Hi seddit!

Just got back from a great road trip trough Italy with a friend. He is in a relationship and I didn't really want to 'break' the group by spending too long on my own with a girl, so apart from some pretty pointless #-closes and fb-closes (is this a term yet? It should be) nothing remarkable happend really.

We did come up with this phrase though; every guy I've told it so far laughs with it and it's a great principle to live by, especially when travelling:

If you have a problem, find a beautiful woman to help solve it. If you see a beautiful woman, find a problem she can help you solve.

I love it because even though I don't consider myself bad with girls, I still often have pretty big AA, especially if I can't come up with a situational opener. I hate using anything but a situational opener anyway. Luckily, asking to help you out with some problem is one of the most consistently usable situational openers. Hope you like it as much as I do!

That's all, but here are some girl-related stories from the trip while I'm writing anyway. You never know if there's anything useful there.

Went up to a cute waitress, asked her if she knew a dish typical for the city we were in that we could try out. She said something quite long, and then started to write it down on a note. As she was writing I said "Ok, now your phone number ..."

She laughed and gave me clearly interested looks. I said it was sadly a bit pointless as our hostel had a stupid cerfew and we had to leave the next morning. She did write down her e-mail spontaneously and offered her phone number too though.

I declined for the above reason, but smacked my head afterwards: we ended up at a great wine bar the next hours, and I could have perfectly called her to join us, and then try to get her to take me to her place that night, no stupid cerfew there! Oh well.

At that wine bar, asked 2 cute girls to take our picture, and then asked them why there seemed to be so many more girls than guys in the city (it was true). Talked with them a bit afterwards, and they also recommended a great local pub for us to check out.

Next city, chilling at some square. Shouted to a passing girl: "Hey, can I have your advice?" She reluctantly stopped. I said that we needed to buy a present for friends and wanted something typical from the city. She said "A gift? On what level?". I replied jokingly "On a metaphysical level". She replied "Well, you could tear down the city's famous tower and bring them a brick." Loved her way of thinking :-)

Two German girls on the tent next to us on the camping where we arrived late at night. Walked up to them and asked if they had been here longer, and knew some cool places to experience the city by night, and if they would join us. They didn't, but the next evening we all had a great night together at another nice wine bar (hey it's Italy baby :)). Added them on Facebook so they can help me out should I ever pass by their city in the future.

Offered to take a picture of a young couple on some famous bridge. Then asked them if they could take one of us with their camera (we didn't bring ours, stupid) and e-mail it. The obliged and promised to send it, and we had a nice chat. No pickup here of course, but just to show that being nice to strangers is, well, nice.

So there.