Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need (12 page)

A
s a traveler, you will eventually want to broaden your cultural horizons by visiting the Home of Western Civilization, the source of many of the values and ideals that we cherish so deeply today, the birthplace of our culture: Yankee Stadium. But if you get a chance, you should also visit Europe.

Although from outer space Europe appears to be shaped like a large ketchup stain, it actually consists of many small separate nations, each with a proud and ancient tradition of hating all the other ones.

The first European was a Cro-Magnon man who wandered around for about 65,000 years looking for food, only to discover that everything
was closed (this is still true today). So he was hungry and lonely, which led to the invention of agriculture and, later, the discotheque.

Meanwhile, in Greece, civilization was forming. The Greeks, aided by a warm climate, had invented geometry, and they used this advanced knowledge to conquer the surrounding cultures by piercing them with the ends of isosceles triangles. This led to the Golden Age of Greece, which was marked by the spread of restaurants to outposts as far away as Brooklyn, parts of which can still be seen today.

Eventually Greece was conquered by Alexander the Great of Macedonia with the aid of a new weapon, the rhomboid. Alexander ruled his empire until somebody did some checking and discovered that there was no such place as “Macedonia,” which paved the way for the Roman Empire. The Romans spent the next 200 years using their great engineering skill to construct ruins all over Europe. The basic Roman ruin design is a pile of rocks with a little plaque saying “Roman Ruins” and a group of tourists frowning at it and wishing they were back at the hotel bar.

At this point Europe was invaded by barbarian motorcycle gangs such as the Angles, the Franks, the Jutes, the Teds, the Sextants, the Ventricles, and Martha and the Vandellas. This led to the Middle Ages, which were characterized by strict zoning regulations requiring that every 250 yards there had to be a giant cathedral built from stones the size of Raymond Burr. This made life extremely difficult for the laborers—many of
whom had never even
heard
of Raymond Burr—so everybody was very happy when the Renaissance broke out in the fourteenth century at about 2:30
P.M
.

The Renaissance was a time of cultural rebirth during which everybody lost a few pounds and started taking night courses. There were many scientific and technological advances such as the plow, the stapler, and, above all, the printing press, which enabled mass production of the first popular work of literature, a novel called
Hot Moist Serfs:

The Renaissance collapsed from exhaustion in 1600, after which everybody rested up in preparation for the Era of a Whole Bunch of Wars, which included the Franco-Prussian War, the Franco-Anglo-Russo War, the Hundred Years War, the Franco-Austro-Russo-Hungro War, The Nine Years War, The Frank O’Brien War, The 36 Months or 50,000 Miles Whichever Comes First War, The War of the Tuna Casseroles, and Super Bowl XVIII. All this conflict caused Europe to gradually disintegrate, so that today it contains many tiny nations, with names like “Lichtenburg,” that could not hold their own, militarily, against the UCLA Pep Squad. The tragic result is
that modern-day European nations have had to content themselves with developing sound economies, while the United States, as a Major World Power, has enjoyed the privilege of getting its butt shot at all over the world.

Nevertheless there are still many exciting things to see and do in Europe, although you, personally, will not get to see and do them, because you’ll be too busy frowning at Roman ruins. The best way to locate these is to be on a large guided bus tour. You want the kind that stops at everything in Europe for fifteen minutes, which is just enough time to get off the bus, take a picture of whatever it is, and get back on the bus, unless you have to go to the bathroom, in which case you have time to get off the bus, pee on whatever it is, and get back on the bus. There are many other advantages to being with a large tour group such as:

1. It gives you an excellent opportunity to get to know the other couples in the tour group, which is a broadening cultural experience because some of them will come from completely different states. You’ll end up exchanging Christmas cards with them for years and years, and when you die, your spouse will write them a little note, and they’ll say: “Remember so-and-so? From New Jersey? The one we met on the tour? The one with the big hat? In the plumbing-supplies business? Well, he died.”
   

2. In addition to meeting people on your tour
   group, you will encounter people from new and completely
   different
   tour groups, because you will all be stopping at the same popular attractions, which have been thoughtfully preselected for you based on their cultural interest as measured in square footage of parking area.
   

3. Many tours give everybody a complimentary plastic flight bag with the official tour logo printed on it, which you all carry at all times so you can instantly identify other members of your tour. This is very important when you are in an emergency foreign situation such as, for example, the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, and you need to make an observation such as: “You call that the Mona Lisa? Back home we got illustrated dish towels bigger than that!”
   

4. Being on a tour is the only way you can be guaranteed of seeing every cathedral in Europe. If you were traveling alone, once you realized that all cathedrals are basically large dark buildings that smell like unwashed gym shorts, you might, in a weak moment, be tempted to skip one or two. But this is not possible on a tour. No sir. Your bus will stop at every single one. In fact, many travel experts recommend that you take a piece of chalk and place a distinctive mark on each cathedral you visit, because sometimes the tour guides, as a prank, will take a group to the same one five or six times in a single afternoon.
   

