3,000 Words

I would first like to warn you that the following post will not impact the world. It will not shatter the Earth or change blogging as we know it. It is merely an account, in three parts, of my brief excursion through Europe. I visited Dublin before meeting up with my cousin Marissa to explore London, Paris, Rome and Venice.

I apologize for the delay in the posting of this article. My computer died, leaving me sad and internet-less.

I intended to present this article to the world in three distinct parts, slowly drawing the reader in before cutting him off, leaving him salivating for more. Because of my limited internet access I must take advantage of this rare opportunity and instead present all three parts at once. Enjoy the next 3,000 words.

First Part: Third Person

It was a Monday morning, and like most German mornings rainless clouds hung as a reminder of the afternoon's intentions. Nathaniel finished his breakfast, double checked his duffel bag, and shut down his computer. He walked down the stairs, out the door, and into the awaiting car. The ride to the airport was quick and traffic less. There was no line at the check in desk.

The scene on Grafton Street belied Mother Nature's intentions. A young guitarist's best Hendrix blended harmoniously with the violin duet down the street. Groups of tourists crowded around a hippie street magician telling off-color jokes, while a 70's style folk band jammed happily in the rain. Nathaniel ducked into a Subway to get a sandwich.

Not your run of the mill 24 year old, Nathaniel has been called weird, crazy, out there, and eccentric, but none of these quite capture his essence. His thinking patterns are different in that they don't exist. There is a distinct possibility that he does not actually have a brain at all; just a mouth that is always absurd and occasionally insane.

After settling into his spacious, 20 bed-per-room hostel, Nathaniel decided to do a little wandering through the streets of Dublin. The smell of the hostel, that of two parts feet and one part baseball camp dormitory, dashed from his nostrils as the scent of the city filled his lungs. Within minutes of the hostel stood the Dublin Spire - the tallest something in all of somewhere. Measuring no more than 10 feet in diameter at its base, the cone leapt to the clouds. The monument was impressive, but it was neither the size of the structure nor the sheen of the metal that grabbed Nathaniel's attention. Instead, he wondered who changed the light bulb at the top, some 390 feet above the ground. The structure was too narrow for stairs and impossible to scale. It was a question that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

After boring of the spire, Nathaniel decided to tour the Jameson Distillery. It was of little worth mentioning.

Having only one night in Dublin, he decided to stop into a true Irish Pub on his way back to the hostel. Locals, expressing a uniquely Irish and distinctly sullen expression, filled the bar. A man played a combination of popular U.S. tunes and Irish Pub songs, and although the locals sang along, it was not without a hint of melancholy.

The clock read midnight, and after being threatened for apologizing to a bartender he almost tripped, it was clearly time to head back to the hostel. To gain access to this hostel after 9 pm, Nathaniel had to ring a buzzer and...wait for it...tell them a room number. It didn't even have to be right. Basically any number would do. This lack of security seemed rather paradoxical, given the fact that the free Wi-Fi password was something to the effect of AB42432897BDKADKJEK2300983dAikajfD.

Nathaniel went upstairs, took a shower, and embarked on a wonderfully deserved slumber. He awoke the next morning in time for the hostel's free breakfast, where he discussed with a few single serving friends whether the Guinness Book of World Records has anything to do with Guinness Beer. (It does.) He checked out of the hostel, wandered the city some more, and arrived at the airport two and a half hours before his scheduled flight to London.

He breezed through security without pause and quickly found his way to the gate, which was at the far end of the long terminal. He had a significant amount of time, so Nathaniel got in a quick workout. With the workout complete he found a seat near his gate and cracked open his book. There was still more than an hour until departure.

Nathaniel strolled coolly to the gate, poised and calm, as people rushed to be first on board. But when he got to the front he was informed that what he thought was his boarding pass, was, well, not. "You have to go all the way back to the check in desk and get this stamped. You have 10 minutes. If you run you
might be able to make it."

Nathaniel dropped his bag and began to sprint. "Wait!" the airline lady yelled. "You can't leave your bag. You have to take it." Angry, but without the time for argument, Nathaniel grabbed his bag and Usain Bolted back down the terminal, dashed the wrong way through security, and started yelling at people to let him skip to the front of the line. He made it to the check in desk where he was informed that his flight "probably already left."

"Please just do this as fast as you can anyway," he begged.

Finally equipped with a proper boarding pass, Nathaniel busted past the line waiting to go through security, kept his shoes on, and ran through the metal detector, which of course decided to beep. He took the cell phone out of his pocket, but again the machine went off. The security guards could see his plight - they had seen him sprint past just minutes before - and gave him a quick wand-over before letting him pass. Nathaniel took his bag and sprinted down the corridor towards GATE # LAST FREAKING ONE.

300 yards from the gate, with fiery legs and burning lungs, Nathaniel heard the dreaded words over the airport PA system: "Last call for flight FR 342. Last call for flight FR 342."

