Beck in Holland

Oh, and England, Germany and Belgium too

Because there’s more to life than just travelling the world and marvelling at its varied peoples and cultures.

In the end, I could no longer ignore the desperate cry of Europe’s 500 million people frenziedly clamouring for my return. So here I am, back in the Old World. And hey, it’s nice to be back after all that time, meeting up with friends, revisiting old memories and battling my mum’s cat for possession of my suitcase.

After getting pampered at my mum's for a bit I moved back to London.


Things that ROCK about Europe

● The Eurovision Song Contest: Wonderfully terrible
● Proper dogs: I love animals; especially dogs. So it’s great to be in a place where you can actually pet one without having to worry about catching all sorts of horrible diseases. The dogs you see in Mexico and Central America tend to be the kind of nasty, diseased, mangey curs you imagine Gaspode from the Terry Pratchett books must look like: foul, sickly creatures with several teeth and bits of fur missing. I call them subwoofers.

So it’s nice to see some relatively clean ones for a change.
● The weather: Europe actually has seasons! It’s great. None of that suffocating, dusty heat all year round. Top banana. They have summer here, of course, but it knows its place. June through August, and that’s it.
● Dutch girls on bikes: I don’t think they even realise how amazing they look
● The official coat of arms of the city of Amsterdam has a “XXX” logo on it. Seriously.
● The beers of England, Germany and Belgium (in that order).


Things that ROT about Europe:

● Prices: Dayum. This place is as bad as America that way.
● Austrians: Rudest people on the planet


Aardvark Travel Blog FAQ

Since I’ve been back, people are always asking me the same questions, ad nauseam. So I’ve typed up this little Aardvark travel FAQ to make my life a little easier. Now, when some well-meaning relative asks me the same question again for the fiftieth time, I can go, “That’s on the website. Shoo, shoo.”

So here goes.

Q. Did you catch Mexican swine flu?
A. No.

Q. Are you sure?
A. Yes.

Q. You stole that “There’s more to life” line from The Onion, didn’t you?
A. Shut up.

Q. There aren’t a lot of pictures of Germany or Belgium.
A. That’s not a question.

Q. So what’s next?
A. Toying with the idea of doing a PhD. Or maybe bum around Asia a bit first.

Q. What university?
A. Dunno yet.

Q. Have you even begun to even think about maybe applying for a PhD position somewhere? Anywhere?
A. Shut up.

Q. So where in Asia?
A. Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.

Q. Thailand’s great.
A. That's not a question.


Monarchy business

My mum’s flat in Holland is only 20 minutes from Queen Beatrix’s residence in The Hague, so I popped by for coffee the other day.

We got talking about the recent attempt on her life. Some retard had tried to ram his car into her bus as she was touring the provinces on her official birthday in April, killing a few bystanders along the way.

Always one to see a silver lining, Trixie gave me her take on events.

“Frightful business, that moron killing all those subjects,” she confided. “What an arsehole.

“Still, between you and me, one good thing to have come out of it at least: security’s going to be tight as a gnat’s chuff from now on, which means we won’t have to shake hands with all those god-awful proles anymore. And thank fuck for that.

“We mean, having to live in The Hague half the time is bad enough without having to endure those fist-eatingly tedious official visits to the most horrendously provincial, utterly depressing pits of bourgeois smugness imaginable every damn year.

“We mean, have you seen them, the Good Citizens of The Netherlands? Standing by the side of the road in their Sunday best, next to their carefully manicured little lawns, somehow tearing themselves away from their prim little allotment gardens, waving their smug little flags as we pass by? Wallowing in their mediocrity? God we loathe them.

“Biscuit?

“So, like, where were we this year? Some god-awful toilet out east somewhere. Apeldoorn or somewhere like that, wasn’t it? We don’t remember. We mean, have you ever been there? Brrrrr.

“Still, we’d rather endure that every year than cede the throne to that little snot.”


