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?
Sunday, August 2, 2009
August 2nd.. current post for once!
The rest of the posts I'm still about a month behind, but I'm just chilling in Karenina's apartment bored right now so I'll do a quick update.
Flight out tonight, meeting Jonathan, Rishi and his bro in ibiza tonight for some hardcore partying.
Last night went out to the Barcelona Fountains show, (naren you would be proud) made some australian friends on the metro and watched the fountains with them. They are an interesting group, one girl is spanish from galicia but her english is australian english which is hilarious. She let me humor her with my amigo amarillo and my attempts to solely converse with her in Spanish. There's a french girl in the group and she is shy, just like all french girls it seems. One of the guys is named Natcho, which is pretty sweet, NATCHO CHEESE GANGSTA.
Anywhoo was at the fountains till like midnight, went out to chupitos chupitos for a bit and then the bar by Sunset. Both instances, shitton of french people. On the most part, they have been annoying to talk to. Content with a amazing show at the fountains, head home early and mentally prepare for ibiza with rishi.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Back Home in A'dam
Back Home in Amsterdam
While I have to see obviously all the people back at the Guesthouse. Amsterdam seems to be meetup central. Amy happens to be in Utretch, which is a town close by, and everyone is hopping in and out these next few days. Friday night belongs to Ketan and debauchery. Other than I have to see Jao, Hersch (with Dennis and Ryan), Amy, David, and Shyam.
Through Ketan being a douche hat and stupid, we end up not meeting up with him till the evening. Meanwhile, Elif, Martin, Naren and I hit up a bar close by and grab a few brews. We meet Ketan finally with his MBA buddies for their cocktail hours at their Concierge lounge. We are like kids at a candy store. I am taking out 4-5 beers at a time and opening them all faster than any of us can finish them. Elif takes a bottle of wine, and the guys also present her with another one because she isn't drinking beer. The cute girl working is just smiles and fills up the booze fridge over and over like a champ. Ketan and I go up to their hotel room to grab his backpack to get some booty back to the room.
Hindisght comment: other than mine, this is the only booty that is going to go to that hotel room.
We get about 50-60 beers in total methinks. Before we leave, there are like 6 wounded soldiers so Shiva chugs like hes never chugged before. Way too much beer . Stupidity clouds the rest of the night. Ask us about it. But Ketan and I end up passing out, eating amazing Dutch Apple Pie when Naren comes back from taking the rest of the MBA kids to the Red Light District, and then epic failing at getting Ketan to leave and futile attempts lead me passed out in bed with Ketan, something I only want to do as infrequently as possible in this life.
I wake up with a cut on my jeans and white stains near my crotch. Ketan says its wax. Ketan, you are my anti-drug.
–
Next up to meet, Hersch, Dennis, and Ryan. We meet up with these cats at their hotel, the heart of Amsterdam which is conveniently located right on the canal of the Red Light District. We play some My Team Your Team and try to find some fun bars to go to. We are in expensive area and need to get to some sort of party. We head over to Co Co's where I've been before to watch the UFA championship game. There seems to be locals as well as a pub crawl there. These guys just want to sit outside and chill with a beer, but I want to be social a bit. I have a lot of energy so I go into the bar, start talking to people and dancing around a bit. The guys are like we are going to be outside, I go outside for a bit and see a cute blonde girl. Start talking to her and she is catching some train with her friend. British Elisa is really interesting; she is British but has been living in Amsterdam for the past year or so and does Parkinson's research. Oh that was a fun summer of rat surgery for me. Talk to her for a bit, I have a Dutch cell phone so I get her number and start looking for the boys. Walk around and call Naren and he says there at a table right outside, see them, they were 8 feet from where I was talking to the girl. Uh, you could have just told me? Naren: Oh we were all just watching you. Hah, glad I'm your guys new TV show.
The pub crawl is leaving, but there are still a good amount of people in the bar, and I want to stay a bit, so I tell them to give me half an hour and I'll come back and walk around with them. I am around the bar and talk to a French guy who knows DC and Dupont Circle well. Cafe Citron was his favorite place. I can only say I've strutted around like a ninja there in ninja get up. Hersch is at the bar getting a beer and there are a couple Dutch girls there. I ask them which one of us they would pick to be their doctor. I think Hersch gets a vote and I think I get a vote, or probably not because one of them said I look like I just would tell jokes with a penguin shirt on. My dream actually. I take Lucy to dance a little aways and am just playing around doing my American dance. I am dancing with my back on her back and Hersch seems like he needs a little help so I throw in a stupid comment. Hersch says nice meeting you and goes to leave. “NO, stick around come dance.” Hersch: “I'm fine”. Dance around with both of the girls for a bit and go outside to grab Hersch. Don't leave when I tell you not to buddy. Go back in and there's a super cute girl a purple dress just standing at the bar by herself. Her name is Linda, she's Dutch, xxx, looks like she is having too much fun just standing there. Chat a bit and bust on her for being a lamppost. Come dance, no? Okay, I go dance on a table with a couple girls in a bachelorette party I met earlier in the night. The guys want to leave so I tell them 5 more minutes. Go and grab Lucy and get her phone number and get the Lamppost Linda's phone number as well.
Forget where this came in, I think during dinner, but the guys tell us about this guy Constantine and their amazing time on the Spanish Steps in Rome. I am making meeting Constantine my to do list for Rome.
A guy comes out and asks us if we have any gum or mints. Sorry bro. He just threw up in the bathroom, but its onnnnnnnnnn with the girl. Hey, just give her a peck and don't let her get anymore. That'll work, trust me. Cheers.
I'm having fun here but I'm going to hang out with the boys. We go walk around the rest of the Red Light District and play some My Team, Your Team. Only eventful thing is when there is a prostitute dancing to music in a window. I am about 30 ft away and start dancing facing towards my friends and back to the prostitute. She says in some Russian accent “GO home and HAND JOB”. She believes I was mocking her. Rather hilarious.
Priya quote: If Kamal brought those girls, they would have charged us a 100. (instead of 20)
Me + Ketan > Priya + Kamal. Any day. Even when me and Ketan just cuddle for the night. Don't ever say you will have more fun than us.
Not a great day, my eye is throbbing and is constantly watering, I feel kinda ill. I think I slept on my eye or something. I also find out my great grandmother passed away. We kind of knew the time was coming up and she went peacefully. Another note, I've thought a lot about my grandfather (Thata, my mom's dad who passed away when I was fairly young) this trip. Probably out of the males in my family, one of the only good role models. This trip, I've found myself a good deal, all the while losing myself more and more.
While I usually do my own thing and don't care about what people think of me, it seems people think positive rather than negative about me. I guess I like this. [Random thing that made my day: the cute backpacker tourist responsible girls from our Hostel in Prague that were just amazing people and really nice sent me a facebook message:
Hey!
Hope all is well...it is so funny that you friended me because we were just talking about you and how we thought you were great! hope the rest of your trip goes well :)
Little pick me up this day.
If you were to talk to any of the people that knew my grandfather, they were in love with the man. He's left his mark on the world in the people he's touched and in such a positive light it seems. I bet he exemplified my definition of brotherhood better than me or anyone I know. “A Brother is someone who does the right thing even when he knows no one is watching.” A lot of the time when I need to make decisions or decide how to act, especially this trip, I've thought, what would Rajarao Thata do? While some of my rebellious and debaucheous side seems to take over because some things make for a good story or laugh, most of my human interactions, I've been thinking of my grandfather's would be actions.
Okay back to life. I go to the city with Naren and Vinay, we meet up with Hersch & Co. They don't really want to do anything and just sit around a coffee shop. I'm not really up for this, so I take a tram home and go to bed early.
While I have to see obviously all the people back at the Guesthouse. Amsterdam seems to be meetup central. Amy happens to be in Utretch, which is a town close by, and everyone is hopping in and out these next few days. Friday night belongs to Ketan and debauchery. Other than I have to see Jao, Hersch (with Dennis and Ryan), Amy, David, and Shyam.
Through Ketan being a douche hat and stupid, we end up not meeting up with him till the evening. Meanwhile, Elif, Martin, Naren and I hit up a bar close by and grab a few brews. We meet Ketan finally with his MBA buddies for their cocktail hours at their Concierge lounge. We are like kids at a candy store. I am taking out 4-5 beers at a time and opening them all faster than any of us can finish them. Elif takes a bottle of wine, and the guys also present her with another one because she isn't drinking beer. The cute girl working is just smiles and fills up the booze fridge over and over like a champ. Ketan and I go up to their hotel room to grab his backpack to get some booty back to the room.
Hindisght comment: other than mine, this is the only booty that is going to go to that hotel room.
We get about 50-60 beers in total methinks. Before we leave, there are like 6 wounded soldiers so Shiva chugs like hes never chugged before. Way too much beer . Stupidity clouds the rest of the night. Ask us about it. But Ketan and I end up passing out, eating amazing Dutch Apple Pie when Naren comes back from taking the rest of the MBA kids to the Red Light District, and then epic failing at getting Ketan to leave and futile attempts lead me passed out in bed with Ketan, something I only want to do as infrequently as possible in this life.
I wake up with a cut on my jeans and white stains near my crotch. Ketan says its wax. Ketan, you are my anti-drug.
–
Next up to meet, Hersch, Dennis, and Ryan. We meet up with these cats at their hotel, the heart of Amsterdam which is conveniently located right on the canal of the Red Light District. We play some My Team Your Team and try to find some fun bars to go to. We are in expensive area and need to get to some sort of party. We head over to Co Co's where I've been before to watch the UFA championship game. There seems to be locals as well as a pub crawl there. These guys just want to sit outside and chill with a beer, but I want to be social a bit. I have a lot of energy so I go into the bar, start talking to people and dancing around a bit. The guys are like we are going to be outside, I go outside for a bit and see a cute blonde girl. Start talking to her and she is catching some train with her friend. British Elisa is really interesting; she is British but has been living in Amsterdam for the past year or so and does Parkinson's research. Oh that was a fun summer of rat surgery for me. Talk to her for a bit, I have a Dutch cell phone so I get her number and start looking for the boys. Walk around and call Naren and he says there at a table right outside, see them, they were 8 feet from where I was talking to the girl. Uh, you could have just told me? Naren: Oh we were all just watching you. Hah, glad I'm your guys new TV show.
The pub crawl is leaving, but there are still a good amount of people in the bar, and I want to stay a bit, so I tell them to give me half an hour and I'll come back and walk around with them. I am around the bar and talk to a French guy who knows DC and Dupont Circle well. Cafe Citron was his favorite place. I can only say I've strutted around like a ninja there in ninja get up. Hersch is at the bar getting a beer and there are a couple Dutch girls there. I ask them which one of us they would pick to be their doctor. I think Hersch gets a vote and I think I get a vote, or probably not because one of them said I look like I just would tell jokes with a penguin shirt on. My dream actually. I take Lucy to dance a little aways and am just playing around doing my American dance. I am dancing with my back on her back and Hersch seems like he needs a little help so I throw in a stupid comment. Hersch says nice meeting you and goes to leave. “NO, stick around come dance.” Hersch: “I'm fine”. Dance around with both of the girls for a bit and go outside to grab Hersch. Don't leave when I tell you not to buddy. Go back in and there's a super cute girl a purple dress just standing at the bar by herself. Her name is Linda, she's Dutch, xxx, looks like she is having too much fun just standing there. Chat a bit and bust on her for being a lamppost. Come dance, no? Okay, I go dance on a table with a couple girls in a bachelorette party I met earlier in the night. The guys want to leave so I tell them 5 more minutes. Go and grab Lucy and get her phone number and get the Lamppost Linda's phone number as well.
Forget where this came in, I think during dinner, but the guys tell us about this guy Constantine and their amazing time on the Spanish Steps in Rome. I am making meeting Constantine my to do list for Rome.
