August 19th: Nowhere

I have really procrastinated on this one.

I am in the city now and have reached the point where I’m supposed to be up and running. I am currently lying in my bed naked at 7:30 AM typing a Blog post. Give me a few more months.

Home for a few days was nice. Juggling between all three homes (Mom, Dad, Step-Dad) kept me in travel mode. I kept trying to eat healthily but each parental unit would take me out and want me to have a martini, a beer, or a glass of red wine (Mom, Dad, Step-Dad).

I took an early Sunday bus back up to the city to be part of a cool Acting competition film thingie called, “Audition”. I’d tell you how awesome it was and all the free food and the gigantic film crew…but then telling you I was cut after the first round would be even sadder.

So let’s escape my current life and reflect over my amazing, awesome Eurotrip.

Here’s some insufficiently thought out lists

Favorite Places:

1. Interlaken (for the excursions)
2. Barcelona (tie)
3. Amsterdam (tie)
4. Berlin
5. Dublin
6. Prague
7. Rome

Places You Don’t Have to Visit Just Ask Me About Them:

1. Zurich, Switzerland
2. Verona, Italy
3. Dresden, Germany
4. Nuremberg, Germany (Unless you want to see a HUGE Nazi/WWII Museum)

Places I’m Now Dying To Visit (in Europe):

1. Greece, in general
2. Istanbul, Turkey
3. Stockholm, Sweden
4. Wherever Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Took Place, Sweden
5. Copenhagen, Denmark
6. Oslo, Norway
7. Krakow, Poland
8. Budapest, Hungary
9. Croatia, in general
10. Amalfi Coast, Italy

Most Beautiful Man-Made Things:

1. Gaudi Church, Barcelona
2. The David, Florence
3. Eiffel Tower w/ Flashing Lights, Paris
4. Sistine Chapel, Vatican
5. Random Statue of Boy Floating on Raft Representing Death, Verona
6. Rome
7. Everything else Gaudi

Favorite Quotes:

1. Australian Pub Crawl Moderator to me, not knowing I am from America, “God, aren’t all these fucking Americans such retards?”
2. Drunk Italian man in Milan, “America sucks, man! Did you know, did you know there is a place from, there is a place called Rhode Island, and people actually live there. AND they’re okay about it”
3. Stranger after asking to use my phone, “FUCK YOU!”

Most Beautiful Natural Scenery:

1. Interlaken, Switzerland
2. Naples, Italy (outside the city)
3. County Wicklow, Ireland

Worst Meals:

1. Pig Ears, Madrid
2. That’s all folks! (said Porky Pig, whose ears I ate)

Best Museums:

1. Anne Frank House, Amsterdam (Only if you read the book right before)
2. Sex Machine Museum, Prague
3. Sex Machine Museum, Prague
4. Video Game Museum, Berlin
5. Vatican Museum, Vatican (that’s probably not what it’s called)
6. Accademia Gallery, Florence
7. Dali Museum, Everywhere
8. Taxidermy shop I went to in Paris (Stuffed Giraffe, Polar Bear, Elephant, etc.)

Best Pub Crawls

1. Berlin Anti-Pub Crawl
2. Dublin Musical Pub Crawl
3. Bruges Pub Crawl (despite what happened)

Places I Must Go Back To

1. Amsterdam
2. Rome
3. Berlin
4. Interlaken

Places Where Your Money Will Disappear

1. Interlaken
2. Everywhere but Prague and Berlin

The Best Moments, no particular order

1. Sky Diving, Interlaken
2. Night Out w/ Geoffrey in Prague that culminated in awful strip club
3. Night Out w/ Notallowedtosay in Paris drinking cheap wine by the E.tower
4. First Time I did Karaoke in Florence
5. Soccer Game at German Beer Hall w/ Lena in Berlin
6. Canyoning with 12-year-old Boy Scouts, Interlaken…that sounds creepy

I thought about writing a section on what I learned but that list includes a lot of basic social skills that it might be embarrassing to admit I didn't know before.
 

