A brief guidebook and some observations

Sparkling water is not too bad if you know that is what you are getting, if you don’t know, it will kill you. You will choke and die and the Europeans will gather and laugh.

Bathrooms can be so much smaller than you ever imagined.

Napoleon went everywhere! And conquered so much!

• Every city is going to talk about 1. The Romans 2. Napoleon 3. The World Wars. There have been like 3 times that I have been like “what is that statue??” and its somebody from the Napoleonic wars. He was such a meddling guy! A busy little bee!I went on a walking tour of Berlin and the whole time we are talking about Nazi’s and then all of the sudden we are talking about Napoleon! Apparently whilst conquering he stole the statue on top and then they got it back. He pops up everywhere! Ariana! What are you doing here!

Pompeii had more porn than expected!

• Seeing as my expectation was 0, it was an exciting surprise!

Not all gelato is created equally

• This is a real blow but there are some clues—if its too fluffy? No. If it is covered with a lid? Yes. If it has really bright colors? Suspicious. If there is a long line? Depends, but usually a pretty good sign. If the server uses a ice cream scoop instead a flat scooper? Yes.

Art genuinely looks so different in person.

• It’s kind of infuriating but also so exciting. I have seen pictures of this a million times, how is it taking my actual breath away!

The taxi’s in Rome can be LIARS and not real taxi’s and are instead trying to scam you.

Turns out I can walk 12 miles a day! For multiple days in a row! Voluntarily!

• I complained the whole time

Germans are extremely nice, but stern

• Everyone speaks English and is chatty and its so lovely. My waiter for lunch had been to NYC twice, once with his partner and once was alone. He liked going alone, more than he thought, and he went to a Janet Jackson concert who had been, of course, a vision. And I just asked for the check! Another time I was waiting for the train and a group of teenage boys started making noise and shouting. Three older German ladies looked at them and went “SHHHHHHHH.”

Airports are modern day fates, like the fates from Greek Tragedies.

• Sometimes the gods say that my suitcase is ok, others HATE my suitcase. Sometimes they are like liquids? We love those! You can have as many as you want! And other times they are like SOAP?? How about you KILL YOURSELF?? You go, you give your offerings, but you never know what die will be cast. The gods are fickle! Life is chaos!

Madrid has a massive art museum.

• El Prado takes DAYS to work through—the audio guide has 3-, 6-, and 9-hour options. The art is MASSIVE, like covering the whole wall big. I always forget how much Spanish art there is, its not like Picasso popped out of no where, there was a whole thriving Spanish painting culture for which he was the heir apparent.

Nobody talks about Mussolini and Franco in Italy and Spain, respectively– they do not seem to be a part of the landscape physically or psychologically. Lots of Hitler! Lots of Napoleon! None of their own homegrown fascists though.

You don’t have to try to catch the farmers markets, they are ALL over the place in the mornings. Just wander around, you will find them. The most beautiful flowers and most delicious fruit you have ever seen and its like, Wednesday.

If you feed pigs a diet of exclusively walnuts and then kill them, they taste DELICIOUS.

• They will just bring you a plate of meat and cheese and that’s the whole thing. It’s the most expensive thing on the menu. You eat it with your fingers. You experience ecstasy. You see God. You order more.

EMBARASSING but if you are going to lose your laptop, airport security is not a bad place to do it

• I turn into a cartoonishly absentminded person when I am tired! (The laptop was recovered and is now in my possession but the stress! The drama! The comedy! The potential for tragedy! If you see my dad, don’t tell him, he will lose all respect for me!)

Madrid has the best seafood in Spain

• It doesn’t have a coast but apparently it all gets shipped there first? Idk, all I know is that I was shocked and delighted that my octopus consumption, which was formerly nonexistent, went up dramatically

Coffee shops are not the ideal places to take a nap but they will work in a I-have-not-slept-in-two-days pinch.

The buildings of Nazi Secret Service training center used during WWII have now been repurposed into the modern-day police academy

• This makes me feel weird!

One of the days in Spain, our schedule was, I kid you not, wake up at noon, get “lunch” at 3:30pm with friends until 5pm, go to a bullfight from 6pm to 8pm, get dinner with more friends from 8pm until midnight when the bar closes, talk outside for another hour, go to bed at 2am. This was not a crazy day. The streets have people of all ages out until an easy 1am every weekend. They take hanging out with your friends VERY seriously. Do these people work? Whose to say.

Most of the Nazi’s (including and especially the high-ups) were massively addicted to meth

• It was prescribed in a pill form—this was going to help them win the war because now they didn’t need to sleep! It also made them more evil than smart— like bombing England’s civilians over bombing England’s airstrips. Evil but also bad strategy?
• Allies also did this but with less so and it was speed instead of meth—health icons!

The south of Spain used to be controlled by the Islamic Moors and it is still a big deal

• For one, the palaces they built were so beautiful that even after they got kicked out, the Christians didn’t change lots of palaces because they were so beautiful. The biggest terrorist attack in Europe happened in Spain because Bin Laden was like “Spain used to belong to us.” Some fantastic architecture and beautiful, colorful tiles, it was really so lovely.

Flamenco is basically jazz!

• It is improvised, collaborative, was born out of an oppressed community (the gypsy’s), it is about pain and love. It’s emotional, it’s intense, its incredibly entertaining.

Non-alcoholic beer is undrinkable. Non-alcoholic wine is like grape juices older sister that is trying a little too hard to relate to her siblings but is still really nice.

The Familia Sagrada is actually kind of terrifying.

• No thanks! I have a pretty high tolerance for modern art, but this was not for me!! Too menacing! Too big!!

Seeing the bodies of those killed in Pompeii was much more emotional than I expected.

• We spent the whole time being like “Where are the bodies??” and then we found them, and it was much more sobering than expected. I guess I just hadn’t thought about how intimate the moment of death must be. It felt voyeuristic to see them in fetal positions, lying down, holding each other. And so sad! Weird to grieve for people that died nearly 2,000 years ago but there I was! Getting teary!

You know how Mexican food rocks because its basically the same 5 ingredients in like 10 different forms? Italian food is exactly the same. Humans are the coolest. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it, just modify it slightly!

Nothing, I promise, is more entertaining than going to a famous photo spot and then turning around to watch the tourists. They are so silly and fun and sweet and insane! Such intense sunburns! Such wild sweat marks! So many dad’s! So much influencing!

Ok lastly, big breaking news, it turns out man CAN live on bread alone! Sorry Jesus! You can live on exclusively baguettes and chocolate croissants!