A guy comes out and asks us if we have any gum or mints. Sorry bro. He just threw up in the bathroom, but its onnnnnnnnnn with the girl. Hey, just give her a peck and don't let her get anymore. That'll work, trust me. Cheers.
I'm having fun here but I'm going to hang out with the boys. We go walk around the rest of the Red Light District and play some My Team, Your Team. Only eventful thing is when there is a prostitute dancing to music in a window. I am about 30 ft away and start dancing facing towards my friends and back to the prostitute. She says in some Russian accent “GO home and HAND JOB”. She believes I was mocking her. Rather hilarious.
Priya quote: If Kamal brought those girls, they would have charged us a 100. (instead of 20)
Me + Ketan > Priya + Kamal. Any day. Even when me and Ketan just cuddle for the night. Don't ever say you will have more fun than us.
Not a great day, my eye is throbbing and is constantly watering, I feel kinda ill. I think I slept on my eye or something. I also find out my great grandmother passed away. We kind of knew the time was coming up and she went peacefully. Another note, I've thought a lot about my grandfather (Thata, my mom's dad who passed away when I was fairly young) this trip. Probably out of the males in my family, one of the only good role models. This trip, I've found myself a good deal, all the while losing myself more and more.
While I usually do my own thing and don't care about what people think of me, it seems people think positive rather than negative about me. I guess I like this. [Random thing that made my day: the cute backpacker tourist responsible girls from our Hostel in Prague that were just amazing people and really nice sent me a facebook message:
Hey!
Hope all is well...it is so funny that you friended me because we were just talking about you and how we thought you were great! hope the rest of your trip goes well :)
Little pick me up this day.
If you were to talk to any of the people that knew my grandfather, they were in love with the man. He's left his mark on the world in the people he's touched and in such a positive light it seems. I bet he exemplified my definition of brotherhood better than me or anyone I know. “A Brother is someone who does the right thing even when he knows no one is watching.” A lot of the time when I need to make decisions or decide how to act, especially this trip, I've thought, what would Rajarao Thata do? While some of my rebellious and debaucheous side seems to take over because some things make for a good story or laugh, most of my human interactions, I've been thinking of my grandfather's would be actions.
Okay back to life. I go to the city with Naren and Vinay, we meet up with Hersch & Co. They don't really want to do anything and just sit around a coffee shop. I'm not really up for this, so I take a tram home and go to bed early.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Continuining the Blur of Beer in Prague
Writing this chilling to Cajun Dance Party, Four Tet, Hot Chip, and The Maccabees. I got my laptop out and started with some Incubus and Oasis and ask the British guys for requests for the morning soundtrack. One of the guys has an Ipod speaker circular speaker contraption so we start jamming to that. Looks like in addition to the two British girls I got to come out last night, we have a few more girls and a couple more British guys from south London. It seems we have all the girls in Prague in our very own room. At least the only few in the Hostel.
Today’s day of touristing is not too bad, we go to the Prague castle and see some triple X sites. Naren knows how to tickle my fancy by saying “It’s in XXX” and I’m like ohhhhhhh kay I’ll come see it. Only highlights are that we see French couple and talk to them for a bit and there is commie chanting of some protest going on. After a day of touristing which is tiring but not too bad start drinking beer, quickly.
We are at the Bohemian Bagel Pub Crawl, the one that our HostelOne is a part of. Rod from our hostel is here and this girl Ashley from Louisiana is working the pub crawl as well. I ask her what my goals of the night is. She doesn't think I can do 10 beers in an hour. Sillyness. Talk to some Aussie girl while in line for beer and what's new, talk about penguins. Go over to the Maryland guys table and play fuck the dealer. I am getting my brews in. And by brews in, I mean there are going down like a dump truck emptying Belgian waffle material on your mother's chest. We go through amazing luck and I end up guessing the exact number like 8 out of 10 times. Nevertheless I still want to drink so this game is not stopping me. We go over to get beers when its close to the end of the hour and we basically chug, refill, chug. Nick is a good sport about this and is keeping up with me and is my American drinking irresponsible buddy. I end up sitting at a table of girls and get them playing Never Have I Ever, then stealing their pitcher, filling up my bros, then drinking the rest of the pitcher straight up.
While I would like to write pages and pages about the rest of the night, I do not remember much at all. We went to a few more clubs/bars, but I am still at a loss of what happened in a series of the next few hours.
Naren leaves at some point.
This might have been the night I had a half an hour conversation with a Czech girl about life that I don't remember.
We have to take a bus to Mecca, so Ashley drags me onto the last bus that leaves. I am incoherent.
I tried to run up into the VIP section of Mecca, 7th time's a charm. Czech girl upstairs knows English, but there are also Mafia looking huge Czech guys that are giving me the most evil stare.
Take Dillan and the SF boys to the last club somehow, and Jeff is there! Irish girl there Kira knows my name somehow.
I eat the most amazing fried breaded cheese sandwich I've ever had. The next day I could not stop talking about this cheese sandwich, probably one of the best things I've eaten this trip. I can only dream about eating it again.
Next day I am completely dead, so I spend a good probably 10 hours on the couch in the TV room, amazing times. I end up watching Indiana Jones with the British Wales guys. Naren and Vinay do touristy things obviously. I schedule an airport shuttle at 4:30am to pick us up.
There are a couple girls and a guy going out to Le Chateau Rouge so I go with them. I lose them in about 5 minutes somehow and end up talking to this Aussie guy who I guess WAS talking to this American girl. I feel kind of bad for the girl because we are talking and he is ignoring her so I throw a few bones of the conversation in with her. I acquire a glow ring somehow and have it on my neck. A few minutes later she offers to buy me a drink, “Sorry, I'm doing squirrel surgery in the morning.” So this girl passes by and Aussie guy puts his finger up under his nose like a mustache and he has a little mustache thing drawn on his finger. The adorable blonde British girl does too. Cute. Reminds me of People to People. So this motion is also the sign language for Dirty Sanchez. I tell the British girl what she is doing and what happened last summer. She thinks its hilarious for her, but stupid for the Aussie guy because has the mustache TATTOOED to his finger. A joke taken way too far? I know nothing of the sort. This British girl is being taken over to the dance floor by this guy so she's like I will see you later.
Stick around and talk to Aussie guy and American girl and say good bye after a few. Go downstairs and run into some guys from my Hostel that I met earlier today. They want to get me a beer but I can't drink! It's hard enough as it is for me to get on planes. Yell at girls across the bar downstairs and it turns out they are from our Hostel too. Go upstairs with them and dance around like a jackass as usual. British girl is sitting down on the side and I go over and talk to her for a bit. Let's dance. She says she owes me a dance and she'll make do on it in a little bit. All's fine, go and play the limbo game another group is doing and dance with them for a while. Mosy around and go back and the British girl is dancing with her guy that she was with earlier. I grab her and spin her and we start dancing for a bit. Her name is Molly (emulate British accent) and she's amazingly nice. Molly's friend comes over and asks what the hell she is doing and they go into girl talk for a bit but she is adamant that she is fine. Molly's friend seems like a hoebag and is dancing with some other white guy and his two friends are vulturing around. Molly's friend tells her to dance with the white guys but she's like No, I'm fine here. Even her guy friend from earlier is like come back but she says she is fine. Wow, sketchy bearded Indian man is trusted for once. We dance for a bit more and the other white guys try to coax her over but to no avail. Fun stuff. I check my phone and it's getting late, I should go back. I tell her I have to go, she says she is going to the bathroom and she'll be right back don't leave. Sorry hun, I have a flight to catch. Tell her I'll walk her to the bathroom. Walk over there talk for a bit and she says she will walk me upstairs to the door. Aw how sweet, can you drive me to the airport too? That doesn't fly. Talk for a bit more and hug xxx goodbye (3 kisses because I'm Dutch) and take a stroll for a direction I think is home. End up walking by the huge casino. The guards at the front are super nice and hilarious and I go up to the casino which is empty and the two girls working don't know English. They have a bowl of bananas so I take a banana to Naren for breakfast since Yo soy alergico. I end up running part of the way back home and catching a tram. Go back to the Hostel give Naren the banana. End up seeing the people I left with 10 minutes later. Yeah we kinda lost you, we only saw you hugging some cute blonde girl before you left. These people were from Seattle and I had something interesting to say about Seattle, but I guess I don't. I go over to a bar down the street where the British Wales guy is and hang out with them for a hot minute. One of them has a piece of a violin, and this bar is cool because they have a computer connected to their sound system and you can just play whatever you want, AND ITS OLDSKOOL WINAMP! Say bye to everyone, grab money out of the ATM then prepare for the airport. With my leftover Czech money I buy a smorgasbord of things out of the vending machines for Naren and I's breakfast. Complete with coffee, biscuits, bread with chocolate, good stuff. These guys had a horrible night since they just hung out in the Hostel all night, but I had fun on account that I went out so it wasn't like a bad wait.
I am wearing my glow ring, blazer, and either pants or shorts. I look like an idiot as usual. When we get on the plane there are some people from Texas in the seats next to us. I play the Choose your Doctor game. One of the guys picks Naren, and the other guy and 2 girls pick Vinay. I am wearing my glow ring on my neck or my head so the blazer doesn't help me out in this Case. Vinay is estatic because this is the first time he has gotten votes and he's like I jacked all you guys in one vote. Lets replay this for a second. Vinay got votes from one of the guys and 2 chubby girls, and Shiva's sole vote is from the cute girl. I win. Naren plays tour guide and tells them all about Amsterdam and coffee shops. I hope you guys don't see me tonight, it's going to be destructive with me and Ketan.
Today’s day of touristing is not too bad, we go to the Prague castle and see some triple X sites. Naren knows how to tickle my fancy by saying “It’s in XXX” and I’m like ohhhhhhh kay I’ll come see it. Only highlights are that we see French couple and talk to them for a bit and there is commie chanting of some protest going on. After a day of touristing which is tiring but not too bad start drinking beer, quickly.
We are at the Bohemian Bagel Pub Crawl, the one that our HostelOne is a part of. Rod from our hostel is here and this girl Ashley from Louisiana is working the pub crawl as well. I ask her what my goals of the night is. She doesn't think I can do 10 beers in an hour. Sillyness. Talk to some Aussie girl while in line for beer and what's new, talk about penguins. Go over to the Maryland guys table and play fuck the dealer. I am getting my brews in. And by brews in, I mean there are going down like a dump truck emptying Belgian waffle material on your mother's chest. We go through amazing luck and I end up guessing the exact number like 8 out of 10 times. Nevertheless I still want to drink so this game is not stopping me. We go over to get beers when its close to the end of the hour and we basically chug, refill, chug. Nick is a good sport about this and is keeping up with me and is my American drinking irresponsible buddy. I end up sitting at a table of girls and get them playing Never Have I Ever, then stealing their pitcher, filling up my bros, then drinking the rest of the pitcher straight up.
While I would like to write pages and pages about the rest of the night, I do not remember much at all. We went to a few more clubs/bars, but I am still at a loss of what happened in a series of the next few hours.
Naren leaves at some point.
This might have been the night I had a half an hour conversation with a Czech girl about life that I don't remember.
We have to take a bus to Mecca, so Ashley drags me onto the last bus that leaves. I am incoherent.
I tried to run up into the VIP section of Mecca, 7th time's a charm. Czech girl upstairs knows English, but there are also Mafia looking huge Czech guys that are giving me the most evil stare.
Take Dillan and the SF boys to the last club somehow, and Jeff is there! Irish girl there Kira knows my name somehow.
I eat the most amazing fried breaded cheese sandwich I've ever had. The next day I could not stop talking about this cheese sandwich, probably one of the best things I've eaten this trip. I can only dream about eating it again.
