I'm Doing Europe (Part Nine): Berlin, Germany

Actually Written: June 8, 2008

Fourth stop: Berlin. To be honest with you, I didn't have much of an idea about the place before we got here, but it's really defying all of my (non existent) expectations on it's way to becoming one of my favorite cities in Europe.

Here's all this:

Fat Tire Berlin Bike Tour: We struck off on a bike tour instead of a walking tour (free, but tiring) or a bus tour (cushy, but certainly designed for people over fifty), and it was the best idea we've had all trip. For one, biking really let me release some steam after a Laker loss in the Finals (I'm convinced the Boston Celtics are trying to ruin my vacation). Also, the bike tour itself was pretty fucking cool.
     Our tour guide was Ingo, a native Berliner who spent enough time in the States to sound exactly like most of my friends from Manhattan Beach. The dude knew his stuff, wasn't afraid to crack a bad joke here and there, and managed to really pull the necessary amount of gravitas during the tours more harrowing stops (the memorial to the murdered Jews, Hitler's bunker, etc.). Also, he looked exactly like Sean Bean in Lord of the Rings. Good times.
     What really strikes me about Berlin (and I suppose Europe in general) is how the role the city's history has played in shaping it is so visually evident. Ninety percent of Berlin was damaged or destroyed in WWII and you can tell when you walk around town - some of the city's monuments even have shrapnel scars still, an indelible reminder of the last great human conflict. The effects of communism and the division of the country are clear everywhere, from the drab buildings near the old remnants of the Berlin Wall to the tourist stands hawking old Soviet style winter hats and Mutryushka dolls of Britney Spears (ironic much?).

Bratwurst: I was disappointed to hear from my British hostel mate Berlin wasn't really the exemplar of Bavarian cuisine I thought it would be (in fact, most people better associate Berlin with the Donner Kebabs sold by the numerous Turkish immigrants in the city). I did manage to get my hands (and taste buds) around plenty of the stereotypical German snack: bratwurst. Nothing much to say about it besides the fact that it's pretty fucking amazing. Sometimes you gotta go with what everybody expects you to go with, ya know?

Hitler's Bunker: During the bike tour, we made a stop over to Hitler's bunker, the space where the dictator spent his last days before getting married right before offing himself with some cyanide and a bullet to the temple. Thing is, the bunker's not really open to the public (for various reasons), so we really just spent five minutes in a modern apartment building's parking lot talking about Nazis.
     If I was seven again, this would have really freaked me out. When I was younger, I had a really deep seeded fear of Adolf Hitler. It started one night when I snuck out of of bed for a midnight snack and caught my uncle watching a documentary about World War II. The sight of Hitler pontificating to his Aryan dream stormtroopers scared the living beejesus out of me - enough for me to have recurring nightmares where Hitler would come after me in various places (in my sleep, at the park, during the big spelling bee, etc). The funny thing is, I wasn't afraid of Neo Nazis or anyone that could actually get me in the present - I was afraid of Adolf Hitler. Hitler was my Freddy Kruger, and that's a bit weird (although if you show any third grader Triumph of the Will late at night, I'm sure it would freak them out too).
     Nowadays, I'm more afraid of Neo Nazis, who Ingo told us do indeed exist in Germany. Apparently, the large number of punks in the city manage to keep them in line, which all seems really Warriors-esque to me. Moreover, he explained that they were a real minority, which makes sense, since for the most part, I find the German people to be a super friendly bunch. It's almost as if they're all trying to make up for World War II, and if that means I get great service at every beer garden I go to while I'm here, then that's cool with me.

Knut = Kyut: If you've never seen footage of Knut, the (no longer) baby polar bear once rejected by its mother and then raised by a German zoologist with a sweet ponytail/beard combo, then do yourself a favor and witness the cutest thing you've ever seen, ever:

http://youtube.com/watch?v+zZLKb_5S21E

     

     Knut lives in the Berlin Zoo, which also happens to boast the biggest amount of species in one zoo in Europe, so I made it a point to stop by and visit the little bugger.                           

     Knut has grown up a bit since Knut mania hit Germany (a mania that included ten minute clips of what the cub did the day previous every day on German news). This seemed to be the bit of information everyone in Berlin wanted to relay to me when I would tell him or her over the course of our first two days. 

     “Oh, he’s a lot bigger than that, you know,” they would say. “No so cute anymore, no.”