The greatest and most painful part of traveling was being alone. In an acting class, after being assigned Rainer Maria Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet", I complained about his praise of solitude. As Rilke wrote, "It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult. That something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it." I politely suggested that that sucked balls. I did not want to be alone. The teacher looked at me with melancholy, knowing eyes and told me to shut up. I think now, having been alone a considerable deal in sometimes stressful situations, I'm beginning to sadly/happily/ambivalently understand what he was talking about.

Not Rilke. The teacher. 

That I should shut up.

Before I end this saga, I should take a moment to give a shout out to my Dad.

Back in the day (somewhere in March), he said he wanted to fund a 3-month Eurotrip for me. I told him that I couldn't because by my age Ryan Gosling had been in the Notebook and my greatest accomplishment thus far was playing Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors in High School. He told me, verbatim, to stop being a pussy. So I went. 

It is a priceless gift (while at the same time...really expensive) and I hope one day, after my children's book goes platinum, to send you on an equally amazing trip. 'You' being my Dad, not you whoever is reading this. That'd be absurdly nice.

Love you, Dad.

So…that’s it. Depressing.

I am soon to move to (probably) Brooklyn.

I got another copy of Anna Karinininininina and have a 1/5 left.

I spent yesterday buying an iron, 7 bags of baby carrots and working on a short story about the Bruges Pub Crawl.

I went to the gym about a week ago and am still having trouble walking.

I am most likely celebrating my Birthday alone.

C’est La Vie, France.

I am thinking of doing a walking tour of NYC or maybe even a Pub Crawl just to remember the good ol’ days.

Please, if you ever are planning a Eurotrip, feel free to contact me. I won’t really know how to help but I can certainly tell you what not to do. Also, check out couchsurfing.org. I am going to force myself to use it next time I am abroad. 

I've started a blog of (hopefully) comedic rants and stories at http://sexdrugsanxiety.wordpress.com/

Since, to those who have trudged through this depressing post, you are thinking, "WHERE CAN I GET MORE!"

Thank you for reading, if even once, these posts. If you have any thoughts, questions or you want to hire me as a comedian for a Bat or Bar Mitzvah please contact me.

May you all travel often, alone and safely but not too safely,

Like or Love,

Gianmarco

Oh yeah.

Here are pictures from the Monica Lewinsky Shot…

July 28th-August 6th: Lisboa, Dublin, Galway

I knew what you’re thinking:

“Gianmarco, you may be sad that your trip is coming to a close, however, that misery is incomparable to my own despondency that there will be no more nEUROtic Travels posts.”

What can I say.

Life is hard.

BUT I will write one more after this with the ‘top-ten-or-something-or-other-lists”

When last we left our protagonist, I was in Lisbon (Lisboa) in Portugal.

I had the fortune of arriving on the hostel’s 3^rd birthday. Free Dinner, Free drinks, and I capitalized Dinner.

Next day: beach. Surfed-

Let me finish

I watched people surf.

Someone threw up in my room. Twice. Don’t try to find a narrative in this post.

Pubcrawl.

Last day I went on a charming “We Hate Tourism” tour of Lisbon and ate three pastries, had the best ice cream of my life, and ate another pastry. Paris has competition.

Lisbon was generally pleasant so…yeah. Let’s move on.

Dublin.

While in Dublin, I was overwhelmed by the number of things to do. Everywhere I saw signs for once-in-a-lifetime events. I thought, “How is it that so much is happening in Dublin! There wasn’t this much stuff in Madrid, Rome or Berlin!”

Then I realized it was because…everything was in English now. I was now able to comprehend exactly how much it was I was missing.

Despite the pangs of knowledge, I had a very Guinness-fueled, lovely time.

I toured an area called the “Garden of Ireland”, which, if it fits the definition of a garden, is the largest garden in the world.

Many movies were shot there including PS I Love You, Braveheart, Dancing at LooNASA, so on and so forth.

While driving we even passed two huge movie crews (one for a film called “Viking”?)