Next day I am completely dead, so I spend a good probably 10 hours on the couch in the TV room, amazing times. I end up watching Indiana Jones with the British Wales guys. Naren and Vinay do touristy things obviously. I schedule an airport shuttle at 4:30am to pick us up.
There are a couple girls and a guy going out to Le Chateau Rouge so I go with them. I lose them in about 5 minutes somehow and end up talking to this Aussie guy who I guess WAS talking to this American girl. I feel kind of bad for the girl because we are talking and he is ignoring her so I throw a few bones of the conversation in with her. I acquire a glow ring somehow and have it on my neck. A few minutes later she offers to buy me a drink, “Sorry, I'm doing squirrel surgery in the morning.” So this girl passes by and Aussie guy puts his finger up under his nose like a mustache and he has a little mustache thing drawn on his finger. The adorable blonde British girl does too. Cute. Reminds me of People to People. So this motion is also the sign language for Dirty Sanchez. I tell the British girl what she is doing and what happened last summer. She thinks its hilarious for her, but stupid for the Aussie guy because has the mustache TATTOOED to his finger. A joke taken way too far? I know nothing of the sort. This British girl is being taken over to the dance floor by this guy so she's like I will see you later.
Stick around and talk to Aussie guy and American girl and say good bye after a few. Go downstairs and run into some guys from my Hostel that I met earlier today. They want to get me a beer but I can't drink! It's hard enough as it is for me to get on planes. Yell at girls across the bar downstairs and it turns out they are from our Hostel too. Go upstairs with them and dance around like a jackass as usual. British girl is sitting down on the side and I go over and talk to her for a bit. Let's dance. She says she owes me a dance and she'll make do on it in a little bit. All's fine, go and play the limbo game another group is doing and dance with them for a while. Mosy around and go back and the British girl is dancing with her guy that she was with earlier. I grab her and spin her and we start dancing for a bit. Her name is Molly (emulate British accent) and she's amazingly nice. Molly's friend comes over and asks what the hell she is doing and they go into girl talk for a bit but she is adamant that she is fine. Molly's friend seems like a hoebag and is dancing with some other white guy and his two friends are vulturing around. Molly's friend tells her to dance with the white guys but she's like No, I'm fine here. Even her guy friend from earlier is like come back but she says she is fine. Wow, sketchy bearded Indian man is trusted for once. We dance for a bit more and the other white guys try to coax her over but to no avail. Fun stuff. I check my phone and it's getting late, I should go back. I tell her I have to go, she says she is going to the bathroom and she'll be right back don't leave. Sorry hun, I have a flight to catch. Tell her I'll walk her to the bathroom. Walk over there talk for a bit and she says she will walk me upstairs to the door. Aw how sweet, can you drive me to the airport too? That doesn't fly. Talk for a bit more and hug xxx goodbye (3 kisses because I'm Dutch) and take a stroll for a direction I think is home. End up walking by the huge casino. The guards at the front are super nice and hilarious and I go up to the casino which is empty and the two girls working don't know English. They have a bowl of bananas so I take a banana to Naren for breakfast since Yo soy alergico. I end up running part of the way back home and catching a tram. Go back to the Hostel give Naren the banana. End up seeing the people I left with 10 minutes later. Yeah we kinda lost you, we only saw you hugging some cute blonde girl before you left. These people were from Seattle and I had something interesting to say about Seattle, but I guess I don't. I go over to a bar down the street where the British Wales guy is and hang out with them for a hot minute. One of them has a piece of a violin, and this bar is cool because they have a computer connected to their sound system and you can just play whatever you want, AND ITS OLDSKOOL WINAMP! Say bye to everyone, grab money out of the ATM then prepare for the airport. With my leftover Czech money I buy a smorgasbord of things out of the vending machines for Naren and I's breakfast. Complete with coffee, biscuits, bread with chocolate, good stuff. These guys had a horrible night since they just hung out in the Hostel all night, but I had fun on account that I went out so it wasn't like a bad wait.
I am wearing my glow ring, blazer, and either pants or shorts. I look like an idiot as usual. When we get on the plane there are some people from Texas in the seats next to us. I play the Choose your Doctor game. One of the guys picks Naren, and the other guy and 2 girls pick Vinay. I am wearing my glow ring on my neck or my head so the blazer doesn't help me out in this Case. Vinay is estatic because this is the first time he has gotten votes and he's like I jacked all you guys in one vote. Lets replay this for a second. Vinay got votes from one of the guys and 2 chubby girls, and Shiva's sole vote is from the cute girl. I win. Naren plays tour guide and tells them all about Amsterdam and coffee shops. I hope you guys don't see me tonight, it's going to be destructive with me and Ketan.
calling a girl CS... and this time it doesnt stand for counter-strike
XXX: Indians visit Prague
My method of communication usually when I don't know the language is to do stupid things.
You can thumb war with Czech girls. Slovakian girls do not know thumb war I've found.
Vinay: I woke up feeling like Bruce Wayne when Alfred told him that the bat cave was destroyed. They destroyed everything.
Shiva: Sick of your cough shit.
Vinay: I have to get it out.
Shiva: That’s What She Said.
So the first night in our hostel we hang out with people there, Hostel One. Most of the people are generally chill and its like a big Frat house environment.
We got people from all over representing.
Kev -
Tyler
Kevin – Cali boy
Adam – Cali boy
Rosie – Sacramento, just graduated
Mike – going to Wash U STL Med
Nate – Uchicago, love this kid he is so awesome
Will Park – awesome Asian, down to drink, we take down lots of Jaeger
Plus Liverpool girl and guys
Milo
Wisconsin girls, brenna, tiff, collette
Before we head out, we end up taking shots of Jaeger as a group and Will and I are going dose for dose past our peaks. We think the Jaeger belongs to the Aussie guy who passed out around 8pm on the patio concrete. Don't drink this much during the day when you don't have the stamina.
We all get about 4-5 half liter beers in and head over to the Beer Factory. Mind you the group from Liverpool leaves half an hour before us, and we walk there.
The Beer Factory is a place with tables set up with taps and meters telling you how much you drank. Not to mention it also becomes a challenge between tables because there are places and totals projected on the wall as well.
Americans sit down and we start drinking. Zero to Hero in under 45 minutes. We down 20Liters and absolutely demolish the Liverpool group and any other table in the joint. Prague has a lot of guys. We are a group of like 13 guys and 2 girls. Rosie is the California girl staying in our room and there's one Liverpool girl too. I haven't talked to her until now. I'm sitting in between the tables and make her tell me a funny story as the gate password. I am shitty drunk and she is understandable compared to the other Liverpool guys so I talk to her for a bit. We head out from the bar to the club we are going to for the night, which I will spend 4 glorious nights in out of our 4 total nights in Prague: Le Chateau Rouge.
Anywhoo, on the walk over, the Biggest Liverpool Guy I've Ever Seen comes and takes me aside and walks me up in front of the rest of the group. He is about 6'3'' and 250+ pounds. He basically tells me that that girls boyfriend does not like people touching her. Oh hey, I'm just a friendly guy. Talk to him for a bit and get chummy with him so I don't get my ass kicked.
I forget this warning as soon as we enter the club of course.
Everyone is schwasted, there aren't many people here so we are just dancing around being jackasses in our own regard. I end up dancing with Liverpool girl, spinning her around a bit and having a good time. This happens a few times in the night and Biggest Liverpool Guy I've Ever Seen tries to dance with her to protect her I suppose but this doesn't always work. Liverpool mute it seems boyfriend comes in and elbows me in the stomach slightly to get me out of there. I think it would have been easier to just talk to me. Wtf dude, you have issues. Whatever I'll go have my fun. Try to talk to Czech girls but this language barrier only proves for a game of thumb war. End up talking to other people from HostelOne that came with Rod, the guy who manages the hostel. I got kind of pissed off at him tonight, but generally he proved to be a decent guy.
Say our good byes to the Cali guys because it's their last night. Thanks for being good drinking buddies. Good night. Who's the only one that snores in our like 10 bed room pentouse hostel? Yeah, Vinay again.
Our Hostel One room is on the top floor. So its like a penthouse with kinda sunroofs and a little tree house with two beds up top which there is ladder access to get to. We called it the Love Nest.
Out of the 6 girls in all of the Hostel, we had about 5 of them. In the room the first couple days was of course the me, naren and vinay. We had Rosie who was from Sacramento and traveling alone, and Chicago, chill guy that hung out with us a good amount and random guy that we never met by Vinay's bed. We also had three girls and Milo. Milo came out with us and is down to party and do stupid shit, but the girls, Tiff, Brenna and Collette are sweethearts. They are the type to wake up early and do sightseeing stuff and sleep early, but they are full of cute smiles and very nice. They actually made my day one day I was feeling crappy back in Amsterdam, one of them sent me a facebook message saying we were just thinking about you and how great we all think you were. Def made my day a little brighter, miss you guys.
Next morning, or afternoon rather we get up and get ready for one of these New Europe free walking tours. We all get together as a big group and head over. On the way I meet Jeff, Liz, Robin, and Nick, kids who went to Maryland, and know Chris Perks! Jeff is going to Medical College of Georgia too, woot.
We get to the big square and see Tiff and Brenna, stop stalking us you guys! Most of the other HostelOne group is with another tour guide and we are with a bigger group. I make the executive decision to stay with our tour group because the tour guide has already given me shit for saying I'm from DC and he seems hilarious. All's well, get to hang out with my new Maryland friends and we'll see the other HostelOne people later.
This proves to be a key choice for this day. Our tour guide Isaac is quite the entertainer, with shaggy beard, long hair, and tour guide majestic announcer voice that makes anyone in the kilometer vicinity look at us (yes kilometer, i'm in Europe fools). It's generally a swell time, I don't remember much of the history but the jokes were on point. We toured around the old town, the new town, and my favorite, the jew town. Isaac is constantly making fun of people and blurting out Jew jokes so I am thoroughly entertained. We see this clock tower that has little statues moving at the hour. So naturally as a tourist attraction, there's hundreds of people with cameras out, ready to video and photograph this monumental clock where the little statues on the clock move ever so slightly and its hilarious watching people's faces when they realized they waited for this … epic nothing.
We see some buildings and churches and restaurant where they are eating in XXX. We see a mummified hand in the church which is tiny and pretty cool. While we are outside this church, an old guy tells us to “ A little ehhhhh “ (ask me to do this in person). Basically he wants us to quiet down.
Isaac: We have a larger group though (still in majestic announcer voice)
Old guy: A little ehhhhh.
Isaac: What? Where are you guys from?
Old guy: Belgium
Isaac: (Announcer voice) You guys know what Belgium is known for? Yes, chocolate and pedophilia. And they only invented chocolate to get to the kids.
We burst out laughing and this 60+ year old Belgium tour group is confused out of their minds. Owned. Highlight of my day. Isaac takes us around everywhere and tells us awesome stories and he is a great character of wit and theater.
We get back to our hostel and I tell Nate and Rosie and everyone that I really want to go on the New Europe pub crawl. They agree. Excellent.
No time to shave, ever it seems this trip. Quick shower and food and then we're out. Liverpool group does not come out with us tonight even though I see Liverpool girl and shes still friendly with me and Rosie. Surprise Surprise.
Isaac is running the pub crawl, sweet! First bar is unlimited beer and shots of vodka with fanta and absinthe for an hour. Basically open bar. Shiva obliges. After a few shots, start talking to Naren and... Who do I see? Pink Poncho Twins! Go down to their table and plop down right next to them. They remember me and try to see if they have their pink ponchos on them. No? Sadface. I tell the 2 british pink poncho girls and the other 3 guys at the table we are playing drinking games because I need to drink faster. We start out with Never Have I Ever and I start drinking heavily. Shots of absinthe and vodka/fanta bombard us and few toasts and few rounds here we go. One of the guys does “Never Have I Ever Worn a Penguin Shirt”, awesome, I am wearing the orange one Alain got me, and he has a penguin shirt too at home he said. I will chug the rest of my beer for that.
