here's some of the highlights that were captured on the galavantion tour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvbYSGtgN34
Monday, August 17, 2009
majestic return to DC today?
had a fun time in NYC when i got back and baltimore this past weekend.
So school starts soon, have a month or so still to write up, but if I only had the time (to the tune of wizard of Oz)
anywhoo hope everyone enjoyed the read, the rest of the stuff just ask me for bedtime stories =]
i might post a video of pics, but i have almost a week free in DC so anyone around come visit
penguin out.
So school starts soon, have a month or so still to write up, but if I only had the time (to the tune of wizard of Oz)
anywhoo hope everyone enjoyed the read, the rest of the stuff just ask me for bedtime stories =]
i might post a video of pics, but i have almost a week free in DC so anyone around come visit
penguin out.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Couch Surfing in Dusseldorf
Luke and his friend Laura pick me up right outside the bus station in Dusseldorf. We head to a cafe, and Luke has a beer, I have some mango juice because I am dehydrated. Laura has some coke because she is trying to detox. Sad, she might not come out tomorrow night because she doesn't want to drink. Come out and not drink, I do it all the time and have fun. Luke is a cheerful, genuine guy. Music buff. He is Australian but has a lot of family all around this area because his Dad grew up here and went to Australia when he was 23. So hes Australian but German descent. He got a German passport, and if you get one of these, you basically get money for rent, furnishings, stipend, basically unemployment money. The only thing Luke really has to do right now is take German classes, which he takes for a few hours each day in Dusseldorf. Though everything is pretty much paid for in life right now, train tickets, apartment, etc etc. Good life and he's not even a citizen yet. This lasts a year until more stringent criteria, so he is just almost ending the honeymoon period. Luke and Laura tell me about their circle of friends, its pretty international and also inclusive of 7 or so Germans. Luke and Laura also apparently both leech off a separated couple.
This is where the story gets interesting. So Laura is Luke's friend from Australia. Luke apparently is dating/used to date Catherine who was married to Ian. Laura is dating Ian. Innocent and everyone is friends
Both Ian and Catherine work for vodafone. Ian is french canadian.. or canadian. Catherine is british, been in Germany for last 9 years, has an amazing apartment with a projector and 70s amp with vintage speakers. Luke and Catherine watch curb and arrested development
They tell me that Ian and Laura both are quiet. Sometimes Ian just says “I like how we don't have to talk around each other.”
We go to Luke's aunts house to pick up bedding for me. This is an example of how medicine is universal. While I am diving into this field because partly of lack of other viable options, I do like certain aspects of it. Luke's Aunt does not know any English so they talk amongst themselves and Luke serves as a translator for me when we communicate. So apparently Luke's Aunt has a brain tumor, 2.9cm large and underwent a gamma knife procedure. She hasn't told anyone else in the family.
Luke describes his aunt: Shes not rigid, but has a nice dark side. Drives 70 in a 30, buys beer for Sgt she knows and 2 higher ups to get out of a ticket. My kind of gal.
Luke and I get to his apartment. It's pretty nice but apparently when people move out of places in Germany, they take EVERYTHING. Stove, cabinets, you name it. That's why they give you “move in and furnishing money”. Makes sense.
We return some bottles to the store, buy groceries. I propose to make chili and I want German good so he gets fixings for a simple one. We invite Laura and Catherine to come over for dinner. They are coming at like 8:30ish, so we have time to relax.
We sit out on the patio and talk and relax to music. I love that Luke is a huge music buff because this is probably one of my favorite experiences, just sitting outside talking and listening to music with our like 13 cent beers from the grocery store.
Words of Luke:
There's a crazy shirtless guy that just hangs out his window across the field of view from us. Only time he moves fast is when there is the sausage bell. There are 3 Bells – sausage, milk, take shit away, and flowers.
Altstadt – World Longest Bar... incorrect translation its really just a street of bars. (Only Americans come here thinking they are going to see the longest bar) I'm going to stay playing ignorant American and say I've been to the world's longest bar though.
We make dinner. Laura and Catherine come over to join us. I make chili with fresh chili peppers, sausage and the ground meat that is half beef half pork. Chili turns out delicious with grated cheese and sour cream. Luke makes a German dish with potatoes sausage and onions and basil. Very simple but tasty.