     I kinda understand why you would want to tell somebody in advance that the uber adorable baby polar bear they’ve been YouTubing for a year or two isn’t the same in person – in fact I’m thankful the German people wanted to make actively make sure they weren’t engaging in false advertising when it comes to their furry national icons. The things is, I didn’t care that it wasn’t a cub anymore. It’s STILL A FUCKING POLAR BEAR – and polar bears are fucking cute as shit. Even if it’s an adolescent polar bear, it’s still furry and dough eyed and known for spending long periods of time rubbing its back adorably on nearby rocks. As opposed to an adolescent human, which is pimply, whiny and known for spending long periods of time at Hot Topic.

     Anyway, Knut and the zoo itself didn’t disappoint. Knut’s enclosure was crowded and he spent most of the time I was there finagling with a plastic water bottle, which was great, because he thought he was people. Good time. It was a blazing hot day though, so Dylan and I exited before seeing most of the zoo  (although really, all we missed were the elephants, and I’ve seen elephants before and once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all right?).

Euro Watch 2008, Part Two: As we’re prepping to leave Germany and head to Prague, I’ve gone and spent 413 Euros. I’m starting to feel the crunch, but I’m told it gets less expensive the more we head towards the East. Here’s to hoping that’s true, along with the rumors that the streets are paved with gold and tourists are given three virgins each at the train station.

See ya in the Czech Republic, y’all.

I'm Doing Europe (Part Eight): Amsterdam, the Netherlands 2 (Electric Boogaloo)

Actual Written: June 6, 2008

We've spent three days here in Amsterdam, and mostly because of the great vibe here, it's probably my favorite country so far (as hippie-ish as that sounds).

So an actual update from Amsterdam, with, as always, random thoughts:

The Fabled White Widow: I already posted my thoughts about Amsterdam's more lenient policies here yesterday, but I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about those same soft drugs a bit more. Yes, I tried the fabled White Widow, and yes, it was in fact amazing. Yes, it's pretty powerful, and yes, it's probably better than the stuff you have at home. The thing is, it's not as if it's any more powerful or any better than the strong stuff coming from the pot capitals of America (namely, Northern California, Vermont and Upstate New York). The fact of the matter is, what really sets smoking here apart from the rest of the world is the experience (an experience that, as I noted yesterday, may soon disappear anyway).
The thing that makes the experience unique and amazing in the Netherlands is that the high they have here is the high of the free (for lack of a better, less lame sounding phrase). Gone is the paranoia that your parents may stumble into your room and catch you. Same with the nagging fear that comes with being a fourteen year old smoking a crudely put together joint at the AM/PM parking lot, hoping the suburban police have better things to do. The fact of the matter is, even the most hardened stoners live in fear of the man. All of them. You know - the guy that keeps a vaporizer attached to his car battery. the kid that claims he has a bunch of clones under some specialized lights in his loft. The stoner so permanently fried his entire vocabulary seems culled from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. It's completely natural. At any given moment, it's completely possible that the war on drugs could land them a steep fine, or worse, in courthouse or jail cell. I mean, if they got Chong, then no one's safe, right?
That kind of fear doesn't exist in Amsterdam. Coffee shop workers hand people bongs as they would a steaming espresso. Slack jawed tourists (usually amateur hour smokers) are given over the counter advice about which strains will keep them functional (and less annoying to everyone else). Workers go into shops in the early morning to pick up their pot as if they were picking up groceries for the week, all the while cops pass right on by, completely aware of what's going on. Hell - the only time I ever saw anybody get yelled at a coffee shop was when my friend sat at the shop without buying anything.
No, the high here isn't more powerful. In a lot of ways though, it's just a lot better.

Big American Asshole Part Three (The Waiter): We were at a restaurant in Amsterdam when a waiter asked my group where we were from. We told him we were from California, and he responded by stating, within the confines of a few phrases, everything he knew about the state. It was all very stream of consciousness.
"California! Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego. Surf, beaches, Hollywood!" he said.
I thought it was kind of funny, but then I realized it'd probably be the same if I had to do the same for him.
"Amsterdam!" I'd say. "Pot, hookers, bicycles and clogs?"
I guess we all have a bit to learn about each other.

Absinthe: Had absinthe for the first time the other night. No Moulin Rouge style hallucinations for me there, but it was powerful enough to make my lips numb after one. I now totally understand why Van Gogh cut his ear off after a few. Shit's intense, yo.

