Read Four Things My Geeky-Jock-of-a-Best-Friend Must Do in Europe for Free Online

long bar, where there were sodas all lined up and glass bowls filled with—this is awesome—Mediterranean blue M&Ms. He started to say something else, but was interrupted when one of the gamers suddenly yelled, “TOURNAMENT!” which resulted in just about everyone in the room heading over to watch the foosball players. It was like some huge magnets inside the tables had been activated.
    So, figuring I’d wait till the crowd died down over there, I headed to the bar. First I downed a big handful of the blue M&Ms (for courage) and then looked over the sodas. Each had a maraschino cherry floating on top and a plastic animal hanging over the rim of the glass. I took one with a cute, little monkey.
    (In retrospect, I’m thinking that was a poor choice, given what happened next. Clearly, monkeys are bad karma for me—maybe a giraffe would have been better.)
    By the bar was a wall that showed music videos, and a few girls were dancing in front of it. Near them were a few puffy chairs, and one of them was occupied by a boy with dark, wavy hair and dark eyes. Italian, I figured. Or Greek. Or Israeli. Or some similarly attractive alien species. I sized him up, Delia, as almost certainly code-red. And all I needed to do, I told myself, was walk up and meet him. THEN, I told myself, task #4 on Delia’s (annoying) to-do list would be OVER. There was one little problem, though: TOTAL PANIC.
    Feeling like I would throw up any second, I asked myself (not out loud, thankfully), “What would Delia do?” Naturally, the answer terrified me, so I switched to the question: “What would Georgia do?” To that, I thought-answered, “Well, she would be British, of course, and I know how to do THAT.” And then I thought-added, “But what if he doesn’t speak English? Or British, for that matter?” At which point, I thought-yelled, “DO IT, BRADY!”
    So, armed with this (totally misplaced) sense of confidence, I strolled over to the puffy orange chair and, acting like a cool person (which I’m obviously NOT), picked the cherry out of my glass, popped it into my mouth, and said, “Bazzin’ pahty!” (Which I know is stupid, but it made perfect sense in the completely idiotic fantasy world I had entered by then.)
    He turned, smiling, and said, in a definitely too-loud kind of way, and in a cowboy accent straight out of the Wild West, “Hey! Yer a New Yorker!”
    At which moment I inhaled the maraschino cherry and began to CHOKE. I couldn’t get a sound out at first, and I guess this guy is trained in life-saving or something, because he sprang right up out of his seat and got behind me and squeezed my stomach so hard that the cherry FLEW out of my mouth. At that point I managed to squeak out, “I’m okay!” so he let me go. By then the girls on the dance floor had stopped dancing and were looking at us, as was the rest of the room. (And the rest of the world, I think.)
    “Ma name’s AJ,” he said, smiling (a little too) big. “Ahm from Texas. I lak that flar on yer face.”
    Still feeling somewhat gaggy, I coughed out, “Thanks!” and “Got to go!” and “Bye!” until I backed myself to the lounge door, at which point I bolted for the elevator, which didn’t come fast enough, so I ran down a thousand flights of stairs (at least) and all the way back to our stateroom, where, panting, I jumped into bed.
    I’m so pitiful that I’m clearly a hazard to myself.
    And I’m NEVER going to be British again. Speaking that way is EXHAUSTING, anyway. I don’t know how the Brits do it all day.
    And I also don’t GET how the Queen’s husband can be a prince. Shouldn’t he be the KING? Georgia may be the only thing that makes sense over there, and she’s not even REAL.
    My mother just got back from the show. She’s telling me to get my clothes off the floor. I’m telling her that I’m just trying to make it more like home, so she’ll be cozy and not get homesick. She doesn’t seem to appreciate that, though, because she