Doonie – blanket thing
Luke goes to class and I sleep in, I planned on a run, but didn't do shit obviously and chilled to some music.
Germany loves their dogs.. trained so well. Luke telling me a story of a 3yr old that was trained so well normally they are so energetic.. you could put this dog on a square of carpet and
I'm luke's first couch surfer in his new place. Yay!
Luke.. when u come home late craving something.. you want meat .. had some vegmite with toast and butter.. pretty good. Vegemite was what nate dog and the aussies were talking about too. Its like the sludge left over after the yeast extraction process or something.
Sia Furler.. girl vocalist in distractions zero 7..[READ: BEAUTIFUL VOICE] shes Australian moved to Britain when she was 22 or so.
Catherine, I rather take him, he might have to be the prize. We talk about threesomes for a bit. Gets dirty before it gets cleaner.
Lukes girl catherine.. we are staying with her tonight in dusseldorf.
Meetup Central still... A'dam
I wake up lazy and don't leave the GuestHouse till like 2pm.
I meet up with Amy, wow she's gone from a city to hang out with me, more than David or Matt recently. I've lived with Matt and Dave and Amy I've known, but not been through that much with like Matt and Dave. We have coffee and some food by the guesthouse. Share stories and talk for a while. I show her pictures so far of our trip and just have some good relaxing conversation. I drop her off at the train station and David Dutch calls me later to meet up.
I head back, change, and head into the city to meet up with David and Shyam.
We catch up over food and drinks and learn more about Dutch culture from the Dutch himself. Its good relaxing times.
We kind of join a pub crawl and have fun with that.
At some point in the night we go to a coffee shop and Shyam so smoothly goes up to a table of girls and says “can we join you guys? “ we sit down and talk to these girls who are from tel aviv. They were just about to leave but we end up keeping them there for another 15 minutes.
Next morning when I wake up:
Shiva: we met girls from tel aviv last night
Naren: the tv show?
shiva: STUPIDEST SMART PERSON, totally an aman comment
Highlights:
shyam goose stepping.. British girls we were talking to.. we have to go now
Tembe (British girl) , her friends giving me the L, and I don't care and continue dancing with her
Irish guy comes up to me and is like why are you dancing with my girlfriend? And grabs her and starts dancing with her. I call bluff and start dancing with the guy: I start thrusting my crotch into his ass so thoroughly hard and forceful that I am going to get imprints of penguins on my skin from my boxers. Irish guy gets overpowered, and I continue dancing with Tembe, but her friends drag her away. I love how I've been grinding with the Irish guy moreso than the girls.
Australian girl who's dad sends her pictures of penguins all the time
I'm at a club at the end of the night and sit down at a circular booth with a bunch of people talk to them for a bit then excuse myself to go hang out downstairs.
Girl next to me: Hey I want you to stay with me, sit here.
Shiva: “why, you i'm not letting u use me to keep that creepy guy away”
Girl: That’s my boyfriend.
Also random dream
dream: sreenath me kalyani and in river. dog shaped birds egg ,sreenath dumps baby bird in river and I try to save it yet cant
Party on the 8th floor. Penguin in Pajamas once again.
There's a party on the 8th floor that Jana tells me about, its kind of a going away party for everyone that are leaving in the next few days.
This party is super fun because I am drinking out of a wine bottle this penguin point wine I bought. I don't really want to drink because I am detoxing, but its hard to pawn off wine when you are in pajamas and are drinking right out of the bottle. Nevertheless I successfully pawn off the wine. I'd love to keep the bottle, but when you live out of a small carryon, its quite tough.
I see Jana out on the balcony, and yell PRINCESSSSSSSSS. She hates when I call her that, but she starts to walk over. This guy taps me and I look over to the right of me. I just see chest.. look up and there is a HUGE probably 6'5'' guy standing right next to me. Jana is taller than me at like 6'1'' or 6'2'', but this guy dwarfs her. In a loud booming voice, he is like Hi I'm Mike, Jana's boyfriend. Do you two know each other?
Shiva: Uhhh... no I've never seen you before? Are you new here? Because I've lived here for years and haven't seen you.
Unless the construction hat is coming with the SWAT team, I think I will refrain tonight from moving further.