This girl Lexi comes over and starts talking to me: “I hear you are a comedian”. “I'm sorry hun, I think you got that confused with Rapist”. She loves Indian food apparently and Russel Peters. Shes a Canadian. From ToronTo. >>No you said it wrong, I'm from TORONO, jeez. The Pink Poncho twins, are surprisingly cute and have nice teeth, and especially for British people. Their names are Hannah and Sarah, and well this is probably one of the last times I call Sarah, well Sarah. For some reason I start yelling “CUNT SMEGMA” into her ear and she is just giggling. Wow, I'm going to do this more often. Random points in the night I am having a blast just yelling “CUNT SMEGMA” at her.
Before we leave the first bar, the cute French girl that was in our tour group goes and collects all the floater beer and the cups that no one has touched full of beer. We spend the next couple minutes going chug for chug and finishing the rest of the beer in the place. She is like the girl version of Vinay, downing floaters like it's nobody's business. I hate how I'm drinking floaters, definitely not doing this later on. She is super cute and with boyfriend in tow. She keeps telling me how to say her name, but I will never get it right.
I walk with Sandraaap and am talking with her and Naren pulls his best wingmanning ever this trip. I hang back with the girl and am having fun with her while Naren is a good 30 yards ahead, the guy loving him and totally into whatever they are talking about. Good job Naren.
These nights in Prague melt together because we are in the same clubs/bars over and over (M1 and Le Chetau Rouge) and I've consumed more beer in 3 days than I have in 3 weeks of DC. Also I am blackout so I do not remember a good amount of these nights.
We are at M1 which is a slightly smaller club but pretty nice and modern looking. I end up dancing with Lexi for a bit and grab the pink poncho twins later on from a creeper. I go to pee and French girl “Sandraaaap”is coming out of the guys bathroom, wow this girl does not give a shit at all, pretty attractive. At some point in the next hour the Aussie guy from our hostel tells us that there is a bottle of wine at the end of the club and to go drink it.
I tell Jeff we are drinking and take him over and we start taking swigs of the bottle with Naren.
Narens quote of the night as he is talking to “some short guy” as he explains it.
… wait...”Who ARE you?”.
>> The Manager.
Apparently the bottle of wine was stolen and they think we did it and they want us to pay for it. Smooth Aussie guy. Though the Aussie guys pass out at 8pm drinking and steal bottles, they are pretty cool guys; they are helicopter mechanics which is pretty badass. They think its Jeff and Naren. Again, Naren gets into more trouble than I am this trip, what is going on in the world. Jeff and Naren are arguing with the Manager and bartender because they want them to pay for the bottle. Jeff is like check the cameras, no way I reached over the bar and grabbed that bottle.
The pub crawl is leaving and CUNT SMEGMA Sarah grabs me, pulls me out of the bar and is says let's go. I'm outside with her and see Naren and Jeff still in a debacle inside the bar. Give Sarah a hug and kiss and say I'll see her at the next bar. Go in and tell Jeff and Naren we are leaving NOW. Get them outside the bar and Jeff can't go back in so I get his girlfriend Liz and the other two Maryland kids, Robin and Nick out of the bar. Liz is getting pissed off a bit. We go into semi-serious conversations which Shiva doesn't really like.
Liz: See even you care more, he didn't even bring me outside.
>> Listen hun, I got you because Jeff told me to. He cares, let's go have fun.
Liz is like Jeff always gets into this kind of trouble.
>> HEY. don't blame him. It's my fault I brought him over to drink. It's on me.
Obviously I love Liz and all, but girls don't work with logic, so her and Jeff get into a little tiffle on the street. Me and Naren are up ahead waiting, and a police van comes by and tries to question Jeff and take his ID. They don't know English at all really though, and well, we don't know Czech. We try to tell them that we will go talk to the bouncer of the next bar to act as a translator. I make sure Jeff gets his ID back and we run into the next bar and luckily the van drives away after a few seconds.
I think this is the night at Le Chetau Rouge, like any other night at the end of the night I lose EVERYBODY.
Next morning we wake up and Daniel, one of the Aussie guys from last night poofs up out of the love nest, dirty stache and all. Did anyone know he was here? Sillyness. A “You had to be there” experience.
My method of communication usually when I don't know the language is to do stupid things.
You can thumb war with Czech girls. Slovakian girls do not know thumb war I've found.
Vinay: I woke up feeling like Bruce Wayne when Alfred told him that the bat cave was destroyed. They destroyed everything.
Shiva: Sick of your cough shit.
Vinay: I have to get it out.
Shiva: That’s What She Said.
So the first night in our hostel we hang out with people there, Hostel One. Most of the people are generally chill and its like a big Frat house environment.
We got people from all over representing.
Kev -
Tyler
Kevin – Cali boy
Adam – Cali boy
Rosie – Sacramento, just graduated
Mike – going to Wash U STL Med
Nate – Uchicago, love this kid he is so awesome
Will Park – awesome Asian, down to drink, we take down lots of Jaeger
Plus Liverpool girl and guys
Milo
Wisconsin girls, brenna, tiff, collette
Before we head out, we end up taking shots of Jaeger as a group and Will and I are going dose for dose past our peaks. We think the Jaeger belongs to the Aussie guy who passed out around 8pm on the patio concrete. Don't drink this much during the day when you don't have the stamina.
We all get about 4-5 half liter beers in and head over to the Beer Factory. Mind you the group from Liverpool leaves half an hour before us, and we walk there.
The Beer Factory is a place with tables set up with taps and meters telling you how much you drank. Not to mention it also becomes a challenge between tables because there are places and totals projected on the wall as well.
Americans sit down and we start drinking. Zero to Hero in under 45 minutes. We down 20Liters and absolutely demolish the Liverpool group and any other table in the joint. Prague has a lot of guys. We are a group of like 13 guys and 2 girls. Rosie is the California girl staying in our room and there's one Liverpool girl too. I haven't talked to her until now. I'm sitting in between the tables and make her tell me a funny story as the gate password. I am shitty drunk and she is understandable compared to the other Liverpool guys so I talk to her for a bit. We head out from the bar to the club we are going to for the night, which I will spend 4 glorious nights in out of our 4 total nights in Prague: Le Chateau Rouge.
Anywhoo, on the walk over, the Biggest Liverpool Guy I've Ever Seen comes and takes me aside and walks me up in front of the rest of the group. He is about 6'3'' and 250+ pounds. He basically tells me that that girls boyfriend does not like people touching her. Oh hey, I'm just a friendly guy. Talk to him for a bit and get chummy with him so I don't get my ass kicked.
I forget this warning as soon as we enter the club of course.
Everyone is schwasted, there aren't many people here so we are just dancing around being jackasses in our own regard. I end up dancing with Liverpool girl, spinning her around a bit and having a good time. This happens a few times in the night and Biggest Liverpool Guy I've Ever Seen tries to dance with her to protect her I suppose but this doesn't always work. Liverpool mute it seems boyfriend comes in and elbows me in the stomach slightly to get me out of there. I think it would have been easier to just talk to me. Wtf dude, you have issues. Whatever I'll go have my fun. Try to talk to Czech girls but this language barrier only proves for a game of thumb war. End up talking to other people from HostelOne that came with Rod, the guy who manages the hostel. I got kind of pissed off at him tonight, but generally he proved to be a decent guy.
Say our good byes to the Cali guys because it's their last night. Thanks for being good drinking buddies. Good night. Who's the only one that snores in our like 10 bed room pentouse hostel? Yeah, Vinay again.
Our Hostel One room is on the top floor. So its like a penthouse with kinda sunroofs and a little tree house with two beds up top which there is ladder access to get to. We called it the Love Nest.
Out of the 6 girls in all of the Hostel, we had about 5 of them. In the room the first couple days was of course the me, naren and vinay. We had Rosie who was from Sacramento and traveling alone, and Chicago, chill guy that hung out with us a good amount and random guy that we never met by Vinay's bed. We also had three girls and Milo. Milo came out with us and is down to party and do stupid shit, but the girls, Tiff, Brenna and Collette are sweethearts. They are the type to wake up early and do sightseeing stuff and sleep early, but they are full of cute smiles and very nice. They actually made my day one day I was feeling crappy back in Amsterdam, one of them sent me a facebook message saying we were just thinking about you and how great we all think you were. Def made my day a little brighter, miss you guys.
Next morning, or afternoon rather we get up and get ready for one of these New Europe free walking tours. We all get together as a big group and head over. On the way I meet Jeff, Liz, Robin, and Nick, kids who went to Maryland, and know Chris Perks! Jeff is going to Medical College of Georgia too, woot.
We get to the big square and see Tiff and Brenna, stop stalking us you guys! Most of the other HostelOne group is with another tour guide and we are with a bigger group. I make the executive decision to stay with our tour group because the tour guide has already given me shit for saying I'm from DC and he seems hilarious. All's well, get to hang out with my new Maryland friends and we'll see the other HostelOne people later.
This proves to be a key choice for this day. Our tour guide Isaac is quite the entertainer, with shaggy beard, long hair, and tour guide majestic announcer voice that makes anyone in the kilometer vicinity look at us (yes kilometer, i'm in Europe fools). It's generally a swell time, I don't remember much of the history but the jokes were on point. We toured around the old town, the new town, and my favorite, the jew town. Isaac is constantly making fun of people and blurting out Jew jokes so I am thoroughly entertained. We see this clock tower that has little statues moving at the hour. So naturally as a tourist attraction, there's hundreds of people with cameras out, ready to video and photograph this monumental clock where the little statues on the clock move ever so slightly and its hilarious watching people's faces when they realized they waited for this … epic nothing.
We see some buildings and churches and restaurant where they are eating in XXX. We see a mummified hand in the church which is tiny and pretty cool. While we are outside this church, an old guy tells us to “ A little ehhhhh “ (ask me to do this in person). Basically he wants us to quiet down.
Isaac: We have a larger group though (still in majestic announcer voice)
Old guy: A little ehhhhh.
Isaac: What? Where are you guys from?
Old guy: Belgium
Isaac: (Announcer voice) You guys know what Belgium is known for? Yes, chocolate and pedophilia. And they only invented chocolate to get to the kids.
We burst out laughing and this 60+ year old Belgium tour group is confused out of their minds. Owned. Highlight of my day. Isaac takes us around everywhere and tells us awesome stories and he is a great character of wit and theater.
We get back to our hostel and I tell Nate and Rosie and everyone that I really want to go on the New Europe pub crawl. They agree. Excellent.
No time to shave, ever it seems this trip. Quick shower and food and then we're out. Liverpool group does not come out with us tonight even though I see Liverpool girl and shes still friendly with me and Rosie. Surprise Surprise.
Isaac is running the pub crawl, sweet! First bar is unlimited beer and shots of vodka with fanta and absinthe for an hour. Basically open bar. Shiva obliges. After a few shots, start talking to Naren and... Who do I see? Pink Poncho Twins! Go down to their table and plop down right next to them. They remember me and try to see if they have their pink ponchos on them. No? Sadface. I tell the 2 british pink poncho girls and the other 3 guys at the table we are playing drinking games because I need to drink faster. We start out with Never Have I Ever and I start drinking heavily. Shots of absinthe and vodka/fanta bombard us and few toasts and few rounds here we go. One of the guys does “Never Have I Ever Worn a Penguin Shirt”, awesome, I am wearing the orange one Alain got me, and he has a penguin shirt too at home he said. I will chug the rest of my beer for that.