While in the back of the tour van, pretending I could understand this man with his strong accent, I caught this gem:

Guide: “Guinness, Guinness, lucky charms, Daniel Day Lewis lives around here, diddly doo, Guinness”

…

DANIEL

DAY

LEWIS

AND a scene from My Left Foot was shot in this area as well!

So I don’t remember the rest of the tour-I just fantasized running into DDL and having him offer to get my monologues back in shape before I return home. Then asking if he wanted to star in a Buddy-Cop ComioSer with him-with both of us playing characters with Cerebral Palsy. Then me beating him at the Oscars-and him being very supportive of me but still I notice a glint of jealousy in his eye-because of my Meisner-Behavior-Calling-Skillz.

But I digress.

That night I participated in a very pleasant pubcrawl

The next morning I went to a session where I learned the basics of Irish Dance and Drum.

That night I went on a “musical” pub crawl. Not that kind. Though on that note-I’ve listened to Falsettos in its entirety three times on this trip. Best Musical Ever. Period. (.)

The Musical Pub Crawl was a glorious demonstration of Irish music by two musicians that included a considerable deal of considerably overpriced Guinness.

Next day I did a walking tour of Dublin with an Actor!

When I told him how pursuing acting in NYC works, he proceeded to laugh at the absurdity of life and subsequently wept for us all.

Finally: Galway.

It turns out that I came to Galway during a 5-day horse-racing event, called, with that traditional Irish irony, the Galway Races.

I think.

I missed “Ladies’ Day” (I think) where the women dress to the nines and even tens for the chance to win best dressed. What happens when you win best dressed, you surely ask?

You win 30,000 Euros.

30,000 Euros

If you even win ‘best hat’ (and these are not hats of function-these are silly hats that hang on the side of ones head, pinned with 50 or so pins as to combat gravitational forces) you get 10,000 Euros

10, 000 Euros.

And! An Ozzie (…or is it Aussie? Ozzy Osbourne) won!

Even when I went to the races-people were dressed at least to the eights-and I won 1 Euro.

Oh, btw, horse racing is just a wee bit more exciting than dressage, which is a wee bit more exciting than memorizing all the digits of pi after a period of pi*r^2 minutes, r being the speed of light.

More exciting than the races was the carbide to them. You say ‘car ride’ I type ‘carbide’.

I was traveling with a charming fellow who, due to a car accident in his teens, is paralyzed from the chest down.

The cab driver, in a fit of piety, proceeded to whip out his highlighted Bible, gave us a lengthy sermon about how Jesus would heal this fellow if we would give ourselves over to ‘Him’, had us read selected passages, and then led us through an oath, ending in a series of rather aggressive ‘Halleluiahs’.

Both of us were fortunately in good spirits-until the driver attempted to find a particular verse (one of the few he had not committed to impeccable memory) while driving.

Driver: “Dammit. I don’t know how I’m going to find this while I’m driving!

Me and Fellow: Neither do we!

Another highlight was, upon quoting something quite poetic and potentially moving, he ran a red light and exclaimed “Goddamn, fucking red lights!”

Oh…and some of it might have been recorded by accident.

We survived the ride. Thank SomeoneSomethingOrOther.

Last night I went out with some new fellows, danced a wee bit and ended up in a heated debate on the virtues of marriage with each other. You can imagine how my optimism shone through and won me amany acompanion. But more likely the opposite of that sentence.

Tonight is my last night.

I’m gonna push through.

Last pub crawl, bus 700 in the morning, flying home.

I will write one more post so prolong your tears.

I’m gonna need 1 month recovery time of intense dieting and hours of sense-memory but then please visit me. I will be severely lonely and shaken.

Thank you for reading,

Gianmarco

Oh.

I lost Anna Karinininina.

Unless…someone stole it?? I usually resort to this…but who steals a worn copy of Anna Karininininininina?

Finished Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (all 5)

Bought Voltaire’s Candide (It was only 2 Euros!...)

Finished it

All that I have left is an acting book…I guess it’s back to work.

:*

Oh, and Max-I’ll work on getting the Monica Lewinsky Pictures. My hands were busy at the time but I’m sure someone has pictures.