By rlubitz
This past week was Reading Week here in the UK and while British students read, I decided to see six different European cities in a week.
For those wondering, taking night buses is a very, very bad idea. Buses rock about and can stop abruptly and drivers can keep the lights on and blast the air conditioning on a six hour night bus to Paris and drop you off an hour early at 5:30 am. After this said journey, you look like a very unhappy newborn kitten. Your eyes can’t open and it is so, SO cold and you have no idea where you are and maybe you start crying. Night buses are a very, very bad idea.
What I learned on this weeklong excursion with a very good friend of mine is that people are amazing. I’m normally cynical, I hate the person in front of me at Starbucks about 80% of the time but while traveling, you learn to love people. Sure you meet some horrible homo sapiens but in Europe, you cherish those that are nice to you.
Dublin is the first place where I learned to love people. Their friendly folk are absolutely no joke. If you need a free beer they will give it to you. After hours on a rocky ferry to Dublin, I needed a hearty meal and jeez did they deliver. I had the BEST MEAL OF MY ENTIRE LIFE there and that is in all caps for a reason. If you’ve seen that video of the woman going crazy over the bacon sundae at Burger King….that was me at this little restaurant eating the BEST MEAL OF MY ENTIRE LIFE. A pint of Guinness, Caesar salad and Guinness and beef stew is apparently what makes me finally feel proud to be 25% Irish. Before I just used it as an excuse to drink too much.
We went to Dublin and Edinburgh (don’t go there) and Amsterdam and Paris and Rome and within ten minutes of being outside in the new air I didn’t want to leave. It was so incredibly different from the US and certainly from London where you’re never not getting touched by a stranger in a rush.
Amsterdam was beautiful and very Eastern European-y with gothic buildings shrouded in Christmas lights. Dramatic, dark and light, etc. This is where my friend and I learned Obama had won the 2012 election. We asked a man in a sex shop who had won because who wouldn’t want to ask a man in a sex shop who won the US Presidential election? He brushed us off with a “Don’t worry!” And then we didn’t have to anymore.
I was expecting to hate Paris because EVERYONE loves Paris so it MUST be overrated but it is so, so not. After that hellish bus ride and being there for 3 hours in complete darkness, the sun came out and I got a croissant and suddenly I was the happiest girl in the world. I don’t know if they pump good feelings into the ether but you feel happy and pretty and you want to buy hats and gloves and be in the background of a glossy French film while you’re just walking about with a map or a care. I did absolutely none of those things but I wanted to more than I’ve ever wanted to before. People here have a horrible reputation and I can tell you that reputation is wrong. They treated me so sweetly when I looked like a drowned rat after not showering for three days.
Then there was Rome who I believe only employs GQ male models as flight attendants. And bless them for that.
I wish I could have looked at them until my eyes bled but then I would have been detained by security and that would not be very good at all.
Rome was beautiful and warm and I didn’t want to leave the sun. I had a real cappuccino and a real panini and real gelato. There is nothing better in this world than sitting in front of the Trevi fountain with gelato. Nothing.
These people were great because I just wanted to hear them talk all the time. They could have said to me “You look like a rotting pile of cockroach corpses” and I would have just nodded and said “Grazie! Perfecto!” because that is all the Italian I knew. They just sound so lovely.
What I learned on this very long trip was that people are beautiful and great and they sound nice. They’re kind and patient and funny. I’m not bashing the United States because English can be pretty but ‘rotting pile of cockroach corpses’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it.