you walk, with chocolate, or whipped cream, or whatever, not syrup though. Then for dinner I had moules et frites (mussels and fries), which is as Belgian as a meal gets, and it was delicious! I washed it all down with a glass of Belgian beer. Don't ask me what type, I don't pay attention to such ridiculous details.

I went to see visit some old big church in Brussels: St. Michael's Cathedral, and it was relly beautiful inside and I took a lot of pictures. Then as I stepped outside, I remembered that I had to take my birth control pills. As I was taking my pill, I thought to myself: "there is something hysterical about taking my birth control pill in front of the biggest Catholic church in the city!" Hey, it amused me. For some reason this reminds me of the episode of Scrubs where Turk found out that Carla was pregnant before she did (because she tossed the pregnancy test too soon), and he was preparing to tell her that she's pregnant by having people hoding balloons shaped like babies to tell her, and she told him on the phone that all she would want to do when she gets pregnant is tell the people in her life that she is expecting, so JD was going around telling the people to stop the plan and pop the baby balloons, and he was yelling: "abort the babies, abort the babies!" And one of the people was a priest. It was really funny. I guess you just had to be there.

Now, so far there's been one event that's stuck in my head more than any other: a girl was posing for a picture in the Grand Place in the middle of Brussels, and she did some pose and yelled: "YAY! This is me in Paris!" Thing is, she didn't look drunk or high, so I'm not sure why she had not only the city wrong, but she wasn't even in the right country. Crazy tourists!

The French guy I was talking to in the airport before I left was not kidding when he said that there are WAY TOO MANY Asina tourists in Europe. He also said, that maybe it's part of their culture or something, but they love bragging about having material things and showing off that they travel a lot, so whenever they go to Europe, they go to one city a day, which is in no way enough for any city in Europe no matter how small. I feel bad that in most of the cities I'm going to, I will spending 2 days. But I think I will use that to find out which of these I will re-visit. I am staying 4 days in Vienna, so that's good.

Tomorrow, I am heading to Bruges, another Belgian city, not too far away. Brussels does not need more than one day. If I had more time I'd go to the country side, which is what I will do next time I come here. As for Bruges, there's one famous person who's from there: Dr. Evil. I think it was in the second Austin Powers movie where he says to his son Scott: "here, have some chocolate, it's from Bruges, it's where daddy is from." He did reveal in the first Austin Powers movie that he is from Belgium, but I don't think he mentioned then what city. Or maybe it was in the third movie... I don't remember. Also, when he was singing "hard knock life" he says: "this is for all my homies in Bruges." I'll let you know after tomorrow if I run into anyone related to the Evil family!

Moment of silence

Oh lord, I can't remember the last time I did not religiously follow college basketball during March Madness. I will be in a little bit of a withdrawal, but I think being on vacation will make up for it. But I have followed college basketball religiously since I started college, and that's a solid 9 or 10 years. It's is very sad every time I think about all the time I will spend sightseeing and traveling and eating good food and taking fabulous pictures... wait, what was I talking about?

A couple of years ago, my brother was working overseas, and as his luck would have it, it was a phenomenal season for our beloved Fighting Illini. They went to the championship game and then lost to the Shit Heels. That season I had to really keep up with everything so I could do a good job reporting back to him. I remember calling him after every exciting win. Calling China sucked though. Poor kid, some websites were blocked for him so he couldn't fully follow everything.

This year though, I will be gone for most of the tournament, which is very sad. But at least I'll be back in time to catch the final four. Of course based on Illinois' performance, they will most likely be already out of it by that time. *SIGH*

But hey, I'm going to be on vacation, for three weeks. So, I guess I'll get by!