This girl Lexi comes over and starts talking to me: “I hear you are a comedian”. “I'm sorry hun, I think you got that confused with Rapist”. She loves Indian food apparently and Russel Peters. Shes a Canadian. From ToronTo. >>No you said it wrong, I'm from TORONO, jeez. The Pink Poncho twins, are surprisingly cute and have nice teeth, and especially for British people. Their names are Hannah and Sarah, and well this is probably one of the last times I call Sarah, well Sarah. For some reason I start yelling “CUNT SMEGMA” into her ear and she is just giggling. Wow, I'm going to do this more often. Random points in the night I am having a blast just yelling “CUNT SMEGMA” at her.
Before we leave the first bar, the cute French girl that was in our tour group goes and collects all the floater beer and the cups that no one has touched full of beer. We spend the next couple minutes going chug for chug and finishing the rest of the beer in the place. She is like the girl version of Vinay, downing floaters like it's nobody's business. I hate how I'm drinking floaters, definitely not doing this later on. She is super cute and with boyfriend in tow. She keeps telling me how to say her name, but I will never get it right.
I walk with Sandraaap and am talking with her and Naren pulls his best wingmanning ever this trip. I hang back with the girl and am having fun with her while Naren is a good 30 yards ahead, the guy loving him and totally into whatever they are talking about. Good job Naren.
These nights in Prague melt together because we are in the same clubs/bars over and over (M1 and Le Chetau Rouge) and I've consumed more beer in 3 days than I have in 3 weeks of DC. Also I am blackout so I do not remember a good amount of these nights.
We are at M1 which is a slightly smaller club but pretty nice and modern looking. I end up dancing with Lexi for a bit and grab the pink poncho twins later on from a creeper. I go to pee and French girl “Sandraaaap”is coming out of the guys bathroom, wow this girl does not give a shit at all, pretty attractive. At some point in the next hour the Aussie guy from our hostel tells us that there is a bottle of wine at the end of the club and to go drink it.
I tell Jeff we are drinking and take him over and we start taking swigs of the bottle with Naren.
Narens quote of the night as he is talking to “some short guy” as he explains it.
… wait...”Who ARE you?”.
>> The Manager.
Apparently the bottle of wine was stolen and they think we did it and they want us to pay for it. Smooth Aussie guy. Though the Aussie guys pass out at 8pm drinking and steal bottles, they are pretty cool guys; they are helicopter mechanics which is pretty badass. They think its Jeff and Naren. Again, Naren gets into more trouble than I am this trip, what is going on in the world. Jeff and Naren are arguing with the Manager and bartender because they want them to pay for the bottle. Jeff is like check the cameras, no way I reached over the bar and grabbed that bottle.
The pub crawl is leaving and CUNT SMEGMA Sarah grabs me, pulls me out of the bar and is says let's go. I'm outside with her and see Naren and Jeff still in a debacle inside the bar. Give Sarah a hug and kiss and say I'll see her at the next bar. Go in and tell Jeff and Naren we are leaving NOW. Get them outside the bar and Jeff can't go back in so I get his girlfriend Liz and the other two Maryland kids, Robin and Nick out of the bar. Liz is getting pissed off a bit. We go into semi-serious conversations which Shiva doesn't really like.
Liz: See even you care more, he didn't even bring me outside.
>> Listen hun, I got you because Jeff told me to. He cares, let's go have fun.
Liz is like Jeff always gets into this kind of trouble.
>> HEY. don't blame him. It's my fault I brought him over to drink. It's on me.
Obviously I love Liz and all, but girls don't work with logic, so her and Jeff get into a little tiffle on the street. Me and Naren are up ahead waiting, and a police van comes by and tries to question Jeff and take his ID. They don't know English at all really though, and well, we don't know Czech. We try to tell them that we will go talk to the bouncer of the next bar to act as a translator. I make sure Jeff gets his ID back and we run into the next bar and luckily the van drives away after a few seconds.
I think this is the night at Le Chetau Rouge, like any other night at the end of the night I lose EVERYBODY.
Next morning we wake up and Daniel, one of the Aussie guys from last night poofs up out of the love nest, dirty stache and all. Did anyone know he was here? Sillyness. A “You had to be there” experience.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Balls Cold in Berlin
We get to Berlin Thursday night with Google and his sidekick Taskbar, who DEFINITELY need their beauty rest so I am stuck to going out alone without a PUB CRAWL so I decide to just sleep early. Bad influences all around. A sober and a night in: I need better friends sometimes.
Our hostel for the first two nights is called Generator Hostel. There were easily over 700 people in the building. Think Thurston. Slightly younger age though, there were definitely a share of high school kids. It is a ENORMOUS place for 10euro a night p/p. With breakfast. Incredibly cheap. Breakfast was bread and cheese and different bologna varieties. As well as jam/nutella/cereal/milk/coffee/juice. Definitely high value to euro ratio here. It's a bit far from the center of the city, but I think since the trains run at all hours, definitely do-able.
Not to make matters worse than a walking tour at 10am, it rains in Berlin off and on and it’s freakishly cold. We are taken to the central meeting point for the tour which is by the Brandenburg gate on the metro by a tour guide who picks us up from our hostel. Me and Naren buy normal adult tickets, guess what Vinay buys? A discounted ticket that is for like children and senior citizens. I talk about racquetball and squash with our tour guide and how I only can run and do yoga here in Europe. He takes out a map and plans a run from my hostel to a section of the Berlin wall for me. Ooh, I like doing active things like this. I wonder if I will wake up early enough to run tomorrow? Likely not. We get to the gate and there is a big square and some of the buildings are very modern. The American embassy is right there and it looks really nice, mostly glass and very modern and new. I want to go in and grab a coffee there, think it'd be nice. I wonder how welcoming they would be though, I don't remember, but I still haven't shaved I'm quite sure.
We get numbers for tickets to be placed in tour groups; there are over 300 people there and there are tour groups in different languages as well: English, German, Spanish, French and maybe another one or two. Huge tourist crowd but I like it, love international cities.
The tour itself was pretty good, our tour guide was the same one that took us on the metro and he cheered up and got a lot more social. We saw some really interesting sites, one of my favorite sites was the Jewish/Holocaust memorial. I don't really remember the title, but also there's no title on it. This causes a slight controversy. On one side, there's no plaque or information board telling people what the memorial is; on the other hand, this allows for open interpretation for each individual person. The memorial is basically just blocks and cubes of blank stone and with ramped grounds so the scenery can change quickly. I go off alone and get lost in thought and myself for a bit. Its simple concept but I liked this memorial the most in Berlin.
We don’t have to worry about getting lost from our group because there are girls in bright pink ponchos that are beacons of ridiculous brightness that are impossible to miss out on. Pink Poncho Twins. Also a side note, I learned from our tour guide that pink was a manly color back in the day. Something about the Berlin wall, it was a wall made out of marshmallows and people starting eating at it and it came down. American attention span, Go Figure. Seriously, it's because pink is a bright color and you have to be stronger to survive if you are wearing pink. Makes sense. Also, if you guys go on New Europe tours, tip them at least 5euro a person on account they get charged 2.5euro per person on their tour. Play nice.
Oh yeah, I shockered the Berlin wall.
We grab our first Doner Kebab of the next few days. This will not be the first. They are dirt cheap here at 2.5-3.5 euros.
We are meeting Ashley at a pub crawl that is different from the one associated with the tour group. Hindsight comment: stick to the other one, never trust white people, especially polish people.
Meet two guys from LA when we buy our tickets from the pub crawl, Rick and Jared. They like San Fran better than LA too, solid. Walk over to the first bar and meet up with Ashley and some of her friends. They are all working here doing research and I can tell they are all engineering-ey types. We head into the bar and Ashley and some German guy, mainly German guy own me and Dan in foosball. Ashley, being a picture whore, wants a picture so we ask a couple girls nearby for a picture.
End up talking to said girls, SoCal girls who used to run track and field and pole vaulted. They want to find a local university or something and watch their track and field stuff here in Berlin. I wanted to do Yoga in every city, which has worked out so well so far. Typical SoCal girls, Kelly I call Kelly Kapowski is blonde and def Cali girl like and Allison is the Asian girl that Cali is none too short on.
On the way into the next bar I am mocking the pub crawl guy like I normally do and these Texas girls are attracted by the blazer. Love this blazer, gets me doctor votes as well as girls try to use it as a pillow. If I haven't introduced this before, we play the “Pick one out of us to be your doctor.” Lets just say me and Naren as the Blazer Boys have a slight advantage. Vinay gets zero votes and every time I laugh. Me and Naren are usually out in our blazers, looking decent, well me not even looking decent with massive beard growth but it still beats Vinay's fucking dry ace face with white shit all over it. This kid needs to take care of himself. Somehow the Texas girls find out my name so they are screaming it every time they see me by the end of the night. At this point they are just normal drunk so they are cute and bearable. One of them loves DC apparently and talks to me about moving there for the 15 minute walk over to the next bar. Exciting, jizz in my pants, amazing, thanks a-hole I want to think of DC right now.
Ashley is an idiot child that thinks she is at Disneyworld. So when there are prostitutes on the street with their pimp RIGHT there, she tries to get a picture with them, with epic failure written all over the situation. These prostitutes I’m sure are doing the exact same job as Mickey Mouse, they want jackass kids to take pictures with them. Sign my left nut.
At the next bar these guys are playing a pretty sweet drinking game, I’m always down to learn new games. Apparently they are playing a category based game, and they are on the category of places to cum on a girl, and it’s going on for rounds and rounds and ends in more hilarity.
On the way to the next bar we go into a little convenience store with Kai (aka Dimple), Ashley’s German friend and we get beers to drink outside. He is a genuine nice guy and interested in American culture and we learn and share a lot with him, and him with us. I get this raspberry wheat beer which is delicious and way too good to chug.
Once inside the bar, I tell Vinay to talk to bored looking Asian girl. Vinay goes in with something about her having Asian glow. I blurt out a little red riding hood comment. She flicks us off, but we keep talking and apparently she is too drunk to understand English. Playing around and now hooked, we eject for fear of projectile vomit. Outside the bar, pub crawl chick is trying to round people up, but doing a shoddy job of it. One of the Aussie girls steps onto a bench and plays pub crawl guide/ flight attendant and tries to get people to come over here. She is using airplane landing hand signals and I love people who do shit like this, because well I do shit like this. Vinay keeps on pushing me into her because well she is saying “Come closer everyone.”
At some point in the walk to the next bar I somehow meet Canadian girls and tell them I’m from TORONO. (At St. Christophers in Paris, these girls knew I wasn’t from Toronto because I pronounced the T, now I know). They believe this for most of the night. I am a chameleon. We end up trying to watch people step on shit that's on the sidewalk. Everyone misses it for some reason and we get bored and wander over back to the bar. I talk about learning Spanish and one of the Canadian girls says: “tengo ocho pinguinos en mis pantalones.” Wow random, show her my penguin boxers, and I win with about 70 pinguinos en my pants.
Back to the next place. Most of the people are shitfaced sloppy right now and me, Rick and Jared the Cali guys are going around about how we “fucking HATE Americans” . The Texas girls are so sloppy not even hobos want to touch them anymore.
We are in this tiny, sweaty club with about a 100 people. I dance for a bit and go over to the lounge area/bar that has armchairs you would expect your grandfather to sit at and smoke a pipe. I sit there with Kai and Naren and chill out.
Allison is talking to some guy at the bar and I tell the guys I want a quick challenge for myself. I go over and give her and Kelly Kapowski a hug and start talking to everyone. I talk to the guy and Kelly for a bit and Allison has just enough money for a shot and she takes a tequila shot by the bar. I run over to the bar and say that I am astonished. She took a shot with salt and lemon, off of herself. That should not happen in Europe. I tell her to pinky swear with me to never let that happen again. I say I'll play European stripper if need be: but rule is: never take a shot with salt off of your own hand. Playing around with everyone and the Cali guy talking to them tries to convince them to go to another bar or club. No go for him. He says bye to me and tries with Allison one more time. No fly. I get the girls to come out to the dance floor where I see the Aussie girls from before.