In suburban Holland, no-one can hear you scream



People saying Howdy neighbour, friendly folks without temptation



Twice now, I’ve committed the deadly sin of not saying hello to some total stranger in an apartment building.

After six years abroad, I’d forgotten how important that was.

If looks could kill, I’d be splattered all over the lift doors by now. The walls would be decorated with a new shade called ‘hint of brain’.

Never, ever neglect to say hi to absolutely everyone. They will curse you.

People get tremendously upset over things like that here, particularly if the weather’s muggy and they’re a little cranky. Try it if you’re ever in suburban Holland. It’s fun.

Blighty

Fog Over Channel - Continent Cut Off



And so it’s back to perfidious Albion, where the hills are green, teeth are yellow and bogeys are black (after a ride on the Tube). And I have to say, it’s good to be back. I’ve had great times travelling the world (the western half of it, anyway), but it’s always good to come home.

Would you believe I’ve been in Sarf London for over a week and I haven’t been mugged or offered drugs once? Any more of this and I may have to revise my prejudiced view of the benighted wasteland that lies south of the river. London cabbies, take note.

After a stint south of the river, I've now found a place in East London. Bow bells, shmow bells: the real home of the genuine Cockney is my new home, West Ham. I even got called “Guvnor” in a local shop the other day; I thought people had stopped saying that round about the Battle of Britain.

Germany

Don’t mention the war



Ryanair

And after only a few weeks back in England, I'm off again; this time to the Fatherland for a weekend with budgeteer Ryanair. Where do Ryanair find these people? "We well be starding ou descen shordly so walaargh ya dalaramaaraegh sea belts dalaa waa fasten securely in frun you," ran the helpful announcement. I think he may have repeated it in another language after that, but it’s hard to be sure.

Arrived, with Teutonic punctuality, at Hahn airport, which is famously generously described as being ‘near’ Frankfurt. (In the sense that Saturn is further away.)

It’s a hackneyed, tired ol’ cliché to point out that, as a people, Germans can be a bit boring.

But it’s a cliché because everyone says so. And everyone says so because it’s true.

It’s perhaps slightly unfair to dismiss Germany as the most boring people in the world, but they’re almost certainly in the top five. Germans, however, prefer to think of themselves as being in the top 195 most interesting nations in the world. And good for them.

But to be fair, having seen the lively bars and good food of the student town of Mainz, near Frankfurt, I have to admit that all that lederhosened charm does kind of get you. So maybe I’m wrong.

Mainz is open Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm, not including Wednesdays and public holidays.

Oh, and another interesting thing about Germans: I don't think I've ever seen quite so many moustaches. Even more than in Nicaragua. Impressive, especially the ones accompanied by a stylish mullet.


Wouldn’t you agree that we Germans design everything in the

Bike
Aaaand another one

best way?

The French, as everyone but the French seem to accept prima facie, can be a tad arrogant. And, sure, so can Germans. But it's a different kind of arrogance.

You see, the French genuinely don't understand how it would even occur to anyone to not strive to be as much like the French as possible.

It's not so much the kind of arrogance where you think everyone should be like you, you see. It's a more the kind of naïve, innocent kind of arrogance where they genuinely don't understand why everyone else doesn't try their damnedest to be as much like them as they can.

The French kind of take their superiority for granted. It’s not so much that they insist that they’re so much better than anyone else (though of course they are). It’s just that it hasn’t occurred to them that anyone might even disagree with the idea in the first place. It’s a bit like the way it wouldn’t occur to us that some people might claim that the sun rises in the west, or that water freezes at anything other than 0 degrees centigrade. It simply hasn’t occurred to them that some people might not admire French culture and attempt to emulate it.

The French, in short, are genuinely mystified, rather than bloviating about their achievements, like the Germans.

You see the difference?


See ya

And with that, faithful readers, I will leave y'all now. Bye for now,

Emile
Goodwill ambassador

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