Me, the Autobahn, and Lady Gaga

The norm for “seeing Europe” is usually after one’s college graduation, and before the start of one’s first job. It is an American rite of passage – a last hurrah before one has to buckle down and begin worrying about things like contributing enough to a 401k to make sure to get an employer match. But given this stupid volcano, I’m now living every fresh college graduate’s dream European vacation.

Today I bid goodbye to Munich, and headed to pick up my rental car for the journey to Zurich, which is where I had managed to find the next available flight out on Swiss Air. Driving in Europe is a ton of fun – you invariably get a German car with a great engine, and you get to speed on autobahns where it’s easy to push 100 mph. Picking up the car was just as much fun for me, though, because the rental car agency I had found was at the main train station in the center of the city, which meant having to use zigzagging alleys and one-way streets to get out of the city and on to the highway.

It’s hard not to feel a little like Jason Bourne during the process. Ok, maybe it’s hard for me not to feel a little like Jason Bourne. But come on! I don’t speak the language, but I’m at ease in my alien environment. I’m at places of mass public transit, wending and weaving my way through strangers who know nothing about my mission. I convince agents to lend me a car, using one of my many credit cards linked to offshore accounts. I locate my vehicle in a non-descript, off-site parking structure, load my minimalist belongings, rev the engine, and zoom my way across narrow roads, knowing where to go only by instinct … and by the aid of my GPS (which I set to speak at me in a haughty British accent).

Driving is indeed a lot of fun in Europe, even putting aside the great highways with no speed limits. The countryside is so ridiculously postcard perfect. In my case, I passed countless small villages clinging to valley riversides, with the Alps soaring in the background. Farms flew by, with cows lazily lounging in the fields. And every now and then I’d pass through small towns where I’d pull up next to an old church, built an impossibly long time ago.

The only blemish on this driving experience was the music. Europop itself is fine – I kinda like the catchy pop-tunes that make up most continental hits. And I really enjoyed listening to German, Italian, and French songs, even though I didn’t understand a word. It was part of the experience of being in a foreign land. But that’s what made the amount of American crud playing on each and every single radio station absolutely infuriating. I don’t claim to have a trained ear, nor do I claim to have any deep knowledge of music, but even I can tell good American music from formulaic, vapid crap. Among the songs that were on infinite replay on all the radio stations was that ludicrous song by that guy who would like to make himself "believe that planet earth turned slowly” and for some reason wants to “get a thousand hugs, from 10,000 bugs” (why is he asking each bug to hug him ten times?) Or something like that. Owl City, is the name of the band, I think. And then there was Lady Gaga. You know that song – the one where the chorus sounds like she’s trying to gargle while singing – “rah-rah-ah-ah-ah, roma roma-ma, ga-ga ooh la la.” WTF?!

Both these vomit inducing songs played with such regularity that I eventually just had to turn the radio off, and resort to my trusty British GPS guide to entertain me the rest of the way. The three and a half hour drive went by a lot quicker than I expected, and I pulled into my Zurich office in the afternoon, surprising my coworkers who thought they had seen the last of “that corporate guy from California.”

Tomorrow promises to be another exciting day – will I get to fly out? Will I be moving to yet another city? Will I have to endure more Lady Gaga? Who knows.