I can remember the days when I went along with the rest of America and jumped on the I-Hate-France bandwagon. Those were the days. Days when I could feel perfectly fine and very American to substitute the word “french” in for queer, lazy, or snooty. I, along with any friends that would do the same thing, would get their knowledge of the French people and government from reputable places like Fox News, movies, comedy skits, and maybe other friends who had friends that knew someone who had traveled there once. Although, I even had a cousin who had lived in France and would tell me how rude the French could be. The height of French bashing in America was when they kept creating obstacles for the U.S. in the U.N. when talking about invading Iraq. Bush just wanted to do a quick little wisp of an invasion and France would go for it; further promoting the stigma of how the French were lazy and not a people of action. Well, I bet they feel silly considering how well everything is going over there.
When Colin and I were doing our Eurotrip our two main French stops were going to be Nice and Paris. We had our first taste of French laziness in the booth car of the train that we shared with 4 smelly African knock-off salesmen. These guys were everywhere in Italy, but as soon as we got into France, the cops came in and took one guy and most of their goods (this one guy took the fall and the cops didn't have any proof on anyone else). The booth smelled a little better after he left, so I was already feeling better.
After swinging by Barcelona for a few days we headed north to soak up some of the gayness of Paris. To my dismay, I had a hard time getting anyone to be rude to me. I wanted a story to take back to my French-hating Americans. Instead, all I got was smiles and good customer service. Ok, not everybody was happy-go-luck, but they were helpful when I asked them for directions or needed to ask for things like when the next train was coming.
One time we Colin and I got a perfect opportunity to build up some good karma with the French people, just in case. You never know when you'll need some good karma. We helped this old blind lady cross the street. Yeah, I know, it doesn't get much better than that. I was excitedly telling Colin that this was money in the bank and then we started in to saying our good-byes to the old lady and we started to walk off. There were chest high poles at the end of the cross walk and we let the old blind lady walk straight into them because we were so excited about our good karma we were about to receive for good deed we had done. Probably not my proudest moment. The lady smiled and laughed nervously with us and we walked away in shame.
On the second day we went up to visit the Normandy beaches. It was an amazing and humbling experience to see how impossible it would've been to get through the water and up the hill at Omaha beach. The mortar impact craters were still there, as well as the very well hidden German bunkers that still had chunks of concrete missing from grenades and bullets. We spent some time there and went back to Bayeau to catch the train back to Paris after dinner.
We hopped on a late train that we were pretty sure was going to Paris. We soon found out that the train was heading south when it hit the town of Caen. So Colin and I made a blind decision to get off the train at Caen and hope that there was one last train going to Paris from there. It was one of those decisions where you make yourself feel confident because you don't know what else to do. We got off the centipede and I watched it crawl away as Colin looked on the board for our train to Paris. When he told me it wasn't on there I was still in denial so I asked an attendant in the station.
Ronnie: “Hey, are there any more trains to Paris tonight?”
Attendant: “blah blah blah scooby doo blah. Blah blah?”
Ronnie: “Um. To Paris. Paris. Sil' vous plait.”
Attendant: “Oohh! Hahaha. Paris blah blah blah thththbbbbt! Hahaha.” (ththbbbt = fake fart noise).
Ronnie: “Paris thbbbt, huh? Awesome. Merci.”
I mean, I get it that there were no more trains to Paris, but sometimes you have to break that type of news to someone a little easier than ththbbbbt. I walked toward Colin about the noise the guy made that confirmed the start of our new adventure. We accepted our fate as we walked out and passed the closed bus station; we were there for the night. I did get a wild hair up my ass one time and tried to convince Colin that it would be so much fun to try to hitchhike to Paris. I convinced myself it was a good idea, but he wasn't going for it. It was about a 3 hour drive. I started thinking about how we let that old blind lady hit the pole. Yeah, we probably lost a few karma points for that one.
The whole city of Caen was dead by 7:30. I'm talking about the shops were all closed except one that luckily served beer and there was almost no one on the streets. Colin and I were trying to save money since we were wasting money on the hotel room in Paris so we just figured we'd wait it out until 6:00 a.m. when the next train left for Paris. Another night spent in the train station like in Genoa was going to be rough, but at least it would keep us away from the chilly breeze blowing that night. So our spirits were all but shot when the police kicked us and a couple others out into the cold. We sat on the sideway for a good 20 minutes until we noticed that there was still one bar open.
The bartender let us in on the agreement that we would buy a couple drinks because their closing time was almost up as it was 1 a.m. The bar tenders were husband and wife and spoke some English. They asked, so I told them our story and out of no where they offered to let us stay on their couch-bed for the night after they close up. I was shocked. So we stayed with them till after they closed up and headed back to their apartment which was a short walk away. I could have fallen asleep on a bed of nails at this point, but they wanted to stay up, chat, offer us beer, and feed us some goose liver on a cracker. I had a little fun with this because I saw how Colin wasn't wanting anything to do with the goose liver, so I excitedly told them we would love to try it. It was worth staying up a little longer see him have to try it. I personally thought it tasted like a lighter version of spam, but I think Colin thought it tasted like a darker version of spam... mixed with fish eyes. These people were really the perfect hosts though. They gave us an alarm clock, blankets, pillows and their first born.
We slept well for a few hours and left to catch our train. That pretty much ends my story in France. I loved the liberal and relaxed atmosphere in France, which is something that is rare or nonexistent in America. It still amazes me how hospitable those strangers were and they forever changed my opinion about the French, and I always tell any Americans that haven't had much contact with them.