I try some slavic alcohol from Jana and continue on talking to all my other friends that I haven't seen in weeks. Quentin and the rest of the French crew is there, the other side, read French Quarter of the 8th floor is off to the side, there's some drama because no one really asked if they could have the party on the balcony. Not my business, I'm just the guy in pajamas looking for a good time, Ladies. Wow that does sound really creepy.
Meet some other Czech girl Lenka and chill with her for a while.
It's time.
Naren and Vinay say their goodbyes to everyone, and I tell everyone I will say bye tomorrow because I have another night still. Mike, Jana's boyfriend is actually a very nice guy it seems. He gives me a proper warm handshake and tells me it was nice meeting me in a genuine way.
Eugenio, who is very good people by the way, and I help Naren and Vinay with their bags to go to the airport. We wait I think almost an hour for the night bus. When the night bus comes, the driver says the bus is dirty and can't take us. Odd because it doesn't look that dirty, and doesn't make sense because there are people on the bus. Anyways Vinay is freaking out like usual and they hypothetically plan times and shit and wonder to wait for the next bus. They plan out times for the train, cab to the stop they have to go to for the airport bus, and costs and shit. I say they should just get the next cab because it is like 3am and cabs aren't even seen that frequently, let alone these mysterious night buses. I only say this once because I'm of course, always too apathetic to argue all the time. But IMO for the sake of convenience for everyone (including us two that are waiting, Shiva missing out on a party, and Eugenio on sleep), it's worth it to pay the few extra Euros for the cab. These kids aren't paupers either, I'm the one from a state employee mom and captain irony unemployed father. Eugenio and I are tired but we wait because we are good friends, but these kids are freaking out and indecisive. After over two hours, they grab a cab to go to the next station where they can get an airport bus. Say our goodbyes, and head back to the Guesthouse. I go to check if there is any party going on, but at like 530am, there are only ghosts and flying things around. Bah.
James bond solo missions:
Pretty worthless today, in pajamas till about 9, shower and change out of pajamas for the first time in three days. Decide its an old trick if I got to parties in pajamas again. Head over to this guy roman's party which is in a decent dorm compared to the guesthouse. Good amount of new people there.
People leave as they are going into the city to go to Paradiso. Head over to the cafe with marvin and Leslie is there. She apparently is reading A Song of Fire and Ice, so we talk about fantasy books for a while. Leslie is from Canada, so automatically she is from TORONOOOO.. and she lives in an igloo. She is from Nova Scotia and lives in a salmon. Josh the Canadian is there with his friend, they are going to sardenia.. woot. Girl from madrid, she is going back july 16, cool!
Say bye to everyone that's outside at the guesthouse party. evee tells me not to drink too much in dusseldorf.
Talk to kamal on google video. Kamal Patel has told me to be careful. What is this world coming to?
I meet up with Amy, wow she's gone from a city to hang out with me, more than David or Matt recently. I've lived with Matt and Dave and Amy I've known, but not been through that much with like Matt and Dave. We have coffee and some food by the guesthouse. Share stories and talk for a while. I show her pictures so far of our trip and just have some good relaxing conversation. I drop her off at the train station and David Dutch calls me later to meet up.
I head back, change, and head into the city to meet up with David and Shyam.
We catch up over food and drinks and learn more about Dutch culture from the Dutch himself. Its good relaxing times.
We kind of join a pub crawl and have fun with that.
At some point in the night we go to a coffee shop and Shyam so smoothly goes up to a table of girls and says “can we join you guys? “ we sit down and talk to these girls who are from tel aviv. They were just about to leave but we end up keeping them there for another 15 minutes.
Next morning when I wake up:
Shiva: we met girls from tel aviv last night
Naren: the tv show?
shiva: STUPIDEST SMART PERSON, totally an aman comment
Highlights:
shyam goose stepping.. British girls we were talking to.. we have to go now
Tembe (British girl) , her friends giving me the L, and I don't care and continue dancing with her
Irish guy comes up to me and is like why are you dancing with my girlfriend? And grabs her and starts dancing with her. I call bluff and start dancing with the guy: I start thrusting my crotch into his ass so thoroughly hard and forceful that I am going to get imprints of penguins on my skin from my boxers. Irish guy gets overpowered, and I continue dancing with Tembe, but her friends drag her away. I love how I've been grinding with the Irish guy moreso than the girls.
Australian girl who's dad sends her pictures of penguins all the time
I'm at a club at the end of the night and sit down at a circular booth with a bunch of people talk to them for a bit then excuse myself to go hang out downstairs.