The Red Light District: We made it a point to head over to the Red Light District, which, if you're not aware, consists of a bunch of the coffee shops, bars, and prostitutes working behind glass windows literally lit by, well, red lights.
I'm not gonna go into the whole idea of it all - that could be someone's entire thesis. On the one hand, it all seems more than vaguely sad and the misogynistic implications are a bit depressing (there aren't really any streets lined with guys, save a street I was sure was filled with transvestites). At the same time, the entire trade is highly regulated (with scheduled STD tests) and some of them are even in a loose union. Anyway, Amsterdam's trying to cut down on the hookers too, so it's not something that's gonna be around for long, anyway.
The one thing that struck me during the whole thing, though, was how bored they all looked. There wasn't anything really erotic about what happened behind the windows to lure you in besides their outfits (or lack thereof). The women would sit, converse with other girls nearby or be texting on their cell phones. At one point, I passed by a window and accidentally made full eye contact. The girl there quickly put away here phone and hastily made a quick move to give me a come hither stare. It was a move that seemed purely out of obligation more than anything.
That's when I realized that to these women, this was just their job. Hell, put a laptop in their booths with Facebook on it and they'd look exactly the way I do in the office.
You know, except with a G-String on.

The Van Gogh Museum: The biggest collection of the artist's work is in Amsterdam, and it's truly fantastic. They have some of his most famous works (The Potato Eaters, some of the more popularly known self portraits, and Crows Over a Wheat Field, his so called suicide note on canvas), along with really illuminating letters written to his brother Theo (who, along with his widow were responsible for the creation and maintenance of his brother's legacy). As always, it's a real treat to see a full retrospective of an artist's work: you can really trace his evolution from self taught amateur to true master.
Also, it's a great place to go when you've eaten a Space Cake or two.

Munchies: If I didn't know better, I'd think that the whole place was designed with potheads in mind. Spread throughout the city are centers for mad munchie attacks. Sweets shops with chocolate covered waffles and enormous pastries line the streets along with stands selling mayonnaise covered French Fries (Bloggers Note: eww, Europe, eww.) and popular wok establishments. This is why the Dutch government's soft drug crackdown makes no sense to me. It seems that they'd just be putting a lot people out of work, right?

A Quick Note: Looking back at this post, it seems all I did in Amsterdam was engage in various vices. Not true at all. I also nearly got run over by a lot of bikes.

Next stop: Berlin, baby! Das is supa cool (that's German for "That is super cool."). Word.

I'm Doing Europe (Part Seven): Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Again, backlogged to shit due to expensive internet or lack of time.

Actually Written: June 5, 2008

An Open Letter to Amsterdam
Re: Staying the same forever

You know, the rest of the world can learn from you, Amsterdam. While the rest of the world wastes their resources on the war on drugs, your blind eye policies regulate the soft drug usage in your country, bring about what I’m assuming is a good amount of tourism (since a staggering 100% of the people I know that have visited your fair streets have gone for those same soft drugs) and generally contribute to what’s an amazingly relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Bravo, Amsterdam, Bravo! Your resources instead go to maintaining your efficient system of public transportation, your multitudes of shiny, basket carrying bikes and your numerous canals! Yes, your beautiful canals, full of wonder. And boats!
The other night, though, I heard they are trying to eliminate the coffee shops spread throughout your pebbled corridors. They may be gone by July, one of your friendly bartenders told me while he poured a glass of absinthe (good on that one, too!). I hear that there is a fight to either completely regulate wholesale growth and use (sounds good!) or the complete repression of soft drug use (sounds bad!).

Why, Amsterdam? Why? Why, when your policy of pragmatism not only regulates the marijuana use in your tulip lined streets but also discourages hard drug use? Why, when studies have shown that the soft drug users in your town rarely shift to hard drugs? On top of that, you have fantastic drug rehabilitation programs, offering to help 85% of your addict population - a population that has less instances of Hepatitis B and C than the UK or the US. Why, when your educational programs emphasizing marijuana use as a health issue as opposed to a social lead to only 16% of your young people medium age 28 (based on recent statistical analysis) have ever smoked marijuana?

Is it to be like the rest of the prude-ish Western world? I hope that's not the case, Amsterdam.
You didn't get to be the way you were by worrying about what the rest of the world thinks. You have a lot of things going for you, Amsterdam. A great orange clad football team. Fantastic beer. Supremely attractive blonde haired, pretty eyed girls on bikes. Don't let your controlled use of soft drugs and the wonderfully relaxed coffee shops that go with that not be one of them.

