Suzi Moonlight

It’s not that I’ve only been away once. It’s that I’ve been away, and it was a once type thing. Here we go:

I once went to Europe with little notice and very little money.

Someone told me they were going overseas with a backpack and no agenda. Of course, I asked if I could go along. I got back a little while ago. I went to England, Belgium, Germany, and France. I’d never been out of the states before.

I believe it is my duty to tell anyone who’s never been overseas the simple truth. Europe stinks. If you’ve been to London or Paris, you know what I mean. You come back with all your pretty pictures and show them to everyone and tell them everything was beautiful and the food was amazing, but you don’t tell them the whole story. You don’t want them to know how bad it is over there. How the streets smell like urine worse than the dirtiest public bathrooms in the U.S.. You don’t tell them that Paris smells like urine and dog poop. How the major cities are decaying before your eyes. You don’t tell them that there are very, very pungent people everywhere. You don’t want them to know that you spent thousands of dollars to go to cities that have a few historic structures, but smell like a restroom you wouldn’t use no matter how badly you had to go. You don’t tell them that. I will.

Seriously, don’t ever go to Paris. I have the choice here of spoiling your dreams of romantic Paris, or letting you make your own mistake and finding out how bad it is first-hand. I think it would be reckless and wrong of me not to let you know. It’s disgusting. Paris is neither romantic nor beautiful if you have any sense of smell what-so-ever. London smells like millenniums of people (okay, men, at least mostly) peeing in the streets. It has all built up over the years and the sun hits it and it is horrible – truly horrible.

Please, heed my warning. I didn’t have a lot of money to spend over there, so I don’t have to pretend or try to impress people. I can tell you what I saw – and smelled. I would never go to Paris again. I would go through London to other places, only because it’s cheaper to fly in there. I would never go to Brussels again. Brussels is a post-apocalyptic city. It was dirty, smelly, and decaying. I told someone I was going to post that, and they said Belgians would come and kill me. I seriously considered it. It was a very dangerous-looking city.

There, that’s my warning. I don’t know what else I could say to stop you from going to those places, so let’s move on to the good part.

Like I said, I didn’t have much money. I wasn’t planning a vacation this year, but when the opportunity popped up, well… I jumped. I bought all those tiny bottles of things, dug out a backpack I’ve had for years but hadn’t used, took out my never-used passport and left. We traveled by train so much it felt like the ground was moving for days after we arrived in a city. We stayed at a couple hostels and a few hotels. In Europe especially, the hotels are just about as cheap for two people as a hostel would cost. We had an amazing time, despite the smells. The London Underground was so easy to use, it was like it was designed for children. The trains were fairly inexpensive and went nearly everywhere.

I loved Germany. I went to Frankfurt and Cologne. I went to Salisbury in England and loved it. I would highly recommend any of those cities.

Would I ever go overseas again? That’s a tough question. It was an interesting trip, but I was genuinely shocked with how dirty and smelly it all was. After I came home, someone told me the most they can take of Europe is ten days, tops. They couldn’t tell me that before I left? I was there longer. It will probably take me a while to get over it, or forget just how bad it is over there.