200 yards from the gate and barely able to breathe, a surge of adrenaline pumped through his body. "I'm coming!" came the primal scream as the entire airport population turned to look. "I'm coming! 342 I'm coming!"

Panting into the home stretch Nathaniel saw the lady whom had first alerted him to his check in failure. "8 minutes," she said. "New record."

The plane landed in London at 11 pm, and after an hour cab ride Nathaniel and Marissa arrived at her apartment. They spent the next day in London, seeing the entire city in record time. The highlight of the trip was clearly the Tower Bridge, which is a beautifully constructed, blue steel bridge with two connecting, stone towers rising high above the water. It's a true piece of architectural art. The London Bridge, on the other hand, is probably the worst thing on Earth. An elderly British woman overhearing Nathaniel's remark to Marissa that, "The London Bridge sucks balls compared to Tower Bridge," could only nod in approval.

They retired back to La Casa de Donorissa with the contented feeling of accomplishment. They had rocked London and rocked it hard. "'You need a week to see the city," the cousins had been told. More like a day.

Second Part: First Person

We arrived in Paris under the impression that Parisians were ethnocentric to the point of rudeness, especially towards Americans, and were therefore rather alarmed when our first act in Paris - attempting to buy a train ticket - resulted in the immediate destruction of the ticket machine. After managing to acquire 17 Euros in coins to feed the green behemoth, the machine decided to 'time out.' Sadly for us this time out had nothing to do with discussing strategy or designing an in-bounds play. In Paris, it turns out, 'time out' means break, and not in the sense of taking a time out. (A nice circular sentence for you) I don't know what we did wrong, but clearly my insertion technique needs some work. Out 17 Euros and sans train ticket or the ability to speak a word of French, we were starting to freak out. Marissa found an airport worker, who in turn found the guy in charge of fixing ticket machines. The machine fixer did not seemed surprised by our predicament and made swift work of fixing the machine and retrieving our ticket, which begs the question: If there is a technician continually on call, why not employ him as a human ticket machine? But I ramble...

We thanked the gentleman and made our way to the train platform, where I instantly wondered how we would know if we were getting on the correct train. Marissa quickly pointed out a sign, written in English, which said in large, bold letters, "ALL TRAINS TO PARIS." Apparently all Americans think alike.

It was still fairly early when we got off the train, but thinking we only had two days in Paris we decided to get our sightseeing groove on. Lugging our bags around at breakneck speed, we had seen most of the city by 3 pm and decided it was a good time to visit the Louvre, which I contend is not a museum at all, but the world's largest country.

We're not art connoisseurs by any means, (I can't speak for Marissa, but I can honestly say I don't even marginally enjoy most paintings or sculptures.) and therefore were able to breeze by 95% of the work in the museum. We saw the Mona Lisa, of course, but I have to say that I was not impressed. Da Vinci was not pretty in drag.

Venus de Milo was quite impressive, as was the sculpture of the Greek Goddess Nike, but none of these famous pieces were the highlight of the Louvre. My vote instead goes to the leather sofas that were home to two of the greatest naps of all time. Marissa and I were tired and dehydrated to the point of exhaustion. We knew we had been pushing it - hell, we'd been up since 3.30 am - but had no idea how tired we really were until we found ourselves sitting at a computer in the Louvre, aimlessly clicking through an interactive program written completely in French. As I realized we were using the computer as an excuse to sit down, Marissa spotted the most gorgeous thing in the world. The sofas called to us, and as we plopped our weary buns into the supple leather I knew it was meant to be. "Wake me up in 90 minutes," I managed to sputter as sleep quickly engulfed me. Ten seconds later I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Marissa and it hadn't been ten seconds. "We were asleep for an hour," she said.

I gave her as angry a stare as I could muster. "I said 90 minutes."

I felt pretty sick and extremely tired, so I had Marissa get some water for me while I slowly came out of my sleep inertia. Within 15 minutes we were both feeling good enough to continue on through the museum. 10 minutes later we were back outside, reminiscing about being the only people who consider napping in the Louvre a Paris must and a life highlight.

It was getting to be evening, and although we knew we could move on to the Eiffel Tower we decided to leave something for the next day. That's right, friends, had we wanted we could have rocked Paris in a day. Instead we decided to make our way to our hostel, which was closer to a five star hotel than it was to my hostel in Dublin, and get a good night's sleep.