Stay the same, Amsterdam. After all, you're the best.

Keep in touch and have a great summer,

Joaquin

Also: I'm really very, very high right now.

Tomorrow: A bigger update!

I’m Doing Europe (Part Six): Brussels, Belgium

Actually Written June 3, 2008

Five Things I Learned from Brussels/Belgium in the Four Hours I Spent There:

1. They speak French there. I did not. Bad combo.
2. Belgium waffles:American Waffles::The American Form of Democracy:The Rest of the World’s Idea of Democracy
3. They really love this fountain with a statue of a small kid pissing. I'm pretty sure it drives the local tourist economy, but I’m not entirely sure. It’s called Manneken Pis. Did I mention it was a fountain with a statue of a small kid pissing?
4. The architecture is pretty astounding, at least in the city center where the woman from the tourist board told us to go. The whole Gran Place left me in awe when we stumbled onto it – there’s an oldness and richness to Europe and it’s cities that we don’t quite have in the States.
5. Shimya Beer: This is a country where Stella Artois is thought of as cheap and disgusting. Shimya beer, one of their finest, tastes like beer if beer was supposed to taste like a milk shake flavored like puppies, pictures of your grandmother, and your first crush on a girl. I’d go get some if I were you.

* In Amsterdam, our roommate Penny told me the whole story behind Menneken Pis. As the story goes, one night a rich man’s five year old goes missing. Some time later, after turning the whole town over, the rich man finds his son near the Grand Place, naked and pissing happily on the street. The dude was so rich he decided to celebrate the occasion by erecting a fountain there. Apparently that kid grew up in Brussels, fated to pass by the commeration of his fabled piss for years. Must have been hard to grow up as the Manneken Pis kid huh? In the growing up fucked up spectrum, I’d say it’s square between the girl that fell in the well (low grade) and anyone/thing that's come out of Britnez Spears (ZING! Can’t be a blog without them celeb quips right?).

I’m Doing Europe (Part Five): London Part Two: London Harder

What follows is a back log of posts I wasn’t able to get up since internet rates in Amsterdam were mostly ridiculous.

Actually Written June 2, 2008

A few more days in London and a few more thoughts:

Accents, Part Two: When I was younger, I was known for speaking in an English accent for random intervals from time to time. It’s one of those bizarre kid things that my parents use these days as anecdotal evidence for either a) a long standing creative streak or b) a long standing bout with schizophrenia. Either one.
     On top of that, I’ve had this (probably) annoying predilection towards mimicking the vocal tics of those people I spend most time with. Phrases, inflection, everything. You can tell when I’ve spent time with my stoner friends when the word “dude” becomes the longest word in the English language.
     Anyway, now that I’m England, both these things have coalesced into a compulsive habit I can’t seem to control. I find myself thanking McDonalds employees in an affected English accent. I use the word “cheers” at any and all opportunity. The worst thing may be that it’s not even the same accent - I’ll discuss the weather to passers by in a very thick Liverpudian while greeting attractive girls with an atrocious Cockney “Allo allo!” Years ago, I went to film camp with a dude people called Manchester Barry and I would routinely greet him in a similar way. “Joaquin, are you mocking me?”
     “Nah, I’m just a weirdo, Barry,” I used to say. Kind of hard to explain to the barista at Starbucks today who heard me order using the Queen’s English before going over to my American bros nearby.
     My only hope is that I can cut this shit out by Germany. I wouldn’t want to see if I could beat out Brad Pitt’s atrocious performance in Seven Years of Tibet.

I sat in a pub today for a few hours and watched (what I think) was most a game of cricket: And I still don’t fucking get it.

Big American Asshole, Part II (Toilets): Here in England, every toilet has a half flush feature and a full flush feature. Apparently, this is to conserve and work for a greener Earth. I do the full flush every time because it reminds me of home, but also because I find the whole half flush to be more than a little inefficient. We Americans are assholes for convenience, aren’t we?

The Tate Modern: Generally a fantastic place! Barely missed an exhibit on Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, but oh well. Fantastic permanent collection whose highlights for me included a screening of Walden, Wall Explosion II by Roy Lichenstein, and the cute English girls that work there.