I would have to say that my train trip through the Alps from Munich to Venice had the most spectacular views of any trip in my life going anywhere. At the foothills, one small German town was split by the rail way, but each side had a matching castle off in the distance up on a hill. Lush green fields were everywhere. Once we got into the mountains we were in a valley with walls a mile high on each side of us. Everything stayed green and there was one small house at the top of this mile high wall sitting all by itself. Coming down the other side we saw a light blue river that looked fake and then with Italy came the vineyards running up and down the valley walls. Small quaint towns were also climbing the hills.
Colin and I planned to stay in Venice for 3 days because our expectations where high. Long story short, we cut it short a day. I guess I can only explain it as strong feeling being a trapped tourist. I know it was always a city of vacationers and if I had a wife there and I was an old person looking for some quiet expensive nights with a gondola ride, then this would be the place. I don't think I will ever be that person though, and Colin will never be my wife. He's a good guy, but just kind of a control freak. Plus, he has a penis. The floating city would also be a very good place to go meet a lot of Americans and maybe the occasional European. I think I saw an Italian there too. I will say that I was glad that I got to see it for a day (that's it) and I was impressed with the canals, narrow walkways, bridges, and San Marco's Cathedral. It's also the place where I learned about the honor system with buses in Europe and how to dishonor it every once in a while to save money.
Now, Florence, this is the city that I remember Italy by. I finally felt like I was in Italy. Italians guys saying "Ciao, bella" to the passing girls, pizza with the freshest of toppings, cobble stone streets, scooters everywhere, and just a vibrant feel of people enjoying life all over the city. A small river cut through the city and separated the flat city center from the steep-hilled side. The two stone bridges couldn't have been more ascetically pleasing. I thought this even though we had just walked across town with our 30 pound packs on, in under a blazing sun, and staring at the next 2 miles up hill that we had to walk to get to our camp sight. There were a lot of tourists here because of the Ufizzi and statue of David, but it felt like Italy and you could get away from them if you went to certain parts of the city. I spent my nights at the camp sight getting drunk with the group of German girls, a Frenchman, and a Finnish guy. I made out with one of the girls after a couple bottles of wine. We all hung out overlooking the city from under a copy of the statue of David and had some laughs (as people do when they're drunk).
When in Rome, I did as the tourists did. I went to all the big sights, appreciated them as much as I could, then was worn out from walking, blah blah blah. I had three bad "firsts" in the subway in Rome. While I was trying to figure out how to get a ticket out of the machine I was approached by my first ever real life gypsy. Other than her ragged out clothes, stinky breath, messed up grill, and whiney attitude, she was a decent person. Well, maybe not decent, but she was a person. I'll give her that. She tried to explain the machine, but was really just distracting me and then wanted money for doing so after I told her to go away several times. The problem ended up being that my bill was too large. Unfortunately for me, I was in a place where asking people to make change was an insult. I got turned down by a couple locals and even a cashier at a book store. I forgot how I ended up getting the change, but I'm pretty sure I blacked out from frustration and killed someone. That's my other "first." My third "first", if I may, was getting on my first subway car. As it rolled up and stopped, I couldn't help but notice that all the original paint had been covered by horribly done graffiti so that it looked like a crash-up derby bus.
A couple of roommates from my hostel in Rome told me the great story of how they were late getting to their ferry in Croatia. They left one taxi on the way to the ferry because they were pretty sure the cabbie was getting ready to take them somewhere and kill them. So with their other taxi got them to the dock the boat was already taking off for Italy, but had only just left. Everyone on the boat saw them and started encouraging them on to run and jump to make it. So they did. They bolted down the dock and threw their bags on to it. Then they jumped a good meter onto the moving ferry. Everyone cheered. The end.
My action-packed Rome story is similar. At the top of the Spanish steps Colin and I found a Pub Crawl. Pay €15 for an hour of nonstop drinking and then they take you to a few pubs to drink and playing drinking games. Yay for binge drinking! Anyway, so after I had about 3 beers, 2 mixed drinks, and 3 cups of wine, they announced their first game of the night. About 10 guys lined shoulder to shoulder and we had a girl partner across from us. They shoved the can of beer up one pant leg and down the other, opened the can of beer, and whichever guy drank it first won. Long story short, I won. The guy next to me almost won, but instead of winning he puked and everyone saw. Haha. Then they took a picture of my partner and me and put us up on their web page along with hundreds of other untalented winners. See, pretty similar action-packed stories.
Rome was also where I learned that if you hesitate and try to let cars pass while you cross the street you may cause an accident. Everyone gets confused over if a pedestrian gives a vehicle the right-away and you end up playing Red light, Green light with them a few times. Its best to just walk and not look. At first, it felt weird; like putting your right foot on the clutch, but it worked every time.
The last thing I'll say about Rome is that they have the best fountains that I've ever seen, the people were beautiful, but they were probably the least helpful and most rude to me than any other place I have visited. Most of them were not rude, but I wouldn't consider them nice either. Oh, and the huge stylish sunglasses were EVERYWHERE and it kind of gave me the impression that Paris Hilton had been through there one too many times.
Leaving Rome, Colin and I opted to bite the bullet and get stuck in Genoa train station (on our way to Nice, France) so that we could stop off and see the by Pisa and see the tower for a couple hours. The tower was nice, but better was being part of the large number of people all pretending to hold up the tower while someone took their pic. Not my proudest moment, but it had to be done.
So there it was for the most part. Colin an I stay from 10pm to 5am sitting on a cold metal seat in the train station. The whole time the gypsies were trying to make sure their midget was comfortable, the same 20 second techno elevator music song played every 2 minutes, and stinky guy next to me kept falling asleep and leaning on me. Good night, Italy, and suck it easy.
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