Hang out with the Aussie girls as the flight attendant one and I make bridges as people walk through a la me and Blair after one set of exams this year. The Aussie girl asks me if I can tell if her and her sister are twins? The other twin has boyish short hair and def more punk rocker style. But it's still pretty easy. Of course missy, I live with twins. We make a bridge for Naren, Vinay, and Kai as they walk to the other side of the club. Naren heads home and I am once alone again to find my way home.
I say bye to Naren and say I should be fine to go home granted I don't get rufied twice. Aussie girls come by and give me a hug and say bye, they had fun. Bridge building is always fun.
I dance with Kelly Kapowski for a bit and we head outside to talk, when I somehow end up talking to a German med student for the next half an hour. Everyone is tired so I go to grab food with the SoCal girls but they don't have cash and I hardly have any money and no one takes cards at this hour. Their hostel is close by and I have to train it all the way back to the hostel wherever it is but they are super nice and are like we aren't leaving you until you find out how to get home. So I get directions from a few guys in a bagel shop and we say our goodbyes and go on our merry way. Meet this super nice German guy who basically helps me find my way home, and we end up helping this Argentinean girl named gasp yes Florencia again to the airport. 4/5 girls I know from Argentina now named Florencia.
Random note: there are super hot moms rolling around Berlin without wedding rings. This has happened 3x so far. My team.
Naren and Vinay get written up from underground police because they didn’t buy metro tickets but they won’t pay because it’s a communist establishment.
Next day I spent mostly hanging out, doing Yoga in our new hostel room facing towards the graffiti artwork on the building across from us. Grab a drink on the rooftop of the hostel.
That night we go on the New Europe pub crawl which is much bigger and def a lot better. Highlights:
Highlights of Naren and Vinay's sociability. Shiva is talking to a group of people and introduces Naren and Vinay.... only to look around 2 minutes later to find them talking to themselves.
Naren and I talk to this Dutch guy about Holland for a good half an hour.
We meet Scottish Indians. Awesome.
Run into Pink Poncho twins. They are excited and want to put their pink ponchos on but do not have them.
Naren and I talk to large German girl. I leave Naren with said large German girl and meet normal sized Aussie girl.
Naren and I talk to kinda douchey but also pretty excited guys from NYC. They are smart too apparently at Stanford and Columbia or something like that. They are young at like 19 or so.
Me and Naren are outside the club at the end of the night. There are at least 30 people who know us and tell us we should come in. Nevertheless, Naren is a bad influence and we go home.
Our hostel for the first two nights is called Generator Hostel. There were easily over 700 people in the building. Think Thurston. Slightly younger age though, there were definitely a share of high school kids. It is a ENORMOUS place for 10euro a night p/p. With breakfast. Incredibly cheap. Breakfast was bread and cheese and different bologna varieties. As well as jam/nutella/cereal/milk/coffee/juice. Definitely high value to euro ratio here. It's a bit far from the center of the city, but I think since the trains run at all hours, definitely do-able.
Not to make matters worse than a walking tour at 10am, it rains in Berlin off and on and it’s freakishly cold. We are taken to the central meeting point for the tour which is by the Brandenburg gate on the metro by a tour guide who picks us up from our hostel. Me and Naren buy normal adult tickets, guess what Vinay buys? A discounted ticket that is for like children and senior citizens. I talk about racquetball and squash with our tour guide and how I only can run and do yoga here in Europe. He takes out a map and plans a run from my hostel to a section of the Berlin wall for me. Ooh, I like doing active things like this. I wonder if I will wake up early enough to run tomorrow? Likely not. We get to the gate and there is a big square and some of the buildings are very modern. The American embassy is right there and it looks really nice, mostly glass and very modern and new. I want to go in and grab a coffee there, think it'd be nice. I wonder how welcoming they would be though, I don't remember, but I still haven't shaved I'm quite sure.
We get numbers for tickets to be placed in tour groups; there are over 300 people there and there are tour groups in different languages as well: English, German, Spanish, French and maybe another one or two. Huge tourist crowd but I like it, love international cities.
The tour itself was pretty good, our tour guide was the same one that took us on the metro and he cheered up and got a lot more social. We saw some really interesting sites, one of my favorite sites was the Jewish/Holocaust memorial. I don't really remember the title, but also there's no title on it. This causes a slight controversy. On one side, there's no plaque or information board telling people what the memorial is; on the other hand, this allows for open interpretation for each individual person. The memorial is basically just blocks and cubes of blank stone and with ramped grounds so the scenery can change quickly. I go off alone and get lost in thought and myself for a bit. Its simple concept but I liked this memorial the most in Berlin.
We don’t have to worry about getting lost from our group because there are girls in bright pink ponchos that are beacons of ridiculous brightness that are impossible to miss out on. Pink Poncho Twins. Also a side note, I learned from our tour guide that pink was a manly color back in the day. Something about the Berlin wall, it was a wall made out of marshmallows and people starting eating at it and it came down. American attention span, Go Figure. Seriously, it's because pink is a bright color and you have to be stronger to survive if you are wearing pink. Makes sense. Also, if you guys go on New Europe tours, tip them at least 5euro a person on account they get charged 2.5euro per person on their tour. Play nice.
Oh yeah, I shockered the Berlin wall.
We grab our first Doner Kebab of the next few days. This will not be the first. They are dirt cheap here at 2.5-3.5 euros.
We are meeting Ashley at a pub crawl that is different from the one associated with the tour group. Hindsight comment: stick to the other one, never trust white people, especially polish people.
Meet two guys from LA when we buy our tickets from the pub crawl, Rick and Jared. They like San Fran better than LA too, solid. Walk over to the first bar and meet up with Ashley and some of her friends. They are all working here doing research and I can tell they are all engineering-ey types. We head into the bar and Ashley and some German guy, mainly German guy own me and Dan in foosball. Ashley, being a picture whore, wants a picture so we ask a couple girls nearby for a picture.
End up talking to said girls, SoCal girls who used to run track and field and pole vaulted. They want to find a local university or something and watch their track and field stuff here in Berlin. I wanted to do Yoga in every city, which has worked out so well so far. Typical SoCal girls, Kelly I call Kelly Kapowski is blonde and def Cali girl like and Allison is the Asian girl that Cali is none too short on.
On the way into the next bar I am mocking the pub crawl guy like I normally do and these Texas girls are attracted by the blazer. Love this blazer, gets me doctor votes as well as girls try to use it as a pillow. If I haven't introduced this before, we play the “Pick one out of us to be your doctor.” Lets just say me and Naren as the Blazer Boys have a slight advantage. Vinay gets zero votes and every time I laugh. Me and Naren are usually out in our blazers, looking decent, well me not even looking decent with massive beard growth but it still beats Vinay's fucking dry ace face with white shit all over it. This kid needs to take care of himself. Somehow the Texas girls find out my name so they are screaming it every time they see me by the end of the night. At this point they are just normal drunk so they are cute and bearable. One of them loves DC apparently and talks to me about moving there for the 15 minute walk over to the next bar. Exciting, jizz in my pants, amazing, thanks a-hole I want to think of DC right now.
Ashley is an idiot child that thinks she is at Disneyworld. So when there are prostitutes on the street with their pimp RIGHT there, she tries to get a picture with them, with epic failure written all over the situation. These prostitutes I’m sure are doing the exact same job as Mickey Mouse, they want jackass kids to take pictures with them. Sign my left nut.
At the next bar these guys are playing a pretty sweet drinking game, I’m always down to learn new games. Apparently they are playing a category based game, and they are on the category of places to cum on a girl, and it’s going on for rounds and rounds and ends in more hilarity.
On the way to the next bar we go into a little convenience store with Kai (aka Dimple), Ashley’s German friend and we get beers to drink outside. He is a genuine nice guy and interested in American culture and we learn and share a lot with him, and him with us. I get this raspberry wheat beer which is delicious and way too good to chug.
Once inside the bar, I tell Vinay to talk to bored looking Asian girl. Vinay goes in with something about her having Asian glow. I blurt out a little red riding hood comment. She flicks us off, but we keep talking and apparently she is too drunk to understand English. Playing around and now hooked, we eject for fear of projectile vomit. Outside the bar, pub crawl chick is trying to round people up, but doing a shoddy job of it. One of the Aussie girls steps onto a bench and plays pub crawl guide/ flight attendant and tries to get people to come over here. She is using airplane landing hand signals and I love people who do shit like this, because well I do shit like this. Vinay keeps on pushing me into her because well she is saying “Come closer everyone.”
At some point in the walk to the next bar I somehow meet Canadian girls and tell them I’m from TORONO. (At St. Christophers in Paris, these girls knew I wasn’t from Toronto because I pronounced the T, now I know). They believe this for most of the night. I am a chameleon. We end up trying to watch people step on shit that's on the sidewalk. Everyone misses it for some reason and we get bored and wander over back to the bar. I talk about learning Spanish and one of the Canadian girls says: “tengo ocho pinguinos en mis pantalones.” Wow random, show her my penguin boxers, and I win with about 70 pinguinos en my pants.
Back to the next place. Most of the people are shitfaced sloppy right now and me, Rick and Jared the Cali guys are going around about how we “fucking HATE Americans” . The Texas girls are so sloppy not even hobos want to touch them anymore.
We are in this tiny, sweaty club with about a 100 people. I dance for a bit and go over to the lounge area/bar that has armchairs you would expect your grandfather to sit at and smoke a pipe. I sit there with Kai and Naren and chill out.
Allison is talking to some guy at the bar and I tell the guys I want a quick challenge for myself. I go over and give her and Kelly Kapowski a hug and start talking to everyone. I talk to the guy and Kelly for a bit and Allison has just enough money for a shot and she takes a tequila shot by the bar. I run over to the bar and say that I am astonished. She took a shot with salt and lemon, off of herself. That should not happen in Europe. I tell her to pinky swear with me to never let that happen again. I say I'll play European stripper if need be: but rule is: never take a shot with salt off of your own hand. Playing around with everyone and the Cali guy talking to them tries to convince them to go to another bar or club. No go for him. He says bye to me and tries with Allison one more time. No fly. I get the girls to come out to the dance floor where I see the Aussie girls from before.
Hang out with the Aussie girls as the flight attendant one and I make bridges as people walk through a la me and Blair after one set of exams this year. The Aussie girl asks me if I can tell if her and her sister are twins? The other twin has boyish short hair and def more punk rocker style. But it's still pretty easy. Of course missy, I live with twins. We make a bridge for Naren, Vinay, and Kai as they walk to the other side of the club. Naren heads home and I am once alone again to find my way home.
I say bye to Naren and say I should be fine to go home granted I don't get rufied twice. Aussie girls come by and give me a hug and say bye, they had fun. Bridge building is always fun.
I dance with Kelly Kapowski for a bit and we head outside to talk, when I somehow end up talking to a German med student for the next half an hour. Everyone is tired so I go to grab food with the SoCal girls but they don't have cash and I hardly have any money and no one takes cards at this hour. Their hostel is close by and I have to train it all the way back to the hostel wherever it is but they are super nice and are like we aren't leaving you until you find out how to get home. So I get directions from a few guys in a bagel shop and we say our goodbyes and go on our merry way. Meet this super nice German guy who basically helps me find my way home, and we end up helping this Argentinean girl named gasp yes Florencia again to the airport. 4/5 girls I know from Argentina now named Florencia.
Random note: there are super hot moms rolling around Berlin without wedding rings. This has happened 3x so far. My team.
