Chronicles of Murl: Things I learned in Europe

1. Lufthansa is the European word for "Lost Luggage". Mine was lost twice. Had to buy skivvys in a little lingerie store in Vicenza, Italy. I'm putting them on my expense report.

2. Found out that I must be more German that I think. It's my love for the unifying beer drinking songs. "All Australians are born Illegitimate, born illegitimate, born illegitimate...."

3. All Italians know the words to "Country Road". They wear matching T-shirts and sit together in one big group at Oktoberfest. Yeah All of them.

4. Oktoberfest is not a thing for Germany. It's a thing for Bavaria. What does that mean? Bavaria=Texas. Lederhosen and the frilly dresses= Cowboy boots and hats. Ahh... It all makes sense now.

5. People hate Americans because of our Military presence. Not because we are there, but because when we are there we are egotistical, arrogant, ignorant, disrespectful jerks with guns and buzz cuts who carry vodka in a camel back while running. (Don't write letters, I just met two of them, but they tainted my view immensly, for all of you Europeans, we are all not like that).

6. Trains are awesome. Riding in cars with natives is not. I am normally not motion sick.

7. If you lose your luggage once, and you buy really expensive skivvys, you should pack at least one of them in your carry on from that point on... because lightning can strike twice.

8. Course number 5 or 6 of a good meal is heaven on wheels... the cheese cart. Heck yeah.

9. You would think that while you are sitting drinking wine in an outdoor cafe on a piazza at sunset, watching the people mill around casually and unhurriedly, dodging bicycles laden with loaves of bread, not a car in sight, not a building newer than a thousand years old, that you couldn't feel more removed from America. Then the music from the string quartet wafts over to your table. Rich cellos and violins echo off the walls of the buildings. It's "Memory" from CATS. You scan the grounds to see if you can throw yourself infront of a Vespa.

10. You know that you better have a map handy when you ask the train station ticket lady to repeat what she just said in English and she replies "That was English".

11. You probably just got screwed when the weinerschnitzel cart vendor says "That will be twenty" and you say "Euros?" and he pauses and says "Sure"

12. Adapters are not enough. You need the transformer. A fried cell phone charger means you call your parents from a strangers cell phone in line at the airport because you don't know anyones phone number by heart.

13. Jim Garner is a rock star. I didn't really learn that in Europe.

14. If you are shaving in a foreign country, put your razor completely back in it's case before shoving your hand into your bathroom kit.

15. Flights that have people on them who have heart attacks over the Atlantic turn around, fly an hour in the opposite direction and land in Iceland. They remove the patient, and then after refueling, have to remove the patients UNATTENDED LUGGAGE. Flights that have this happen on them tend to miss the connecting flight...and the next connecting flight...and the next one....

16. I cry much more easily at movies on airplanes. Sure Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, that just means I'm a cheeseball. But Monster-In-Law? I'm certifiable.

17. When changing your pants on a train infront of lederhosen-clad adolescents, you should probably put something over you.

18. Six million Germans agree. Oktoberfest Rocks. I know this because I asked them, they were all sitting at my table.

19. In Munich, there are Houston Astro fans. I knew wearing my Cardinals shirt to Oktoberfest was a great idea.

20. In Italy dinner lasts 4 hours. But that's only if you are with Amerian clients. If you are not...it lasts 6.

21. Swizterland is the most beautiful place I've ever seen.

22. The world is really big. My mind tends to be really small.

23. I love Coke with ice in it.

24. I like water without bubbles in it.

25. I like America. But I like the way the Europeans do some things too. Like 6 weeks of vacation, toilets that have different flushers for 1 and 2, escalators that don't move until you step on them, mass public transit, highways with no speed limits, and chocolate. I like that American doors open to the outside and that we don't eat lukewarm bologna for breakfast, and that we actually have church in our churches.

26. I love my job. The sex drug is coming along. I figured out that by increasing sex drive, prompting weight loss, and tanning, basically it turns you Italian.

27. OH YEAH... I almost forgot. Joaquin Phoenix is OUT of rehab. I mean once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, but he seems to be doing well... Or so said the magazine that was divinely left in the seat pocket infront of me with his black and white mug on the cover.....there is a God.