Greetings loyal Phroth fans and the unlucky few that tried to search for fat girls getting raped on Google (look in our archives), and welcome to my first entry of Phlogging Abroad! My name is Jimmy Mayers, and during my final semester at Penn State I will be scribing everything from the important to the superfluous details of my time in Trondheim, Norway. It is nearing the end of my second week in this country and I was planning to write while on the plane, but it turns out that lack of sleep and nicotine turn what can be funny observations into complete malice towards everyone and everything. So let’s start by recapping my time at the airport.

God do I hate airports. I hate everything about them. I hate the fact that I have to take my shoes off, take my computer out of the bag, take everything out of my pockets, take off my coat and hoodie, go through security, and then trying to put everything back together in less than 15 seconds after it goes through the X-ray. I hate the fact that for every employee with a smile there are 15 who are total cocks. Seriously, most staff at airports are on par with the CATA bus drivers (except for the whistling bus driver, shine on you crazy diamond).

Now, having such hatred towards airports isn’t the best way to start a 24 hour trip, but alas, I’m not the best optimist in the world, I always end up failing at it anyway. The first flight I boarded was from Boston to Zurich, Switzerland. Since my father has had to travel quite often due to his job, I was able to get business class, which is pretty fucking sweet. The chairs recline, I actually get a movie selection as opposed to economy which has the “you either buy these headphones for 10 dollars and watch whatever shitty Sandra Bullock movie has recently come out on DVD or you read,” and I was given champagne before the flight. In terms of accommodations, I had it made. What did make this flight hell though, was a fat son of a bitch who sat across from me. I never spoke a word to this man, but his face is burned into my mind because I plan to one day light him on fire. This man made my flight a living hell.
Now I’m not one to complain (if you knew me better that line would be hilarious) but this guy is the single worst passenger on a flight I have had the pleasure of experiencing. He started the flight by having 5 glasses of wine. After being fairly intoxicated, he began to watch District 9. However, this man apparently found his headphones to be too restricting or too uncomfortable. Whatever the reason, his solution was to wrap the headphones around his neck and turn the volume to the highest level. Now this already made me hate him, but because of the large quantity of wine he had, and the fact that he appeared to be over 60 years old, he started peeing like a diabetic at an orange juice concert. He would get up to pee every 20 minutes and would never pause the movie. Since he naturally missed so much the first time he watched it, he began to watch the movie again. Yet, because of mandatory piss schedule, he needed to watch the movie a third time. HE WATCHED THIS MOVIE 4 FUCKING TIMES DURING THE FLIGHT! 4 TIMES! I DON’T KNOW IF I’VE MADE IT CLEAR ENOUGH HOW MANY TIMES HE VIEWED THIS FILM… 4 TIMES!

By the time everyone else was trying to go to bed (during the start of his third viewing of the film) he also began to attempt reading. Now I can’t complain if he used the reading light that is set up at each seat. Some people aren’t going to be able to sleep on a plane, and reading is a quiet way to occupy your time. However, this man would use one of those super powerful LED flashlights that your asshole uncle likes to put in your face, and he never committed to reading. He would decide to pull out a book, attempt to read, and give up after realizing that reading and drinking go together like blowjobs and braces.

When we finally got into Zurich it was 10am their time (4 am for my internal clock). By this point I was starving. I usually don’t eat the food on the plane. Frankly, I feel like they’re trying too hard. They always try to make meals that are fancier than they should be attempting to make. I’d prefer a Stouffer’s TV dinner over airline food, which is in actuality a glorified Stouffer’s TV dinner. At the Zurich airport the only place to eat that seemed reasonable was burger king. This is where I learned a cardinal rule of traveling abroad, never go to foreign burger kings, it will only disappoint. Seriously, the selecting is much smaller, the prices are nearly twice as much, and they don’t give you ice in your drink. Here is a transcription of the exchange I had with the staff:

BK staff: Yes?

ME:… Oh…um hi

BK staff: What are you ordering?

ME: Uuuuggghhhhhh…

BK staff: We don’t serve that

ME; sorry, I’ll have chicken nuggets…

BK staff: We’re out of chicken nuggets

ME: shit, I’ll have… is that chicken wings?

BK staff: What does it say?

ME: “King’s Wings”

BK: Then they’re “King’s Wings”

ME: Jesus, okay I’ll get those

BK: Your total comes to 8.19

ME: But I wanted a meal

BK: Well you should have specified that

ME: Well I’m doing that now

BK: (sigh)… Anything else before I enter it again?

ME: I’m not ordering this… but what in the hell are western cheesy balls?

BK: Fried balls of cheese with beans in the middle

ME: I see (turn around) EVERYONE MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION!

BK: Sir please stop!

ME: WESTERN CHEESY BALLS ARE A LIE!!! NO ONE IN THE U.S. EATS THOSE OR EVER WOULD! IN ALL HONESTY THAT SOUNDS DISGUSTING!

BK: Sir will you please stop

ME: I needed to address this… how much does this come to?

BK: 17.50

ME: holy Jesus and…fine.

BK: Would you like any condiments

ME: Um, I’ll take some barbecue

BK: How many packets?

ME: I don’t know, 3

BK: Total comes to 19.00

ME: Are you charging me for condiments?

BK: 50 cents each

ME: Fuck your fat face

BK: Excuse me?

ME: Have a nice day

After eating the most unsatisfying fast food since the fillet-o-fish sandwich, I headed to the business lounge. What’s great about business lounges is the fact that you can drink there and no one seems to care, even if it may only be 5:45 am your time. I had about 3 gin and tonics before I decided to check out more of the airport. After 2 hours of walking around in circles with a steady buzz going, I was ready to board my next flight to Oslo, Norway. The flight to Norway from Zurich was fairly uneventful, as was the flight from Oslo to Trondheim, but things began to pick up when I finally got my bags.

For the record, I want to state that whatever meeting I attended where I was told that Norway is practically an English speaking country had clearly never been here, it’s not. Nothing is in English, and if anything IS written in English, it’s the third one down. It’s equivalent to French in the states. Also, Norway has figured out how to not only have the most lax policy towards immigration, but also has discovered how to keep out illegal immigrants. Everything is too damn expensive on a foreign person’s budget. Seriously, it’s beyond unreasonable, it’s rape. My wallet has a dick hole from how much it’s been fucked at this point. Yet even the price of things didn’t compare to my next surprise.

I feel every person who travels to Norway says the same thing I did when I stepped outside. No matter what your thinking about at the time, as soon as you step outside, your thoughts change to, “HOLY JESUS, MARY, RON JEREMY, FLASHDANCE IT’S COLD!” the temperature outside was -25 C (-13 F), but at a certain point, cold is cold. I thought I had experienced cold, but it turns out all I knew was wind chill factors. It was so cold that my nose would seal shut. It was so cold that my beard hair would freeze and snap off whenever I curled my lips. It was so cold that you could see farts like a person’s breath. When i got to the train station where I was to be picked up I was debating gutting the next vagrant I saw only to stick my hands in their still warm entrails and regain movement in my fingers. Luckily I hadn’t found a sharp enough object to do the deed by the time that the person from the program came to pick me up. After a 30 minute car ride and a very short introduction to my new roommate I went to bed, knowing that I was going to wake up and begin a new amazing experie… holy shit there’s frost on the insides of my windows.

Next blog- Going to the grocery store: “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHERE THE FUCK IS AMERICAN CHEESE?!!!”

————–

By Jimmy Mayers, Foreign Correspondant

· Tags: assholes on airplanes, Burger King, CATA, District 9, fat girl rape, Norway, Phlogging Abroad, Western Cheesy Balls

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 1:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.