Naren and Vinay get written up from underground police because they didn’t buy metro tickets but they won’t pay because it’s a communist establishment.
Next day I spent mostly hanging out, doing Yoga in our new hostel room facing towards the graffiti artwork on the building across from us. Grab a drink on the rooftop of the hostel.
That night we go on the New Europe pub crawl which is much bigger and def a lot better. Highlights:
Highlights of Naren and Vinay's sociability. Shiva is talking to a group of people and introduces Naren and Vinay.... only to look around 2 minutes later to find them talking to themselves.
Naren and I talk to this Dutch guy about Holland for a good half an hour.
We meet Scottish Indians. Awesome.
Run into Pink Poncho twins. They are excited and want to put their pink ponchos on but do not have them.
Naren and I talk to large German girl. I leave Naren with said large German girl and meet normal sized Aussie girl.
Naren and I talk to kinda douchey but also pretty excited guys from NYC. They are smart too apparently at Stanford and Columbia or something like that. They are young at like 19 or so.
Me and Naren are outside the club at the end of the night. There are at least 30 people who know us and tell us we should come in. Nevertheless, Naren is a bad influence and we go home.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Galavantion Impossible
Galavantion Impossible: RyanAin't
Less than an hour after our Alghero to Frankfurt flight, we just got on our Frankfurt Hahn to Berlin flight. I’m SO glad I only have to deal with Frankfurt for a few minutes, for some reason I can’t think to stay in this hole.
Ryanair owned:
Bag dimensions out of size – I’ve worn three shirts and then stuffed my bag back in. (That’s What She Said)
One Carry on Bag – I’ve worn my laptop in a bag under my blazer, that’s 2 bags.. hehe
Weight – take shit out put it off to the side and have it weighed again – easy peasy
Vinay has sat in the emergency exit having thrown up few hours earlier all over himself and in clearly no state to assist in an emergency… This would have called for legendary times. He also promptly threw up after the flight in the Barcelona metro.
Ask me personally about a couple other rules we’ve broken. quite ridic
Tiesto
http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs156.snc1/5810_658412579006_25509775_37938034_5684285_n.jpg
there we go--
there we go--
Detox Dog Days o Summer
So we are staying at a Bed and Breakfast in Sardenia. The kind lady who owns the place knows a little bit of English and we only know as much Italian as I’ve thrown up this trip. That’s right; I’m one of two people who haven’t become the ways of Neal Vomita. So Rita, who soon became our Italian mom, started doing Yoga 4 years ago and “vita transform” it transformed her life! Solid.
We are staying in the old town of Alghero which is a nice quaint small old town with good pizzerias, gelatarias, and pastarias. We eat pizza at Bella Napoli and its delicious, easily one of the best simplest pizzas I’ve had. Breakfast is at 8am so we hit the hay early after a nice long relaxing sit down dinner.
Breakfast is fairly simple and tickles my diabetes with nutella, jam, bread, pita, butter, yogurt, and a couple different juices. I also drink some tea with fresh local honey. We head over to the beach for the day and relax on the fine sand and the crystal clear warm water. Sardenia has beautiful women, some are sunbathing topless and this provides a better sight than the small beach we went to in Ibiza. I try to complete my detox day with a couple short runs along the beach and yoga in the water and in the sand. To be honest though, most of the day until around 6pm was just lying down in the sun working on the tan that I deserve. We head to a gelataria and I get a cone with 3 flavors. Personally if you get gelato, get the fruit kinds, the chocolate and normal kinds are like ice cream but not as rich. Back to the B&B, we head out to dinner and have pesto & tomato sauce pasta for dinner that is amazingly simple but so vibrant in taste. Shiva is always hungry so we search around for food afterwards and I end up getting a chocolate croissant swirl sort of creation. With my tummy satisfied, we walk around the city walls and gaze at the awesome water crashing on the rocks below.
Last day in Sardegna starts with another 8am breakfast and a nap in our room while we are supposed to be packed and leaving so Rita can clean up. I head to get some pizza and Naren gets some pasta. Always planning out my food for the day, I save some of my pizza for the airport and get a chocolate and pudding filled pastry that melts in my mouth and leaves me begging for more. We take pictures with Rita and say Ciao and head for the airport which starts a good chunk of traveling.
We are staying in the old town of Alghero which is a nice quaint small old town with good pizzerias, gelatarias, and pastarias. We eat pizza at Bella Napoli and its delicious, easily one of the best simplest pizzas I’ve had. Breakfast is at 8am so we hit the hay early after a nice long relaxing sit down dinner.
Breakfast is fairly simple and tickles my diabetes with nutella, jam, bread, pita, butter, yogurt, and a couple different juices. I also drink some tea with fresh local honey. We head over to the beach for the day and relax on the fine sand and the crystal clear warm water. Sardenia has beautiful women, some are sunbathing topless and this provides a better sight than the small beach we went to in Ibiza. I try to complete my detox day with a couple short runs along the beach and yoga in the water and in the sand. To be honest though, most of the day until around 6pm was just lying down in the sun working on the tan that I deserve. We head to a gelataria and I get a cone with 3 flavors. Personally if you get gelato, get the fruit kinds, the chocolate and normal kinds are like ice cream but not as rich. Back to the B&B, we head out to dinner and have pesto & tomato sauce pasta for dinner that is amazingly simple but so vibrant in taste. Shiva is always hungry so we search around for food afterwards and I end up getting a chocolate croissant swirl sort of creation. With my tummy satisfied, we walk around the city walls and gaze at the awesome water crashing on the rocks below.
Last day in Sardegna starts with another 8am breakfast and a nap in our room while we are supposed to be packed and leaving so Rita can clean up. I head to get some pizza and Naren gets some pasta. Always planning out my food for the day, I save some of my pizza for the airport and get a chocolate and pudding filled pastry that melts in my mouth and leaves me begging for more. We take pictures with Rita and say Ciao and head for the airport which starts a good chunk of traveling.
Guidelines for Eurotrip
Guidelines this trip:
Americans are:
ignorant
drink irresponsibly
fools
rude
modest =) (I AM AWESOME)
dance like this (dance in the silliest way possible)
European stripper
oh from Alaska? Can you email me penguin pictures when you go back home
Americans are:
ignorant
drink irresponsibly
fools
rude
modest =) (I AM AWESOME)
dance like this (dance in the silliest way possible)
European stripper
oh from Alaska? Can you email me penguin pictures when you go back home
Thursday, July 16, 2009
SWINE FLU SUPERSTAR!
We have a few cases of confirmed H1N1. I'm sure the kids will be fine since there's a low mortality and its usually with complications or overlying conditions. But to prevent further outbreak and transmission, I think we should shut down the camp. Then I can resume the Galavantion Tour as well.
so follow our swine flu outbreak at Jonathan's blog too (we've made news article and video part on telemadrid).
http://21odyssey.blogspot.com/
so follow our swine flu outbreak at Jonathan's blog too (we've made news article and video part on telemadrid).
http://21odyssey.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
THIS IS THENUMBERONEPARTYPLACEINTHEWORLDANDAMANISGOODWITHTHREEBEERS!
Talked to the Aussie guys this morning, can’t believe they didn’t pull any of the Aussie girls, sucks. Nate dog bought like 3 rounds of drinks for like 8 people too. That’s not the point though! Grinds my gears because everyone fell in love with him. I even fell in love with him. Pretty Homo, Indeed.
Late Night conversations with Nate Dog
Nate Dog is a 30 y.o. rock star, who basically works for himself and has his office back in Australia. He is on a 6 month travel stint and he trades energy and carbon credits or something like that. Basically this sums up to doing a little work during the day and partying at night. He goes to the next city whenever he wants and basically lives life the way he wants.
I talk to him about traveling and how I’ve had a lot of fun, and won’t get to do it again. He is adamant without flinching when he tells me that I can do it anyways. Do it after residency or just do it whenever you want. This guy only lives by his own rules. Kickass.
Ibiza today!
Key note in the airport: Naren got hit in the balls by a pole. Or rather he hit the pole with his balls.
The clickair flight is pretty nice, it’s a 36 minute flight and some of the women on the plane are gorgeous, not to mention all the flight attendants are so good looking I hope they make money with this job, otherwise they should just quit and be models. Definitely took the top on my list, sorry Virgin America stewardesses, but you’re still my number two. Fly over some of Ibiza, this is surreal shit, island is amazing, and the water is dark clear blue with the light teal blue patches closer to shore. Should find out what the difference is: kind of curious, depth maybe? Walk off the plane down the stairs onto the tarmac, the amazing feeling of the wind fluttering through my blazer and stepping off the plane, so worth it. Naren says this is probably why his dad wears his blazer on every airplane trip he goes on, even if it is warm outside. Totally understand.
Get to our hotel, nicest place we’ve stayed at so far, we basically have an apartment with couch, 3 beds, kitchen, bathroom YES FINALLY A PRIVATE BATHROOM!, and a balcony with table and chairs. We drop our bags and head out to the beach. I jump into the water first; I am protected by my wet suit haha. We see some saggy boobies and wonder where the hot girl nude beach is. Theres a huge lady, the biggest lady I’ve seen so far that is stranded like a beach whale in the sand. We thought she was Formentara, another island off Ibiza. I asked her if she knew Kamal, apparently they are sisters.
We meet this Dutch guy Michele who owns this tapas bar and invites us over to eat there. He seems really genuine and friendly so I want to try out his restaurant.
We need to get a nap in and out tonight, so we buy some small groceries and cook dinner at our room. I have the brilliant idea to take out a mattress out onto the balcony and I pass out there and Naren joins me later and it’s a gay old time. THIS IS VACATIONNNNN!
Later on when the curry crew is drinking: Bhangra boys are like “little puppies humping legs”. Seems like the only notable thing of the pregame.
Get two free shots at the bar where we buy the tickets for Space. Bartender is this chill Scottish guy. Taxis aren’t too expensive here, it’s roughly 8 euro to get to Space. Walk out of the taxi and the guys in 2 shifts finish the to-go bottle in the corner of the parking lot inconspicuously…not. It’s somewhat after 2am and there’s not much of a line outside and it seems relatively quiet. On account that Ibiza has been sparsely populated thus far and we haven’t seen that many people out and about, I am a little frightened. Get through 2nd base security check and into the bar of the club. There’s like 20 people here…. fuck. Walk through to the end and hear louder music, go through a set of double doors and WHAM, this is it. There’s live music on stage and exponentially more people here. THIS IS IBIZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!
It’s pretty awesome, music is great and everyone is fist pumping and dancing and having a great time. We migrate to the front and get spots right in front of stage. Love life right now. I am just dancing around, having the time of my life with my boys, enjoying this amazing live music. Benny and some of the other guys break into some bhangra and its curry times. We are dancing away in our own little world, in an arena full of energy and I’m sure a good share of ecstasy to boot. This guy and girl apparently love our energy and give us high fives. The guy asks me where I’m from, Washington D.C. The guy and girl are from Italy, and I get the kiss xx introduction from the girl. Fun people, they are also having a blast.