*****

At some point during the last four months I had heard The Eiffel Tower described as, "the second biggest tourist disappointment in Europe." Maybe it wouldn't be all it was cracked up to be, but still I maintained hope. We arrived around 11 am, early enough to avoid the crowds in this incredibly late waking city, and begun our ascent up the greatest freakin' thing ever. The Eiffel Tower is not overrated. Not even a little. I'd actually say that the Eiffel Tower is underrated. I compare it to Derek Jeter. You cannot say you understand the majesty of The Captain because you've seen him in a Mach 3 commercial. You cannot claim to understand his greatness because you saw a highlight clip of a jump-throw to first. You can't imagine what he means to the Yankees just by looking at his stats. As it is with the Eiffel Tower. Without witnessing it first hand you have no idea how awesome it is. No picture or film clip does it justice. And to show my respect for the structure, I Slater Deuced it. (If you don't know what that means, don't worry. If you do, well, you're welcome.)

Our list of things to see in Paris was complete, so Marissa and I wandered around for a few hours in search of my college friend Brittany's apartment. After a few hours of misguided wandering we met up with Brittany, whom I hadn't seen in two years, and her friend and cousin. After a little catching up we went out for crepes, which cannot in any way compare to real pancakes. I had heard only good things about crepes, but after eating one I only have bad things to say. Regardless of my distaste for the terrible excuse for pancakes, we had a good time hanging out.

It was getting late and we had an early flight the next day, so we headed back to our hostel. We were walking past the Eiffel Tower at midnight and were lucky enough to catch the hourly light show, which was nothing less than spectacular. We arrived back at the hostel and double checked our flight time, which we thought was sometime in the early to mid morning. It was not. We had nearly an entire extra day in Paris and decided we may be the only people sweet enough to consider three days in Paris at least a day and a half too long. Needless to say we did little to nothing on day 3.

*****

It was nearly midnight and the information desk was closed when we arrived in Chiampino, a suburb of Rome, leaving us with no way of finding out how to get to our hostel. Marissa had booked accommodations supposedly within walking distance of the airport, in order to ease our commute from our late arriving flight in and to our early departing flight out, and despite being rather close to the airport the walk was deemed quite dangerous by a number of local policemen. We couldn't get definitive directions, and with Marissa unwilling to embark on a blind, dangerous journey, we were forced to find an alternative plan of action. Neither of us was willing to pay the exorbitant prices quoted by the cab drivers, so we started asking random people for directions, hoping instead to conjure up a ride. Just as all hope seemed lost, Marissa spotted a group of teenage backpackers led by a hilariously long-haired, sweet-bearded man in his twenties. We sprinted up and conjured our ride. You may call this hitchhiking. I prefer to call it sweet-hiking.

*****

Our walk to the train station the next morning seemed to be taking a little too long, so we stopped and asked a man who was gardening in his yard, "Where's the train station?"

"Right there," he said, as he pointed 25 feet down the road. Embarrassed, we walked into a train station I wouldn't expect to see in the worst Baltimore projects. The fact that I didn't contract herpes still amazes me. The one lady waiting for the train told us that tickets were not needed on Sunday and that the train schedule was more of a loose guide than a hard schedule, so we weren't surprised when the dilapidated looking train arrived 15 minutes late. What did surprise us was its immaculate interior. Italy, you are an enigma.

Marissa had to pee pretty badly upon our arrival in Rome, so she went to the bathroom as I stood and waited. One hour later I found her, still in need of a bathroom. The station bathroom charge a fee, and since I was holding all of her money in my backpack, Marissa had been unable to use the wash closet, allowing for a quick return...to a spot where I was not, and never had been, waiting. It wasn't her fault though. It was nobody's fault. But it was definitely her fault.

After finding a bloody McDonalds' bathroom slightly less than sanitary, Marissa and our five minute friend Karen finally found a free, clean toilet. Karen wanted us to go with her to a museum, but we had a single day in Rome and needed to hit the highlights. Our Israeli friend was sad to see us go, but parting ways was the only way we'd be able to see Rome at the pace we'd become accustomed to.

And then we saw Rome in a day - the Coliseum, the Vatican, and a whole bunch of other really old things. Sadly the Sistine Chapel was closed, so we didn't get to "look up at that beautiful ceiling," but we saw everything else. The church at the Vatican had an absurdly antiquated dress code. Marissa was not allowed in because she wore a tank top, so after I saw the chapel I lent her my shirt. Again she was denied access as the dress code masters claimed her shorts were too short. If they'd been any longer I'd begin to question her sexuality.

Still, we silenced the doubters. Rome may not have been built in a day, but we saw it in one.

Third Part: Verse Person

In Venice the intelligent are called Venetian minds,

and those who sadly cannot see - well they're Venetian blinds.

The people guiding gondolas are called Venetian cabbies,

while those whose names are Abigail go as Venetian Abbies.

But anyone you see in Venice with a smiling face,

has either just been married or has just got to the place.

An hour roaming Venice makes the city seem quite grand,

but if you try to stay the day you'll realize that it's bland.

A superficial glance of Venice says that it's a city,

but in reality it's just a town that is quite shitty.

So if you ever go to Venice try to make it terse,

and heed the lessons that you've learned from this Venetian verse.