Girl next to me: Hey I want you to stay with me, sit here.
Shiva: “why, you i'm not letting u use me to keep that creepy guy away”
Girl: That’s my boyfriend.
Also random dream
dream: sreenath me kalyani and in river. dog shaped birds egg ,sreenath dumps baby bird in river and I try to save it yet cant
Party on the 8th floor. Penguin in Pajamas once again.
There's a party on the 8th floor that Jana tells me about, its kind of a going away party for everyone that are leaving in the next few days.
This party is super fun because I am drinking out of a wine bottle this penguin point wine I bought. I don't really want to drink because I am detoxing, but its hard to pawn off wine when you are in pajamas and are drinking right out of the bottle. Nevertheless I successfully pawn off the wine. I'd love to keep the bottle, but when you live out of a small carryon, its quite tough.
I see Jana out on the balcony, and yell PRINCESSSSSSSSS. She hates when I call her that, but she starts to walk over. This guy taps me and I look over to the right of me. I just see chest.. look up and there is a HUGE probably 6'5'' guy standing right next to me. Jana is taller than me at like 6'1'' or 6'2'', but this guy dwarfs her. In a loud booming voice, he is like Hi I'm Mike, Jana's boyfriend. Do you two know each other?
Shiva: Uhhh... no I've never seen you before? Are you new here? Because I've lived here for years and haven't seen you.
Unless the construction hat is coming with the SWAT team, I think I will refrain tonight from moving further.
I try some slavic alcohol from Jana and continue on talking to all my other friends that I haven't seen in weeks. Quentin and the rest of the French crew is there, the other side, read French Quarter of the 8th floor is off to the side, there's some drama because no one really asked if they could have the party on the balcony. Not my business, I'm just the guy in pajamas looking for a good time, Ladies. Wow that does sound really creepy.
Meet some other Czech girl Lenka and chill with her for a while.
It's time.
Naren and Vinay say their goodbyes to everyone, and I tell everyone I will say bye tomorrow because I have another night still. Mike, Jana's boyfriend is actually a very nice guy it seems. He gives me a proper warm handshake and tells me it was nice meeting me in a genuine way.
Eugenio, who is very good people by the way, and I help Naren and Vinay with their bags to go to the airport. We wait I think almost an hour for the night bus. When the night bus comes, the driver says the bus is dirty and can't take us. Odd because it doesn't look that dirty, and doesn't make sense because there are people on the bus. Anyways Vinay is freaking out like usual and they hypothetically plan times and shit and wonder to wait for the next bus. They plan out times for the train, cab to the stop they have to go to for the airport bus, and costs and shit. I say they should just get the next cab because it is like 3am and cabs aren't even seen that frequently, let alone these mysterious night buses. I only say this once because I'm of course, always too apathetic to argue all the time. But IMO for the sake of convenience for everyone (including us two that are waiting, Shiva missing out on a party, and Eugenio on sleep), it's worth it to pay the few extra Euros for the cab. These kids aren't paupers either, I'm the one from a state employee mom and captain irony unemployed father. Eugenio and I are tired but we wait because we are good friends, but these kids are freaking out and indecisive. After over two hours, they grab a cab to go to the next station where they can get an airport bus. Say our goodbyes, and head back to the Guesthouse. I go to check if there is any party going on, but at like 530am, there are only ghosts and flying things around. Bah.
James bond solo missions:
Pretty worthless today, in pajamas till about 9, shower and change out of pajamas for the first time in three days. Decide its an old trick if I got to parties in pajamas again. Head over to this guy roman's party which is in a decent dorm compared to the guesthouse. Good amount of new people there.
People leave as they are going into the city to go to Paradiso. Head over to the cafe with marvin and Leslie is there. She apparently is reading A Song of Fire and Ice, so we talk about fantasy books for a while. Leslie is from Canada, so automatically she is from TORONOOOO.. and she lives in an igloo. She is from Nova Scotia and lives in a salmon. Josh the Canadian is there with his friend, they are going to sardenia.. woot. Girl from madrid, she is going back july 16, cool!
Say bye to everyone that's outside at the guesthouse party. evee tells me not to drink too much in dusseldorf.
Talk to kamal on google video. Kamal Patel has told me to be careful. What is this world coming to?
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