European Summer Vacation Part 2

We have been to Europe many times and I came back from this trip stating that if I never went back to Europe I wouldn't miss it. I hate the long plane rides as I stated before in the previous post. I hate that I can't get use to the time change, hey, nine hours is a lot to get used to. And the older I get, I know, the harder it becomes for me. It used to be that it would normally take about a day and a half. We would land, get to the hotel, sleep a bit and then wake up for a nice dinner and then take to bed and the next day I'd feel refreshed. Not this trip. This time it took me nearly 6 days to adjust. The hotel in Brussels was kind enough to let us check in early, although I did make a stink that the room was dirty and the carpet was soiled. A call down to the front desk and they have us move to another room, right when the roll away was coming through the room door. The next room was much better, but lacked the robe and the chocolate covered strawberries. Never mind, I brought my own light wrap and who needs strawberries, they were just attracting flies in the other room. The front desk said they would deliver robes which they never did, I guess they already had had it with the American tourist in room 749. Gee I only alienated them in less than 30 minutes! Well, heck they had signs in the room that stated 100% satisfaction guaranteed, but that's another story. Yes, I had jet lag for 6 days, my sister in law said that I should take a good sleeping pill, which we forgot to bring.

I hate paying for toilets. Sure Mr. Clean at the airport is really clean, but come on 1 euro to pee? Pretty soon it will be charged on whether you have to pee or poop, 1 euro pee, 2 euro poop!

I hate foreigners or in this case natives that hate our American guts. Like the time in Germany, when I approached a worker in a train booth to ask for directions. He was wearing sunglasses so I couldn't tell if his eyes were open or shut. Uh, hello, excuse me. In a heavy Sssgerman accent he said, "First! We say Good Morning, then, we ask the question and then we say Good Day!" Well, excuseeeee ME!

When we were in Rome a few years back, my sister in law was buying water in a small store. When she came out she said the man said the word "puta" to her or something like that. "What does that mean?" she queries. "Puta" I say incredulously? I march back into the store and then in my best Spanish influenced Italian, tell the sour Italian man that I know what that word means, and promptly tell him "a pox on both your houses"! I quote Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. It was the only thing I could think of at the time.

I hate being sweaty all the time and feeling like grime at the end of a twelve hour day of sight seeing. I hate it when my dogs swell up like giant sausages and blisters the size of Mount Edna erupt on my toes.

I hate the stink, but I do have to say, Europe has gotten better in terms of their bathrooms, more sanitary and better toilet paper. I hate paying for water in restaurants, but here too, they are becoming more Americanized and some places do give free tap water even with a little ice!

I hate paying $7.00 for a coke (Paris), ask before you order and never, ever give in when the waiter tries to rip you off by charging you for something you didn't order! That happened to us in Ostende Belgium a beach resort. The restaurants are crazy expensive and a rip off. We ate at one place, Andy ordered a nice roasted chicken, my daughter a hamburger (more like a sausage burger, they like pork there) and I ordered the safe pork kebab which was 10 euros. When the bill came, he charged me 17 euros for it. I said I didn't order the large one. He then in a heavy French accent said, then why didn't say it wasn't the big one that you ordered. I told him, I didn't know the one given to me was the BIG one! He finally backed down and said the words, "well it's my fault". Your darn right it's your fault! I didn't want to say, that I didn't even like that terribly dry kebab thingy anyway!

But mostly I hate, hate, hate it when I take bad summer vacation pictures!-Single D