Abbey Road: Went to Abbey Road today to walk in the footsteps of my idols/a gazillion other people since then. As we were walking around the St. John’s Wood area of Westminster looking slightly confused, a nice British gentleman resembling Peter Sellers told us where it was. I don’t know for sure how he could have known what we were looking for, but it could have been the fact that we were four confused looking dudes with a camera dressed in rough approximations of the Beatles clothes from the album cover. Go figure.
     We took a decent picture in one try, which was good, since Abbey Road is actually a busy fucking street. We lent out our buddy Milad to be a few Brazilian tourist’s John. I would have loved the idea of being immortalized forever in other tourists’ pictures of Abbey Road, but the fact of the matter is, everyone wants to take off their shoes and be Paul, so my outfit would have been horribly redundant.

Blast from the past: In another one to file in the “small world after all” archives, I ran into a friend from high school today at the hostel we’re staying at. I hadn’t seen Tim since we graduated from high school four years ago, and he seemed like he was having a great time. True to form, Tim (ladies man that he was in high school) had two gorgeous foreign girls on his arm. I’m spending my evening blogging. Some things never change.

Euro Watch 2008, Part One, England: Converting over from the dreaded pound, I figure I’ve spent 263.88 Euro in England. Not too bad, considering everybody talks about how bad London is on the pocket.

Next stop: Brussels? Yeah, Brussels.

I'm Doing Europe (Part Four): Big American Assholes, I

     I'm at the bar attached to my hostel having a pint before suddenly, I get this really uneasy feeling in my stomach. At first I think it may be the fish or the chips or both on my plate, but then I realize it's the fact that Nickelback has just come over the stereo at a really unneccessary volume. After a bit, the song fades out along with the overwhelming desire to attack my own ears with a pick axe. The feeling returned pretty much instantly returns a second later when Puddle of Mud comes on.
     That's when I come upon this realization. Back home, I'm able to ignore these kind of bands easily. Because of my hard drive and my IPod, I never listen to the radio anymore, and for the most part, nobody plays music videos, period. Simply put, the America that listens to Chad Kroger isn't necessarily my America. But today, sitting at Belushi's near London Bridge, I'm coming to realize that this is the America that's presented to the rest of the world.
     No matter how much I'm ignorant of it, it doesn't change the fact that as a country, we're not exporting our Rogue Waves and Built to Spills. We're exporting Staind, people, and this may be the biggest problem with our foriegn policy we've yet to discuss. In the last decade or two, Brittain's sent the world Britpop and Radiohead and garage (which is a good or bad thing depending on who you talk to), but what the hell have we put out? Nu metal? Lamebot alt rock (for the record, that would be alt rock made by robots designed to be lame)? It's no wonder the world thinks we're assholes, people. The dudes rocking out representing the red white and blue are assholes.
     The other night I was at a bar and my pal Dylan was talking to a girl. Once she found out he was American, she told him 3 Doors Down was her favorite band. This is the way the rest of the world sees us.
     Maybe there's hope still. I was at the Underground station (that's English for subway) and the station was plastered with Vampire Weekend posters. I didn't realize it would take England for me to find something good about those Ivy League hipster fucks.

*PS: I'm fully aware how condescending this post sounded, thanks. As my man Kel would say. Real talk.

I'm Doing Europe (Part Three): Liverpool, England

     So, I'm kind of a giant Beatles nerd. The kind of Beatles nerd that like, spent four hours with his newfound college friends frehsman year recording a never-to-be-broadcast-to-anyone-besides-us-podcast discussing our twenty favorite Fab Four tunes. The kind of Beatles nerd that spent weekend nights in high school pouring over "Paul is Dead" clues instead of, you know, getting some. The kind of Beatles nerd that's read Bob Spitz's authoritative 992 page tome (The Beatles: The Biography) a few times over. The kind of Beatles nerd who...Well. You get the point.
     It should be no surprise, then that when I first booked my tickets to Europe, I made sure to tell my friend Dylan that no matter what the rest of our group did, I was at least taking a day trip into Liverpool. In retrospect (but a few days later), I feel bad about forcing our five strong band to schlep our asses all the way to Liverpool, especially since my London based cousin has labeled the place "absolute shit," but there's a list of things in my life that I need to take care of before I make it to that big sop hop in the sky, and one of them is taking a pilgrimage to the birthplace of my heroes.
     I guess you can say it's off my bucket list now - a list that includes (stereotypically enough) skydiving and (stupidly enough) finishing Rob Reiner's The Bucket List, a movie I made 80% of my way through on the trip up to Canada before connecting to London (thanks a lot, the first third of The Wedding Singer).

