Well…I should have known that I’d end up like this: almost midnight and I’m typing up a blog post listening to “Swiss jazz” in a hotel room located in the Principality of Liechtenstein, a balcony giving me a spectacular nocturnal view of the Alps. Yes, I’ve made it: as of last week I am in Europe…and am no longer a virgin. My first time was with Dutch girl in Amsterdam who was a total sweetheart, so much smiles, giggles, and hair tosses; together with a soft womanly figure, a beautiful face, and the cutest of accents she had me looking forward to being intimate with her almost as soon as I laid eyes on her.
Not that we got down to business like the “window girls” do; no, the hours of our time together flew by like they were no time at all during our dinner date; yes, I paid for the full “girlfriend experience” (from the original “virgin experience” provider; hint: it’s this place), kisses, caresses, conversation, and all. We even had breakfast together the following morning, so long was my booking. Sex was fun and felt really good, but honestly my favorite parts were the more date-y girlfriend-y romantic aspects. Yes, these girls will fully deliver on that promise.
For a night I had a girlfriend, and honestly that felt really good, more so than I expected. And afterwards, although in the moment I felt like “that’s all there is to it?” with regard to sex, I do feel different. More like I’m a whole person.
And that was well worth the cost, which all-in amounted to around $3000. I’m even missing her already, not a week later, and am already (as I suspected I might like to do…and as she even suggested herself!) floating the idea of seeing her again. The part of Europe Amsterdam is in is on my track in June.
Truthfully I would like to see Amsterdam again, and not just because of the girl. I found it to be a beautiful, charming, and very friendly city…and is frankly by far my favorite place I’ve visited yet. The canals, the brick streets, the original architecture, and the vibrant, diverse, yet friendly atmosphere really make it special.
I had no idea, with it being my first European city, but I might have already seen the ultimate example of what I was looking for! I loved Amsterdam so much I had to practically pry myself away from the place and toward my next destination: Brussels. And I almost wish I hadn’t; Brussels’ built environment seemed more “American” in a way, and honestly the whole atmosphere was creepier and the people not as nice…even if I did end up having fun dancing in the street with a bunch of French girls to a live jazz performance.
Luxembourg was a charming and rather swanky place that ended up being agreeable, even if I just don’t love it like I do Amsterdam. Arlon, a stopover I made to change trains just before crossing out of Belgium, was fun to explore a bit too, even if Wallonia in general was depressing (Flanders looked okay, but even that looked like it had a lot of rough patches, as did even Holland if I’m being fair).
Germany? Maybe the less said about that the better. Already in Trier it looked bad, but Koblenz looked even more depressing than Wallonia…and that was just an appetizer for the all-out creep-out that was Frankfurt. The place feels more like a page from George Orwell’s “1984” than an actual city. The entirety of the Rhineland and Hesse was post-apocalyptic; despite what they say it’s blatantly obvious the country was destroyed in World War II and was never actually rebuilt.
The people? Very creepy, hostile, and unfriendly toward me, giving me strange glares and barking orders at me (in stark contrast to how they treated the locals who spoke German and grasped how everything worked implicitly). There was also, I noticed, a much more marked color line; visible minorities kept to themselves a lot more, and there was a lot more hostility evinced between these race groups, despite them all speaking German. In fact some of these minorities were the most hostile of all toward me!
It picked up once I got to Heidelberg, which is a genuinely charming university town that really shows its glorious heritage of science and intellectualism, some of the best of old Europe in that regard, but even there, despite one chocolate and ice cream shop run by a cute young lady with the sweetest voice and best accent, it was really just okay. There was this same hostile and threatening vibe. I then got myself to Memmingen over in Bavaria, the first site I got to where I have ancestry from…and it showed. The decor and layout of the hotel and the room seemed all too familiar, as did the food. The people too seemed less hostile as I moved further south, but it only really started to pick up once the Alps became visible at long last and I crossed over into Austria, at Bregenz.
It’s not lost on me that the people seemed a lot friendlier and nicer toward me (at least Luxembourg level, probably more like they were in Brussels), and the country seems much better-kept than Germany is. As soon as I boarded the Swiss train at Bregenz and the Austrian train at Feldkirch there was a noticeable step up in quality from the German trains. The German trains (even the ICE ones) ride roughly and are delayed a lot I’ve noticed, whereas their more alpine co-ethnics run a much tighter ship. The Austrian model I boarded was the first train I rode that left on time since the one that departed from Amsterdam. Huh.
The landscape was flat in the Netherlands, progressing to hilly terrain by the time I reached Wallonia, and it seemingly stretched without end, until just before I crossed out of Germany the Alps popped out, followed by me entering the lushest fairy-tale landscape I’ve seen…well, maybe not ever, but only Cascadia can truly compare (it’s even more fairy-tale-like than the uppermost reaches of Southern Appalachia!). Liechtenstein is a whole new level of well-kept (apparently, as per Luxembourg and even our very own Jackson, Wyoming it takes billionaire-level money to make a place fit for human habitation these days…), and I’ve enjoyed every minute of my stay here so far.
Ever since I left the post-apocalyptic hellhole that is the expanse from Wallonia through at least Hesse (and god knows what the former East Germany looks like…the West is allegedly the nice part!), the food, the architecture, and the people have all been looking up and up, to the extent now everybody’s nice and helpful to me in Liechtenstein again, and I’m enjoying the views and the atmosphere more than ever. I’m tempted to stay for a while…get a massage at the hotel, and maybe (if I can swing it) do a wine-tasting at the Prince’s own cellar (which is apparently a thing here?). No doubt from one of the many picture-postcard vineyards that dot this last of the Little Germanies, perhaps providing a hint of delights to come once I cross over the Alps, visit the very balcony that Anakin and Padme got married in in “Star Wars”, and enter Italy…