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Up until a few weeks ago, I’d never ventured outside the continental US. Growing up, my family trips were always to exotic locations like Door County, Wisconsin. My first job out of college was at the radio station where I interned senior year. The market had just crashed, so I took the job instead of backpacking through Europe or any of that bullshit.
I heard plenty about everything I was missing out on. “JR, the culture, the food, the PEOPLE. What an eye opening experience!” is what just about every girl I dated in my early twenties would tell me. They were so much more worldly and cultured than me, because they’d ridden the Tube once and given an uncircumcised guy a handjob when they were 19.
I finally bit the bullet and went abroad a few weeks ago to Spain. I consider myself somewhat open minded. Food and drink are two of my vices, and I’m generally tolerant of people, so I was optimistic. I was wrong. Traveling abroad is either overrated, or Spain is just a terrible place to travel to. I went to seven different cities in every region of the country for a dozen days, and everywhere I went it was all the same:
Food
This was the part of the trip I was looking forward to the most. Turns out, they only serve four things in Spain: bread, ham, cheese and tomato– for every meal. Eat that for ten days and you’ll start to feel like somebody shot you with a tranquilizer dart. Here’s a picture from the BREAKFAST BUFFET at the hotel. Not an egg in sight.
Hey Spain, you know a croissant isn’t Spanish right?
Water
You only can drink bottled water in Spain. Fair enough. However, on my bottle of water, I noticed next to ‘sodium’ it said 10 mg. I had been feeling like a bag of assholes the entire first week I was there, which I assumed was jet lag. Nope. Turns out I’ve been drinking fucking salt water the whole time. Did I mention it was about a hundred degrees outside?
Restaurants
Breakfast is served at 7 a.m., lunch at 1 p.m. and dinner at 10 p.m. For the nine hours in between lunch and dinner you couldn’t find a bite to eat if you went out and hunted it yourself. Apparently they wanted you to go drink more salt water to really work up an appetite. And they don’t believe in regular napkins either.
That says, “Good luck not getting our below average food on your white shorts” in Spanish.
They even fucked up their version of an American classic
Jesus Christ you got rid of the best part!
Language
The English language is everywhere in Spain. It’s on the menus; it’s in the hotels and on every sign you see. However, nobody speaks it. My travel companion is halfway decent at Spanish and most of the locals didn’t give her the time a day. One waiter got annoyed when we tried to order in Spanish and walked away, calling us “estupido gringos” to his coworker. I asked my bartender for a vodka soda once (I was dehydrated as shit) and he pretended he’d never heard of vodka, before then pouring me this:
More like a chalice of vodka soda. I didn’t complain.
Hotels
If you’re traveling with a companion, you need to specify this fact to every hotel you go to because you’re given beds that look like this:
Which I guess is the equivalent to a king size bed in Spain? Two twins pushed together? This I was actually cool with because it kept her on her side and I got the most sleep I ever have.
Also, our hotel was playing Christmas music:
Hotel in Ronda is playing Christmas music in September. Get it together, Spain pic.twitter.com/g1ckCTdSY4
— John Hickey (@johnnyjhickey) August 31, 2015
I was shirtless because again, 100 degrees out.
People
The stereotype is that as Americans, we’re the rude ones. This may surprise a few of you, but Spanish people are complete assholes. It may be my warped sense of self worth, but I was patient and pleasant to everybody I dealt with. I guess Spanish people hate white guys with big dumb faces. Below is how the fat hairy Spanish guy next to me on my flight from Barcelona to Seville used the armrest. 
Jesus Christ JR, get a tan for me, one time.
Airlines
Speaking of airlines, the local Southwest Airlines equivalent, Vueling is worse than any Frontier Airlines/Megabus deathtrap I’ve ever experienced. Their tray tables don’t work: 
They provide enough legroom for a horse jockey: 
Annnnnnd they left our luggage sitting outside our plane during a rainstorm. That’s okay, I always take my clothes out of the washing machine and wear them wet. Luckily I was able to wring out some rain water from my sleeves to drink, to prevent my kidneys from going into shock. 
My favorite blue dress was RUINED.
Children
I’m not a father (I hope), so it’s not typically my place to tell someone how to parent. But here’s a brief memo to all the parents in the country of Spain: handle your children. Whether they’re running in the streets at one in the morning, riding their mopeds down sidewalks or just screaming their heads off on a two-hour flight, don’t just sit back and do nothing.
Where’s my mom with the Benadryl when you need her? #vueling pic.twitter.com/SDLqsEvbyB — John Hickey (@johnnyjhickey) September 6, 2015
I know I might sound like a spoiled American who’s complaining about his vacation across the world. I probably am doing a little of that. But after four days of the above nonsense, I was ready to be back home, in a country where I can get any type of food I’d like at any time and where I wasn’t treated like a bag of shit if tried to order an agua sin sodio.
My next trip overseas won’t be anytime soon. If you need me, I’ll be spending the rest of my week sitting in air conditioning, watching college football and eating a Cobb salad..
Hey! Something they got right!
Respond
JR Hickey
Stand up comedian and writer from Chicago who now resides on the West Coast. JR can be seen performing at Cobbs Comedy Club in San Francisco and Zanies Comedy Clubs in Chicago. His work has been published in the Chicago Tribune and recently he was a part of SF Sketchfest 2015. JR's also the host of the PGP dating podcast Don't Take It From Us. He loves you very, very much.
@JRwilldoit
@JRwilldoit
Kendra?
Your lack of a fun time on your vacation is on you and no one else. Visit trip advisor and grow a pair.
Every country I go to makes me happier I’m an American.
At some point did you ask yourself, “Am I doing this wrong?” Because, yeah, you probably were. Research is your friend Don Quixote.
Also, to those that say there are assholes in every country, I disagree. I think Americans are generally very friendly to foreigners (except Mexicans) and we go out of our way to help tourists have a good time. In Europe, that experience is few and far between. Generally Europeans are ambivalent, not friendly, not hostile. But more often than there are super friendly people, there are arrogant pricks.
That being said, I found the Irish the best of the lot.
I was in Spain for two months and finally someone feels the same as me. Toast at 8am for breakfast, and no food until lunch at 3, and then some wimpy dinner at 10. Some of the bars didn’t open until after 1am. No wonder they take a siesta.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always wanted to just take a week or two and do my own Top Gear special with a few friends. Just pack a backpack, fly to Brazil or Vietnam, buy a couple of cheap motorcycles and just see what happens.
You have to do a lot of research for consistent, good food, especially in 1st world, Western/westernized countries.
My first trip out of the country had me locked in a room with Mexican customs officers at the airport in Mexico City who didn’t speak a word of English (or refused to). To this day I have no idea what they wanted or how I made it out of there, but I can say that my walk back through customs into the U.S. was one of the greatest feelings I’ve ever experienced.
I’ve traveled abroad a fair bit and plan to do some more before I’m done. In my experience though, there’s no better feeling traveling abroad than going through customs and the officer telling you, “Welcome home.”