Anyway. Some thoughts about Liverpool:

Magical Mystery Tour: So here's the thing about taking a "Beatles tour" around Liverpool. If you want to avoid disappointment, you should really 1) make sure there isn't a major cultural festival that is sure to import a shit ton of tourists to town and 2) book a tour way in advance, lest you get stuck walking/taking buses/waiting for cabs in the rain that will never come around town.
     We kind of got screwed from taking the actual tour, but thankfully Liverpool has plenty of maps that lead you around so you can take a tour yourself. Being the nerd that I am, I was able to play impromptu guide to the rest of my party, although I did have to piggyback another private tour once we got to St. Peter's (where Paul and John met) to actually find the spot they met/Eleanore Rigby's grave (yeah, she was a real person). Needless to say, the whole day got me pretty verklemped.
     Amazingly enough, Macca himself was in town headlining the festival that night at the local football stadium (that's British for soccer), but serendipity was only partly on our side because by the time we realized the opportunity we had, tickets had skyrocketed to the number of cash I'd allotted for my entire trip. Maybe it's for the best. I probably wouldn't have recovered from hearing the dude yell out "Hello Liverpooollllll." They'd still be picking up pieces of my brain that would have exploded all over Merseyside.

The Jury's Inn, Liverpool: I give the place four stars, mostly because they didn't even bother to stop us from sleeping five in a two bed room, but also because the TV they had there had an unstoppable so-bad-it's-good movie marathon featuring The Girl Next Door, Coyote Ugly, and Rock Star. By the end of nine hours, I felt like my brain had been cleared of everything I'd learned in film school. Which is okay really, since pretty much the only things I'd learned in film school were 1) the audience is a stupid, stupid bunch we should pander to and that 2) college chicks think it's really deck when you like Francois Truffaut.

* Quick note about The Girl Next Door: The movie features one of most egregious cases of those "I'm going to film school" characters that always end up being the biggest ass clown in the movie. What is it about filmmakers that make us so self effacing/defeating/deprecating? Note to self: Being self aware is only the first step to recovery.

On Weather in England: I don't think I've seen the sun in a half a week, by the way, which explains the whole pasty complexion thing. It's no excuse however, for the bad teeth thing. ZING.

Some local flavor: At one point, we were at a pub waiting for a cab and an affable, elderly dude (think Seymour Cassel) came over to us and told us a joke. I don't know if it was the liquid lunch of locally brewed Carling beer I was having or just the generally jovial mood I was in, but I thought it was fucking Nene Hilarious.

     What follows is, to the best of my memory, the joke in it's entirety. It's important that you imagine a dude with the thickest Scouse accent you've ever heard doing this, or else it won't work at all. You've been warned.

"So there's this bloke (Bloggers Note: that's British for 'dude'), and he can't decide which of three girls to marry. He decides to go to his dear old dad for some advice.

'Dad,' he says. 'I don't know what to do.' He shows him all three girls' pictures.

Their all bloody gorgeous!' his dad says. After a pause, he tells him what he has to do. 'Give them each 100 pounds for a month. At the end of the month, go to each one of them and ask what they spent their money on.'

'Brilliant!' the son says. He goes off and does just that. At the end of the month, he goes to each girl and asks what they spent the thousand quid on (Bloggers Note: Quid = Pound).

The first girls says: 'Well, I know you love steak, so I spent it on a state of the art grill and five hundred pounds of the best steak there is. And I'm gonna cook it for you everyday because I love you so much.'

The second girl says: 'I invested it and it's matured to twice as much. I think we should spend the money and go on Holiday to the Bahamas."

The third girl says: 'I took the money and took care of everything so that we can take the month off, go to this sleepy bread and breakfast and fuck all day.'

He takes a bit to give it a thought and then marries one of the girls. Which of these girls did he marry?"

At this point, all of my party gives widely disparate answers. The old man then says, very simply, as he's walking away, pint in hand: "No no no, it's simple really."

"He married the one with the biggest boobs."

I'm Doing Europe (Part Two): London, England (or the United Kingdom, or Great Brittain, or Whatever Else They Decide to Call Themselves)

My first stop's been London, which has been pretty brilliant (that's British for cool), if not a bit expensive, what with the pound (that's British for dolla dolla bill, y'all) kicking my ass all around town.

