Where do you start
Do you curse yourself by saying that all you ever need to survive is a
Passport, Credit Card and a Laptop.
Do you start with having your laptop die a horrible death one day onto a
three week trip through Europe.
Perhaps you start with heading to the nearest geek store only to discover
that laptops in Paris are configured with funky keyboards that make it
hard to spell even the most simplest of words like 'Merde'.
Or do you start with your journey out of hell? Do you try and describe
what it is like to spend eleven hours in coach in a middle seat on your
way back from Germany.
Do you start with giving up your window seat so that a wife can sit next
to her husband, who is not feeling so well, and may need special
attention. Do you take the time to mention that the old man next to you
was close to death that you just had to believe them.
Do you start with the senior flight attendant, about half way through the
flight making that breathtaking announcement and begins with :
"If there is a medical practitioner on board..."
Do you start with being stuck in Belgium for two days because there were
'issues' with getting as new visa and you had to wait out the time in a
hotel in downtown Brussels.
Do you go on to mention that when it was all fixed, there were no flights
out of town for another two or three days.
Or do you go back even further in time and start with realising that women
in France actually know how to wear perfume.
Do you take the time to point out that they just plain smell nice, instead
of resembling the aftermath of some sort of comical escapade involving a
40 litre display of Chanel #3, a a bull and a lot of broken glass.
Do you start with the rental car, no map of Paris and trying to determine
which is the correct exit for the freeway before you do your third lap of
the Arch De Triomphe.
Do you start with attempting to drive a Small French Car on the authbahn
and the looks you get from the Porsche Drivers when they over take your
sewing machine on wheels at twice your current speed
Do you start by noticing that all caravans on European highways are being
towed by the Dutch
Do you bother to mention that the average toll on a French highway is
about $3 per mile.
Do you just segway in to driving through Champagne country and never
actually seeing a vineyard
Do you go on to mention having one of the best meals in your life in a
simple Brasserie and try to find ways to describe that a 'Trio of Creme
Brulees' is really like.
Do you start with then drinking too much Bordeaux on a Friday night and
spending an unknown number of hours listening to MP3s of bands playing
nothing but covers of other bands songs.
Do you start with trying to sober up the next day in a fairly nice cafe
while the two old men next to you polish off a bottle of Burgundy in less
than 30 minutes.
Or do you just start by saying that the world is a very strange place.
You'll never notice unless you get out and see it.
