Things I Have Learned In Europe

This will be the last post on this blog. I hope, as with all the other posts, you will find it both educational and amusing. Following this, you may return to the burned-out ends of your days and ways.

1. Nobody likes the French. Not even the Swedes.
2. All Europeans know this joke: How is American beer like having sex in a canoe? They’re both fucking close to water.
3. It is very rare for a European to personally know any Jews.
4. The UK is not in Europe.
5. Germans love Sweden, because it’s just like Germany, but with fewer Germans.
6. Germans also love to steal road signs with pictures of moose on them.
7. Portuguese wine is much better than you’d expect.
8. Everyone wants to go to Prague.
9. The entire population of Australia is currently in Europe, complaining about how no matter where they go, it’s full of Australians.
10. Döner kebabs are the greatest drunk-food in the world.
11. There is no such thing as wall-to-wall carpeting.
12. “Shaun of the Dead” is about nine times funnier if you’ve seen “Spaced” and “Black Books.”
13. There is no vodka but Polish vodka, and zubrovka is its prophet.
14. Rugby is the finest sport ever invented.
15. Finnish is a crazy moon-language. It has nothing to do with any other Scandinavian language, and is sort of related to Hungarian.
16. Everyone everywhere knows Swedish women are hot.
17. No one in Europe under the age of 40 is overweight.
18. When Swedish guys get drunk, they just stand around shouting the bass line to “Seven Nation Army.”
19. Swedes have no concept of the awkward pause, and only in Sweden can you be on a bus or in a pub packed full of people and hear a pin drop.
20. Spain and Italy are bastions of unrepentant chauvinism, and German women think feminism and all gender-equality concerns are silly nonsense.
21. Polish women are much prettier than you expect and drink beer flavored with fruit through straws.
22. There is no such thing as a pepperoni pizza. You can (I swear) sometimes find it under the name “devil’s pizza” because Europeans believe it to be unspeakably spicy. I am not making this up.
23. If you happen to say, sing, or mumble “For twenty-four years, I’ve been livin next door to Alice” anywhere in Europe, you will immediately be met with the booming, rhythmic response of “ALICE?! WHO THE FUCK IS ALICE?!”
24. Alcohol is the leading cause of death in Finland. Really.
25. The “throwing up the horns” gesture is illegal in Italy, where it means “other guys are screwing your wife.” Really.
26. If you live in Belgium for three years, you can apply for citizenship.
27. While we Westerners nod up-down for “Yes” and side-to-side for “no,” Indians have one inscrutable circular head-wag for both and Iranians nod just up for one and just down for the other, and it’s impossible to recall which is which.
28. Swedes love drinking songs (especially if it requires standing your chair), and absolutely must eat a small salad made from vinegary sliced cabbage before eating any pizza.
29. Iranian-born Swedes are the most reliably disagreeable people in the world.
30. Swedes only travel to Portugal, Greece, and Thailand, where they congregate in giant herds with other Swedes. You can also always find them at Ikeas.
31. Swedes get annoyed when they travel and discover people who don’t speak English.
32. With the exception of Indian in the UK and Turkish almost everywhere, most ethnic food sucks in most of Europe.
33. Swedes only have one word for “black people” and it’s “nigger.” They tend to politely translate it as “Negro.”
34. The Dutch will gladly tell you that Holland has the tallest people, highest population density, and lowest altitude of any country in the world.
35. Swedes think Norwegians are dumb, Dutch think Belgians are dumb, Germans think Austrians are dumb, Spanish think Portuguese are dumb and lazy, and Czechs think Slovaks are dumb and backwards. However, that’s where all of those people go for vacations.
36. Germans only eat “sweet popcorn” and think the regular salty kind is disgusting, Swedes love salted black licorice despite the fact that it is the most repugnant thing on Earth, and Spaniards drink red wine in Coke.
37. Swedes put ketchup on their tomato sauce when they have spaghetti, then proceed to eat it with a knife and fork.
38. If you are in Scandinavia, the farther south you go, the worse the English gets, the more disorganized and chaotic everything becomes, and the better the food gets. Also, the breakfasts, the towels, and the people become smaller.
39. There is no such thing as root beer, and it’s silly and extravagant to have grocery stores with more than one brand of any given kind of product.
40. Doesn’t matter where you go in Europe, there will be at least one guy playing the accordion.
41. Mayonnaise on fries, ketchup on macaroni, chocolate sauce on pancakes and toast, feta cheese on burgers, and canned corn on pizzas.
42. In many countries, you can write “No advertisements, please” on your mailbox (it’s “Ingen Reklam, tack!” in Swedish) and you will never get junkmail.
43. You will make a lot of friends if you travel with a corkscrew/bottle opener in your back pocket.
44. Giant mobs of Chinese tourists are the new giant mobs of Japanese tourists.
45. If you can’t place an accent, it’s probably from South Africa.
46. The craziest accent in the world is from the Dutch Antilles.
47. The American accent in French is the sexiness equivalent of the French accent in English.
48. In northern Spain, you can buy wine in little juice-box size cartons like you used to take in your lunch when you were eight.
49. Spain is flooded with Moroccan hash.
50. Catalonia is not in Spain.
51. You pay for ketchup at McDonald’s in Italy.
52. You can buy magic mushrooms in the grocery store in Amsterdam. They’re sorted by whether you want to hallucinate or just sit there and giggle for six hours.
53. Hookers in Amsterdam file tax returns.
54. There are large groups of really alarming black dudes all over Italy, selling piles of handbags, sunglasses, and paintings. These are the only black dudes you will see in Italy.
55. In South Africa, they call traffic lights “robots.”
56. When Europeans count on their fingers, they start with the thumb as “one.”
57. Never order schnitzel outside of Vienna.
58. Berlin is the 4^th largest Turkish city in the world.
59. Bosnia-Herzegovina’s national anthem has no words because the different ethnic communities couldn’t agree on what language to have it in.
60. All German hookers wear the exact same boots.
61. If you go to the hot baths in Budapest, do not go on Tuesday. Tuesday is Gay Day.
62. In Belgium, voting is mandatory and you get fined if you don’t.
63. Estonia is in Scandinavia, the Czech Republic and Poland and Austria are in Central (not Eastern) Europe, and Slovenia is not in the Balkans.
64. There are a surprising number of alarming 21-year old Israeli ex-soldiers in Europe, traveling on their saved military pay, drinking a whole lot, and making elliptical references to the people they’ve killed and friends they’ve lost.
65. There is a part of Copenhagen called “Christiania” which is an abandoned military base that was taken over by hippies and squatters forty years ago and still exists as a government-free zone centered around a place called “Pusher Street.”