And My Last Name Sounds NOTHING Like Griswald

When one goes to Europe to see one's European lover, one takes certain steps to make sure one is well prepared for the experience. These steps include anything and everything from shopping for appropriate bags, shoes, and clothes (euphemism for buying as much lingerie as you can pack without Customs wondering whether you're a prostitute), to taking beauty steps that begin weeks in advance, like dieting down to a size two, facials, deep hair conditioning treatments, and certainly, lets not forget the wonderful and fulfilling nether-region laser hair removal experience.

This is all done because one pictures oneself walking through quaint cobblestone streets full of fashionistas, with their cool, crisp European look, sipping coffee in a trendy cafe, going site seeing at marvels of history, partying in amazing clubs full of models until the wee hours of the morning, and dining on delicious and exotic fare in restaurants where everyone greets each other with double-cheeked air kisses.

One does not anticipate that one's lover will call her on the day of her departure to inform her, after she's already divested herself of her luggage in her baby sister's car the prior evening in order to work half a day and then run to the airport, that the temperature will actually drop 15 to 20 degrees lower than what he told her while she was packing lightweight spring and fall clothes.

One does not anticipate that on one's second day, after spending one's first evening meeting one's European lover's brother, cousins, closest friends and drinking approximately half a bottle of whiskey and dancing on furniture, that one would get so violently ill, that one was actually afraid of NOT dying.

One does not anticipate that it would rain, RAIN, for seven of the nine days one was there.

One does not anticipate when one's European lover tells her that he got tickets to a great soccer game in a famous stadium, that not only would the team lose in the last seconds of the game, but that the rain would turn into a monsoon, soaking one's four layers all the way through to her bones and again making her actually afraid of NOT dying.

One does not anticipate that the European lover's mother would get ill and have to be hospitalized, and one's European lover would have to spend two days running back and forth between the hospital and his parent's house while one sat in the European lover's apartment waiting for him. (Of course, one DOES correctly anticipate that the minute one returns home, the European lover's mother also miraculously recovers and returns home......)

One does not anticipate that the food, purported to be oh-so-finger-lickin-good, would actually not cooperate with one's digestive system thereby making eating a very dangerous activity.

One does not anticipate that the boiler runs out of hot water, just before one is finished rinsing the conditioner out of one's hair. EVERY TIME ONE SHOWERS.

But then again, one also does not anticipate the amounts of sex one can have when one is trapped in an apartment with a hot blooded European lover because of the inclement weather.

And that's when one realizes that Europeans really do know how to live.