Some observations about England right off the bat:

Accents: I've got to say that the accents here are worth the price of admission alone. I could walk around all day and do nothing besides listening to people talk. Combined with the fact that the area around our first hostel in Piccadilly Circus looked like a back lot dressed to look like the UK, the accents had me convinced I was walking around in a Richard Curtis movie. Fantastic.

Moreover, I'm convinced everyone in this country is smarter than me. I don't know what it is about people speaking the Queen's English, but for some reason, everyone seems either a) more sardonic than me, b) more cultured than me, c) more aware than me or d) all of the above. I was at Tesco's the other day (that's British for Wal-Mart) and I heard this exchange between a small British girl and her little brother:

Cute Little Asian British Girl: Don't wander off too far, you'll get lost!

Cute Little Asian British Boy: (a beat) I hate you.

Coming from a pair of American kids, this would have sounded juvenile and bratty. Coming from these two, it sounded like a fucking Mamet movie. Awesome.

People in General: People in general are really nice here, by the way. Although I could just be giving them points because of the accents.

The £: As I mentioned earlier, the pound is kind of kicking my ass. It's pretty much double the dollar here, and Western Europe is pretty expensive in general. I'd have an easier time conserving my funds, but the actual bills themselves remind me of Monopoly money, so I'm kind of spending them as such. This is no good.

The Original Bus Tour of London: On our second day we took the Original Bus Tour of London - one of those red double decker buses that goes around town stopping off at places like the Tower of London and Big Ben and the like. We went with the headphones only tour, as I'm not really a fan of seeing some poor former acting major suffer through their fifth tour of the day while trying to get me interested in Oliver Cromwell.

On the whole, I'd recommend it if you're ever in town. It's kind of expensive (something like £22), but really covers everything you need to see and lets you hop on and off. Now, when people (namely my parents) ask about whether I saw to (insert English landmark of little consequence or interest to me), then I can say for certain that I did (albeit fleetingly from the top of a bus sitting on my lazy ass). Everyone's a winner.

Statues: Another thing I found out on the tour is that in London, everyone and their mom gets a statue. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. Near the old stock exchange, they've got a statue commemorating stock traders (the statue is literally a dude in a suit and tie on a cell phone). By Regent Park, they've got a bust of JFK. JFK, people. Last I checked (which was a second ago on Wikipedia), he's not even British.

That doesn't mean they didn't miss a few people. What follows is a top five list of people that deserve to be captured forever in stone (or marble, or granite, or whatever statues are made out of these days) in Jolly Ol' London Town:

1. Hugh Grant: Let's forgive Hugh his one transgression with a poorly named prostitute and recognize the man for popularizing Oxford shirts with rolled up sleeves and foppishness all over the world. Hell, the man should be knighted and canonized in the Anglican Church (that's British for Christianity in England, post Henry VIII induced schism with the pope, yo).
2. John McClane: I was gonna say that Alan Rickman should get a statue for being the archetypal Hollywood British Villain over the course of a decades long career - but then I remembered how much John McClane kicked his English arse (that's British for ass) in Die Hard. That's why Brucey Boy gets the nod. Also, if memory serves, John McClane once got into a fight with a fucking jet fighter. Guess who won that one. I'll give you a hint (it wasn't the fucking helicopter).
3. J.R.R. Tolkien: Because New Zealand shouldn't be getting all that LOTR nerd tourist money, people.
4. The Britsh Bulldog: Dude rocked the Union Jack on his jock and the freshest set of white dude dreadlocks on his head. Throw in multiple reigns as tag team and European title along with the Hart family ties and the least you could do is give the man a statue near Buckingham Palace, right?
5. The Beatles: Nuff' said.

It's getting late. I'll be back tomorrow with some rousing anecdotes about Liverpool (birthplace of this band you may have heard of called the motherfucking Beatles).

I'm Doing Europe (Part One): Introduction

So I'm in Europe and despite the fact that 1) I told myself I was going on a great internet purge for a good month and 2) keyboards tend to be different country by country (England's, for example, have a pound sign where there should be the "@" symbol, which frustrates me to no end when I try to log on Facebook, yes, Facebook), I'm starting a blog. Mostly it's because I don't want to tell the same stories to different people, but also I think it's because I'm the kind of dude that just blogs. So. Yeah. Here's to that.