-The Icelandic Volcano (A Sissies' Excuse)
My Learned Friends,
Today has served as a reminder for a lot of us, here in the U.S, but particularly those Americans abroad in Europe. We have been reminded of the inadequacies of socialist Europe and that it takes more than tea drinking sissies and surrender eating cheese monkeys (look it up seriously) to run a continent while watching Europe's airports completely shut down. According to my sources, a volcano in Iceland erupted, spewing volcanic ash into the sky and creating a severe danger for airplanes, which the Europeans read as an unconquerable challenge and quickly surrendered to nature by grounding all flights. Nothing about this situation makes sense to a true blue blooded American. Several factors show through and reveal this as nothing but evidence of Europe's collective laziness: 1.) the volcano erupted in ICELAND. Any liquid hot magma that was ejaculated from the earth would have been promptly cooled having just come into contact with a LAND made of ICE. At the most, this would produce a slight amount of smoke. Don't believe me? Put a cigarette out on an ice cube. Anyone who can't operate a mechanical means of transportation through a dense cloud of smoke sure didn't learn to drive where I did. 2.) As we all know, when mother nature presents you with a test of will/skill, you don't back down and give into her demands; you give her a swift kick to the ovaries and remind her who she works for. This volcano eruption was nothing more than a midterm exam on your resolve Europe, and guess what? You failed! Better get back to your community college status in international relations and let the kids who can drink and still pass tests do the leading. Some countries could do well to take a lesson from their former colonies on how any situation can be muscled through with enough fossil fuel and elbow grease. 3.) we invented the airplane, so trust us we know under what conditions they are capable of being flown (and volcano smoke is definitely one of them).
To be quite honest, all of this weakness seems to stem from a far greater cultural concern: sports. If European men played more manly sports maybe they would be stronger, more courageous specimens of the human race. They're big thing is soccer: who the fuck can't play that? Everyone from starving Africans to my five year old cousins can kick a ball into a big net. Cricket: I don't know who you boys got to teach you baseball but they must have been high because it is all kinds of messed up. Rugby: I almost feel bad that you were too poor to afford your football pads and rule book but the fact that you continue to show up for games is just pathetic. I guess this is the kind of shit for population you can expect when you give out free healthcare, not allowing natural selection to strengthen your members.
This whole fiasco has reminded me of my experience with British airports last fall. I was studying abroad in England and a good ginger friend of mine and I decided to take a trip to Dublin, Ireland. Our flight from London's Gatwick airport was early on Saturday morning, so rather than get up with the sun and take the 4 hour train ride down that morning, we went the night before so we could sleep at the airport and simply walk right onto our flight. On the train ride down we finished a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey, and found ourselves laughing and imitating our best English accents for the second half of the ride. Upon reaching London, we met up with a friend of mine who was studying in the city near Liverpool station. We had a few hours to kill before the last train so we asked a homeless man for directions to the nearest pub (hey, if anyone's going to know where to get a cheap drink...) We were directed the Ten Bells pub, where we consumed 3 or 4 pints of Strongbow cider (Smirnoff Ice but gayer) and were even treated to a magic performance by what I presumed was my first gypsy out on the street. We managed to grab the last train to the airport, and settled back for a quick nap. Unfortunately we didn't get to sleep because an middle aged Iranian man plopped himself down beside us and staring straight ahead started a conversation with "So... You're Americans?" We listened as he slurred his way through an explanation of why Iran and America should get along (they shouldn't) and how much he loved Lincoln Park's music (it sucks). Just when I was sure he would rape us, he realized that he had missed his station, and quickly jumped up and darted off the platform. We finally made it to the airport around 1:30 in the morning and quickly proceeded to purchase a bottle of screwtop white wine each to gain back our buzz and try to forget about the Iranian man. Between sitting on the curb outside smoking cigarettes and realizing that the most comfortable chairs in the place were in the lounge of a deserted coffee shop, we finished our wine. While families eagerly awaited the return of their loved ones with bleary eyes and other passengers tried to get a few hours of sleep, two obnoxious Americans were pulling on bottles of cheap wine and laughing at everyone who walked by loudly. At some point my friend disappeared for what seemed like forever, and then suddenly reappeared riding on the back of a luggage cart toting several large cans of beer. At some point we migrated to food court filled with people attempting to sleep and proceeded to get into a shouting physical altercation over which character from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia we were (if you don't know this show, please stop reading my blog). Around 4 in the morning we both passed out on the floor outside of the Burger King in the food area. My friend woke up thirty minutes later, threw up violently in a bathroom, called his ex-girlfriend from his international phone and proceeded to scream that if she didn't break up with her new boyfriend and get back together with him he would "cut that pussy's throat and then cut my own throat!". The flight the next morning was one of the worst hangover experiences of my life, and throughout the trip I was silently praying that we would crash to get rid of my headache.