… … …

Wherever you go on your tour, be sure to take hundreds of color photographs, so that when you get home you can invite your friends and neighbors over for an educational presentation wherein you say, “Okay, now this is one of Bernice standing in front of this cathedral in Bologne, which is in Germany. Or Norway.” And Bernice can say: “No, that cathedral is in England, because I remember I wore my beige pumps in England, because my maroon pumps gave me this awful blister, which finally popped in Notre Dame, which is a cathedral in … Hey! Where’s everybody going? There’s more pictures!”

To enter Europe, you must have a valid passport with a photograph of yourself in which you look like you are being booked on charges of soliciting sheep. To obtain your passport, you must wait in a federal waiting room with yellow walls for a minimum of two hours, then produce proof of U.S. citizenship in the form of a personal letter from Publishers Clearing House notifying you that you have probably won a million dollars.

Medical care in Europe is excellent, and you may rest assured that if God forbid anything were to happen to you, the hospital personnel will use only the highest-quality stainless-steel drill to bore a hole in your skull to let out the Evil Spirits.

Ha ha! We are just joshing, of course. There is really nothing at all primitive about European medical care except that in some countries they practice it in foreign languages, meaning you run the risk of entering the hospital complaining of an inflamed appendix and coming out as a member of a completely different gender. This is why many smart travelers take the precaution of having the international symbol for “No Sex-Change Operation, Thank You”
¹
tattooed on or near their private parts. It’s also a good idea to take along any prescription medication that you might need, as well as a spare pair of eyeglasses, some clean bandages, sutures, a scalpel, a wheelchair, and a CAT-scan machine. Feel free to drink the water in Europe, but don’t touch the food.

Before they let you into Europe, you have to pass through Customs, so that beady-eyed individuals
can root freely through your underwear looking for certain items that are strictly prohibited in Europe, such as cold drinks and functional toilet paper. European toilet paper is made from the same material that Americans use for roofing, which is why Europeans tend to remain standing throughout soccer matches.

Narcotics
: You are not allowed to bring narcotics into Europe, and you are
definitely
not allowed to sell them to children. It’s a good idea to assure the customs personnel that you are aware of these rules. Try to bring the subject up in a casual manner. “So!” you could say. “Nice weather we’re having here in Europe! By the way, I’m not bringing in any narcotics, and I certainly don’t intend to sell them to children!”

Insects
: The Europeans do not want you bringing in insects that will reproduce like crazy and eat all their agriculture. Any insects you bring in must be spayed, and you should be prepared to prove it to the customs officials. “Go ahead!” you should tell them in a challenging manner. “Just try to arouse this insect!”

Tipping
: Remember that the customs personnel are working men and women just like everybody else, and they definitely appreciate receiving “a little something” in return for a job well done. Your best approach is to hand them a
shiny quarter right up front, then, with a wink and a friendly smile, tell them, “Do a good job with these bags, and there’ll be another one of these for each of you!”

Europe operates under the metric, or communist, system of measurement. The main units are the kilometer, the hectare, the thermometer, the pfennig, the libra, the megawatt, and the epigram. These are all very easy to remember because all you have to do is divide them by a specific number, possibly 100. Or you can use the following handy conversion table:

Europeans, like some Americans, drive on the right side of the road, except in England, where they drive on
both
sides of the road; Italy, where they drive on the sidewalk; and France, where if
necessary they will follow you right into the hotel lobby. If you have a valid U.S. driver’s license, you may drive in most European countries, but it’s more efficient to simply leap off a cliff.

Aside from not comprehending menus, changing money is the most popular activity for Americans in Europe. There are money-changing booths everywhere, occupied by little men crouching inside next to incomprehensible signs covered with numbers and letters like this:

UAR 23.402490029

UAW @3049.5858, 2 FOR 43-0394-02342

USA 349239%92182

UCLA 37 USC 14 3rd quarter

These numbers change constantly to reflect the fact that the dollar is getting weaker. The first rule of travel finance is that no matter what is going on elsewhere in the world, the dollar is always getting weaker where
you
are. By the time you’ve spent a couple of days in a foreign country, the natives will be blowing their noses on the dollar. To change your money, simply give the little man enough dollars to buy a decent used car. He will perform various calculations
involving the exchange rate and the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the relative humidity, then thrust out an amount of foreign currency so small that if you threw it into a fountain for good luck, you would immediately be struck by lightning. You should repeat this process after every meal.

One of the things you’ll need to get used to in Europe is the bidet, which is a bathroom appliance, usually located next to the toilet, that looks like a urinal lying on its back. If you want the Europeans to think that you’re a suave and sophisticated person, as opposed to the nose-picking yahoo that you actually are, you need to learn proper bidet procedure. The number one rule is: