By Wil Forbis
February
1 , 2007
"EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY!" I
screamed at the roomful of befuddled diners noshing down on siesta hour tapas in a comfortable eatery in
Barcelona,
Spain.
Having thus garnered their attention I held up my
U.S.
passport like a policeman
might display his badge and continued speaking in a loud voice. "Ladies
and gentlemen I need your help. I am an American and I have an emergency! I
repeat, I am an American and I have an emergency! Does anyone know where I can
find a McDonalds? I repeat, DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE I CAN FIND A MCDONALDS???"
My request was met with blank stares interspersed amongst
the occasional look of disgust. No one said a word.
"Ok, how about a Starbucks?" I asked. "Can
you at least point me to a Starbucks?"
Nothing.
"Wal-mart?"
Nada.
"Do you fuckwads at least have a Toy-R-Us?"
At this point everyone was ignoring me, talking amongst
themselves in a foreign language that sounded a bit like Mexican. Clearly I was
getting nowhere.
I had been looking forward to my European vacation for
months, carefully planning a route that started in
Barcelona
and ended in
Athens,
Greece
,
with numerous stops in
France
and
Italy
along the way. But never in my wildest dreams had I imagined people would be so
backwards as to not have at least a Toys-R-Us. What was this, Planet Caveman? I
was starting to question why I'd even come here.
Of course, I reminded myself, I'd come to Europe for only
reason any American would come to
Europe: to
use the experience to prove to friends back home how much more sophisticated I
was to them. "You know this salt shaker reminds me of a statue I saw in
Nice. Or wait, was it
Rome?
Gosh darn it; I can't remember if it was Nice or
Rome. No, I'm sorry, it was Patras. That's a
small town in Greece.
Yes, it was Patras. Perhaps you'll be there one day. Heh,
unlikely, but possible." Or, “But baby, this is how all Europeans
have sex.”
With that, my faith was renewed and I decided I was doing
the right thing. As such, I let the "emergency" pass and settled down
for some standard Spanish cuisine. It waren't no Quarter Pounder with Cheese
but it wasn't bad. And
Barcelona
had a few interesting things to offer. The work of architect Antonio Gaudi was
everywhere, from the Gaudi Cathedral to the famous Park Guell.
(Almost as famous as the famous Barcelona Museum of Erotic Art which featured
the largest wooden penis I've seen since the last time I looked in my pants.)
But I was in
Barcelona
only for a few days before I and my traveling companion Robert (NO, WE ARE NOT HOMOS!) boarded a train
across the Southern Coast of France. We stopped in
Montpellier which turned out to be a pleasant
town filled with beautiful women, and then Nice (pronounced "Nees")
which turned out to be very nice (pronounced "nice.") Our best stop on
this leg of the trip turned out to be
Monte
Carlo where a 78 year French expatriate took us on a
whirlwind tour of a country so small it could fit in the trunk of a Buick.
Then it was on to
Italy
. Our first stop was
Milan, home to runway supermodels
and late night ristorantes. We stopped for a taste of each and also made our
way into the central Doumo, a gigantic church covered with (not gothic but
whatever art movement it's in) statues and artwork. I also explored an archaic
Fort designed as a final holdout against encroaching invaders or American
tourists.
Next was
Venice.
I hadn't really considered adding the fabled city atop the water to the trip
until I'd seen the recent James Bond flick “Casino Royale” that used
Venice as the backdrop of
its denouement. Easily the most unique city of the trip, it was a cavernous
labyrinth of tiny corridors and green/blue canals.
From
Venice we headed
westward towards
Rome.
This metropolis, center of one of the great empires of human history, is a
treasure trove for any history-phile. The fabled Coliseum, the ruins
of Palatino, the Pantheon, and the Pope's crib,
Vatican City are all within easy walking
distance of each other. Along the way you have a view of the river
Tiber, some extremely bad graffiti, and more gelato shops
than you can shake a anchovy at.
Rome
reminded me a bit like
New York
in the '70s: possessing a pronounced charmed but desperately in need of a
Giuliani to clean the place up.
From there I took a day to go south towards the famous city
of
Pompeii whose population and buildings were
cast in lava by the eruption of
Mount Vesuvius
in 69 AD. I got off the train and walked into a barren husk of a city comprised
of barely standing, decrepit structures. "My god, this endless devastation
is horrible. How terrible it would have been to be living here that fateful
day." Then a passerby informed me this was the current, quite active city
of
Pompeii and
that the ruins were a few kilometers to the left. So I walked there and
discovered a city of ruins that was quite pleasant actually. Kind
of quiet. I stumbled across the teatro where Pink Floyd performed their
classic "Live in
Pompeii" performance, and made friends with several of the stray dogs who lived amongst
the ghosts.
From there I made my way to
Bari,
on the eastern
Italian
Coast, and rejoined
Robert. We caught a ferry to Patras
Greece ,
a nice little town that reminds one of
Maui.
From there we headed to
Athens.
This classic city turned out to be the most enjoyable one of the trip. Like
Rome it held numerous
artifacts but with far less grime. And the women! A sea of gorgeous girls with that particular Greek look. (Jessica Alba has it.) Robert and I ascended the Acropolis, caught the weekend nightlife in the Monastiraki district and I viewed a Dali exhibition at the Byzantine Museum,
got a good look at the fascinating Athens War Museum and heard the plucky
sounds of the traditional Oud and Bouzouki in the tiny Athens Museum of
Popular Instruments.
But the fun wasn't over. On my way back to the states I
stopped over night in
Zurich,
Switzerland
.
With the sun coming up over the translucent
Lake
Zurich,
I chatted with swans, walked the cobblestone streets and yes, finally found a
Starbucks.
If I learned anything on this trip, it's that people are
pretty much the same all over. Like Americans, Europeans don't like being
poked, laughed at or tickled without warning. They don't like it when you try
to ride their dog or stick bubblegum in their children's hair. (I even heard
some mention of the “ugly American” but with my George Cloony-esque looks I
knew this was no way this talk could be referring to me.) And I daresay I found
this a bit heartwarming. In these days of supposedly separation between our
great continents it's nice to know Europeans tolerate a jerk about as well as
Americans.
You know, the pen I'm using to write this article (at a
Starbucks) reminds of a column in the
Temple
of
Zeus in
Athens. Or wait, was
it the Arc of Constantine next to the Coliseum in
Rome?
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