What's the moral of this story? Acting the way we were, my friend and I should have been promptly collected by security and taken to a dark hidden prison for waterboarding procedures. But only in European airports can one act like a drunken silver back gorilla without consequence. So this latest example of European inadequacy doesn't come as a surprise. If they couldn't handle me after mixing Jack Daniels, Strongbow cider, white wine, and cheap beer then they definitely weren't going to handle an Icelandic volcano.
This whole fiasco has reminded me of my experience with British airports last fall. I was studying abroad in England and a good ginger friend of mine and I decided to take a trip to Dublin, Ireland. Our flight from London's Gatwick airport was early on Saturday morning, so rather than get up with the sun and take the 4 hour train ride down that morning, we went the night before so we could sleep at the airport and simply walk right onto our flight. On the train ride down we finished a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey, and found ourselves laughing and imitating our best English accents for the second half of the ride. Upon reaching London, we met up with a friend of mine who was studying in the city near Liverpool station. We had a few hours to kill before the last train so we asked a homeless man for directions to the nearest pub (hey, if anyone's going to know where to get a cheap drink...) We were directed the Ten Bells pub, where we consumed 3 or 4 pints of Strongbow cider (Smirnoff Ice but gayer) and were even treated to a magic performance by what I presumed was my first gypsy out on the street. We managed to grab the last train to the airport, and settled back for a quick nap. Unfortunately we didn't get to sleep because an middle aged Iranian man plopped himself down beside us and staring straight ahead started a conversation with "So... You're Americans?" We listened as he slurred his way through an explanation of why Iran and America should get along (they shouldn't) and how much he loved Lincoln Park's music (it sucks). Just when I was sure he would rape us, he realized that he had missed his station, and quickly jumped up and darted off the platform. We finally made it to the airport around 1:30 in the morning and quickly proceeded to purchase a bottle of screwtop white wine each to gain back our buzz and try to forget about the Iranian man. Between sitting on the curb outside smoking cigarettes and realizing that the most comfortable chairs in the place were in the lounge of a deserted coffee shop, we finished our wine. While families eagerly awaited the return of their loved ones with bleary eyes and other passengers tried to get a few hours of sleep, two obnoxious Americans were pulling on bottles of cheap wine and laughing at everyone who walked by loudly. At some point my friend disappeared for what seemed like forever, and then suddenly reappeared riding on the back of a luggage cart toting several large cans of beer. At some point we migrated to food court filled with people attempting to sleep and proceeded to get into a shouting physical altercation over which character from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia we were (if you don't know this show, please stop reading my blog). Around 4 in the morning we both passed out on the floor outside of the Burger King in the food area. My friend woke up thirty minutes later, threw up violently in a bathroom, called his ex-girlfriend from his international phone and proceeded to scream that if she didn't break up with her new boyfriend and get back together with him he would "cut that pussy's throat and then cut my own throat!". The flight the next morning was one of the worst hangover experiences of my life, and throughout the trip I was silently praying that we would crash to get rid of my headache.
What's the moral of this story? Acting the way we were, my friend and I should have been promptly collected by security and taken to a dark hidden prison for waterboarding procedures. But only in European airports can one act like a drunken silver back gorilla without consequence. So this latest example of European inadequacy doesn't come as a surprise. If they couldn't handle me after mixing Jack Daniels, Strongbow cider, white wine, and cheap beer then they definitely weren't going to handle an Icelandic volcano.
I just knew that the travel abroad experience was going to pay off!
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