Europe--Maybe You've Heard Of It

As I have just returned from a 2 week expedition to Europe, I thought I would jot down a few helpful notes on the topic since none of you have been there except me. No wait let me guess: You don't want to read something that might make you smarter. I don't know what to say about that, but it won't take you very long to read because as we know, all countries besides the United States of America can be summarized in one paragraph--probably less than that in reality. Larger countries such as China or Antarctica require as many as three paragraphs to properly summarize, but five or six paragraphs is too much.

Still, I feel obligated to mention that the Chinese invented fireworks, and Antarctica is not a country but deserves mention for its vast open spaces. Now before I say anything that might accidentally be true, let's move on.

Here are some countries I visited, and I won't apologize for how exotic one or two of them may be. How sick am I? Raise the roof!

Malta: This island was named after a famous spy movie called 'The Maltese Falcon'. Most of Malta's inhabitants are descendants from the production crew who worked on the original movie. If you want to know more about the origins of the name, you should Google it, because I may have ad-libbed that part about the Maltese Falcon. The island may actually be named after Malt liquor. It was a long time ago, and many records were destroyed in a fire. That I can almost guarantee.

Spain: There were so many beautiful women in Spain I think I'm going to kill myself in honor of them. I don't know if you can see the wisdom in that, but if you saw these women you would understand. If I decide to spare my own life, my alternative plan is to spend an indefinite period of time composing love songs about beautiful Spanish women. Then I will sell them to Enrique Iglesias for 5 million dollars each, because that's how moving these songs will be. And that's how how desperate Enrique Iglesias is.

Germany: What can be said about these people, that some of them aren't Nazis anymore? I guess I'm supposed to be impressed by that? Not really. Their trains run on time, but then so did their Death trains to Auschwitz. Maybe if their trains were less punctual, it would make everyone feel more relaxed.

Switzerland: Unfortunately, the Swiss think they're special because they're not part of the European Union. Indeed, despite my best efforts, this country is still politically "neutral", or perhaps a better term is "treasonous".

In an unsuccessful attempt to jolt the doe-eyed citizenry out of their catatonic apathy, I was forced to use my bullhorn at the Zurich train station and give them something to think about, high-volume style. The central theme of my call to action was that if they didn't stand for something, they'd fall for anything. Yet not one citizen thanked me for my sage words, post-speech. That's certainly the last time I try to help a country by remembering a bumper sticker and then repeating it over and over again. Make no mistake, I will not be expending that level of effort in the future.

In the future, I will send email messages in massive quantities to all of Switzerland. These messages will contain pictures of American troops holding a litter of kittens. At the bottom of every email message will be a reminder that our troops are coming soon to liberate all Swiss citizens from apathy. Preferably with deadly force.

So anyway, my trip was really fun. Check out my pics, coming soon!