After the group AutoKratz leaves, we get a pretty hardcore DJ… and dancers! This is turning into similar to Coco Bongo; we have a whole little dance show with acrobatics in the middle and this girl dancing on a platform which is made out of her dress if that makes any sense. There are girls rolling around on little towers dancing and girls on stage in panties and with dresses only covering their abdomens and bright red tassels covering their nipples. They have winged capes that are part of their dresses that they are using when they dance and it looks like dancing majestic bats. Definitely better than the sights we saw at the beach today. Its sensory overload with amazing music, energy dialed through the roof, dancing to the beat (or to anything but a beat in my case), and watching the beautiful talented women work their magic. After the tassel-ed dancer women leave stage, two gorgeous new women in bikinis and Victoria Secret caliber bodies start dancing and continue for the rest of the night. The adorable one in the black bikini is dancing at the front of the stage at times and I am just standing there, drooling, stupefied, with the hugest grin on my face. Later on there are people going up on stage and crouching… they’re white so I’m not too worried, but curious instead. Someone brings out a bag and they pull out a tremendously large white sheet that then extend and throw over the crowd. We are all pulling it back, and it becomes a thousand people dancing under a ceiling of a white mesh sheet, bouncing up and down, touching the sheet as it thrives to the beat of the people and ripples in waves from the crouching people, now standing, setting waves in motion from the edge. This reminds me of Zion in the Matrix where everyone is a hot sweaty dancing globular mess. Though we have all the colors of the rainbow and neon lights, WE AINT SCURRED O NO AGENTS!
Haven’t really left the front of the stage area so decide to walk around the club a bit. Go upstairs where there is a smaller room and its own DJ. Open super gorgeous maybe 30yr old Spanish woman upstairs with her short troll friend. She can’t really talk English so I attempt some Spanish. She’s from Madrid! Yo trabajare en Madrid en Julio! High probability that doesn’t make sense whatsoever. Dance with them a bit. Bailamos en America este, and then I do a silly little dance. Later on do en India and do my fake bhangra move that’s not a bhangra move according to Benny. Spanish woman is a really good dancer and her shirt is cut in the middle and she enjoys what I do, a little striptease action in the club. I unbutton my shirt and join in and spin Spanish woman around a few times but alas she’s like all other Spanish girls that won’t let me dance close or acknowledge I have a penis. Play around for a bit and give them kisses and Buenos noches and walk to the top patio. The top patio is nice it’s on a rooftop and there’s a huge white cylinder with pillows where people are relaxing and laying down.
Go back downstairs and the Turbo Hotties in sunglasses and basically booty shorts and flashy bras are sitting down. Tell one of them she is having too much fun sitting down on her ledge. She doesn’t really understand but asks me where I’m from. We talk for a bit, apparently she used to live in New York for a bit. She’s from Argentina originally and I tell her I can’t take on any more Argentinean girls named Florencia. Lucky, she is the first Argentinean girl that has a different name: Mariela. She works in Cancun; I guess Ibiza is the place to go for a crazy vacation if you already are normally in a place like Cancun. For looking like an unapproachable gorgeous model bombshell with badass sunglasses and a don’t-give-a-fuck attitude, she is surprisingly really nice. xx goodbye and see the guys are dancing by the bar so I go join them and 5:30am ish seems like it’s time to go home. We reflect a little: even though groups of Indian and random girls were checking us out, we were surprised how much fun we had just dancing in a group of dudes. Awesome night.
Wake up at 1pm after like a week of going to bed at 6am. We finally head over to lunch at Bar Tapas, the Tapas place that the Dutch man Michele owned. A little hint of a sore throat so I get café con leche. For tapas, I get filet and a tortilla Espanola and both are quite delicious. The filet is cooked in oil with a metric ton of garlic which is awesome. After this amazing meal, we go get some drinks and sit by the beach and relax. We find a hotel hot tub, but it’s filled with two creepy old men and a couple semi-cute women. The old guys leave after we brood in the corner, but sadly so do the girls. So it becomes 7 guys huddled up in a like 4 person hot tub. And by hot tub, I mean it was a sausage fest in luke warm water. We play around with the jets, if we turn the jets off and back on, there’s a splooge of water that shoots up into the air. Naren and I get out and he dries himself with the blow dryer in the men’s bathroom and I use the women’s. A little bit of PRANKS in mind, I start chucking rolls of toilet paper over the bathroom wall and into the hot tub. PRANKS! sidenote: back in barca I pulled out the new poster PRANKS while Aman was sleeping so he woke up to my padunkadunk ass 6 inches from his face.
We end up buying two bottles of Absinthe, which seems like a good way to ring in Tiesto for opening night. Oh, and Aman is in the number one party place in the world and he is fine with three beers. My first time having Absinthe, apparently we are supposed to caramelize sugar, light the shot on fire, blow it out, and take it. This shit burns my throat. That’s What She Said. Me and naren being lightweights feel shot one almost right away, but go for three rounds with all the guys and chug our coke-black absinthe mixed drink. The blue flame over the absinthe looks sick as shit though, I wanted to play pyro, but that probably is not the best idea in a foreign country.
Go to the bar where we got free shots last night and there are a lot of people there, hrm there might be a discobus here too. There are two cute girls standing by the lamppost so I go talk to them. I guess they are Dutch in the first like 20 seconds, but after Amanda, aka Emo Glasses says “come on dude”, I know they’re from California instantly. They go to UCSD but are from SF. Blithe tries to call me out on my wet-suit shirt.
Blithe: Why are you wearing that?
Shiva: I’m hunting sharks in the Ibiza waters tonight in my wet suit; it’s going to be awesome.
Blithe: That’s not a wetsuit, it’s a rash guard.
Shiva: Your mom’s a rash guard.
So turns out the discobus comes here too, and the girls are going to Tiesto too. They tell me my friends are glaring at me. I say I should probably go back over there, come with. We get there, and they are talking to a fun young couple that is trying to get on the bus too and they have been waiting for 40 minutes. If the bus doesn’t come soon we decide to cab it. Luckily the bus shows up out of nowhere with the party already started on board. All seven of us get onto the bus somehow, and we plead with the bus driver for dos mas, but sadly the couple didn’t make it on. Should have kicked these Cali girls or Malaysian guys out. Talk to one of the Malaysian guys because well, Wei is awesome, and maybe his people are awesome too. These guys are pretty lame and weird looking quiet Asian guys who probably listen to Tiesto while they play starcraft. The bus ride is a party and frankly awesome in itself. There are guys standing up in the back singing and chanting and we join them in hums, dad a daaa daaa, oleeey oley oley oley, and (rap das armas) parappappapapapa. I throw a “Time’s up, Let’s do this, LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEROY MMMMJENKINSSSSSSS” once the club comes into view. The club is a enormous building with enough land around it to make a small amusement park. Finish our to-go absinthe bottle during the walk up to the club. Malaysian guys and Cali girls cross over the railing and sneak by on the grass: a-holes true, though I don’t care because I am amazing and we are having fun with the people around us with crazy hairpieces on.
Get into the club as the Love Lock Down remix is playing, SUPERSTAR. That’s all I have to say. We mosey all the way up to the DJ booth where we are literally 10 feet from Tiesto. The energy here is unbelievable; the only thing that rivals this is the White House crowd on election night. After a few people leave, we get on the rails, so we are right at the stage and it’s just the DJ booth between us and Tiesto. This music is awesome because you can dance anyway you like to it, some of the guys are doing bhangra, and there’s nothing wrong with some powerful fist pumping as well. The lights are spectacular, the music surreal, and the whole ensemble is LE…. wait for it, sorry if you didn’t get the chance to milk to thousands of people in a packed venue with some awesome music… GENDARY. Highlights of the night include Sex is on Fire remix, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and sampling from Tiesto’s new CD as well. The rest of the guys leave around 5:15am, but Shiva isn’t old yet and wants to hang around a little. Naren and I buy 6 euro water, our mouths are like deserts. We walk around past the pool which I am suited well for in the wet-shirt thing and to the back of the club. From seeing afar, we can now really appreciate the light show and the LEDs up front arrayed in different designs and figures. Leave around 6am, sun is coming up, an amazing day. Definitely considering cutting out a bit of London to come back here with Rishi.
Late Night conversations with Nate Dog
Nate Dog is a 30 y.o. rock star, who basically works for himself and has his office back in Australia. He is on a 6 month travel stint and he trades energy and carbon credits or something like that. Basically this sums up to doing a little work during the day and partying at night. He goes to the next city whenever he wants and basically lives life the way he wants.
I talk to him about traveling and how I’ve had a lot of fun, and won’t get to do it again. He is adamant without flinching when he tells me that I can do it anyways. Do it after residency or just do it whenever you want. This guy only lives by his own rules. Kickass.
Ibiza today!
Key note in the airport: Naren got hit in the balls by a pole. Or rather he hit the pole with his balls.
The clickair flight is pretty nice, it’s a 36 minute flight and some of the women on the plane are gorgeous, not to mention all the flight attendants are so good looking I hope they make money with this job, otherwise they should just quit and be models. Definitely took the top on my list, sorry Virgin America stewardesses, but you’re still my number two. Fly over some of Ibiza, this is surreal shit, island is amazing, and the water is dark clear blue with the light teal blue patches closer to shore. Should find out what the difference is: kind of curious, depth maybe? Walk off the plane down the stairs onto the tarmac, the amazing feeling of the wind fluttering through my blazer and stepping off the plane, so worth it. Naren says this is probably why his dad wears his blazer on every airplane trip he goes on, even if it is warm outside. Totally understand.
Get to our hotel, nicest place we’ve stayed at so far, we basically have an apartment with couch, 3 beds, kitchen, bathroom YES FINALLY A PRIVATE BATHROOM!, and a balcony with table and chairs. We drop our bags and head out to the beach. I jump into the water first; I am protected by my wet suit haha. We see some saggy boobies and wonder where the hot girl nude beach is. Theres a huge lady, the biggest lady I’ve seen so far that is stranded like a beach whale in the sand. We thought she was Formentara, another island off Ibiza. I asked her if she knew Kamal, apparently they are sisters.
We meet this Dutch guy Michele who owns this tapas bar and invites us over to eat there. He seems really genuine and friendly so I want to try out his restaurant.
We need to get a nap in and out tonight, so we buy some small groceries and cook dinner at our room. I have the brilliant idea to take out a mattress out onto the balcony and I pass out there and Naren joins me later and it’s a gay old time. THIS IS VACATIONNNNN!
Later on when the curry crew is drinking: Bhangra boys are like “little puppies humping legs”. Seems like the only notable thing of the pregame.
Get two free shots at the bar where we buy the tickets for Space. Bartender is this chill Scottish guy. Taxis aren’t too expensive here, it’s roughly 8 euro to get to Space. Walk out of the taxi and the guys in 2 shifts finish the to-go bottle in the corner of the parking lot inconspicuously…not. It’s somewhat after 2am and there’s not much of a line outside and it seems relatively quiet. On account that Ibiza has been sparsely populated thus far and we haven’t seen that many people out and about, I am a little frightened. Get through 2nd base security check and into the bar of the club. There’s like 20 people here…. fuck. Walk through to the end and hear louder music, go through a set of double doors and WHAM, this is it. There’s live music on stage and exponentially more people here. THIS IS IBIZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!
It’s pretty awesome, music is great and everyone is fist pumping and dancing and having a great time. We migrate to the front and get spots right in front of stage. Love life right now. I am just dancing around, having the time of my life with my boys, enjoying this amazing live music. Benny and some of the other guys break into some bhangra and its curry times. We are dancing away in our own little world, in an arena full of energy and I’m sure a good share of ecstasy to boot. This guy and girl apparently love our energy and give us high fives. The guy asks me where I’m from, Washington D.C. The guy and girl are from Italy, and I get the kiss xx introduction from the girl. Fun people, they are also having a blast.
After the group AutoKratz leaves, we get a pretty hardcore DJ… and dancers! This is turning into similar to Coco Bongo; we have a whole little dance show with acrobatics in the middle and this girl dancing on a platform which is made out of her dress if that makes any sense. There are girls rolling around on little towers dancing and girls on stage in panties and with dresses only covering their abdomens and bright red tassels covering their nipples. They have winged capes that are part of their dresses that they are using when they dance and it looks like dancing majestic bats. Definitely better than the sights we saw at the beach today. Its sensory overload with amazing music, energy dialed through the roof, dancing to the beat (or to anything but a beat in my case), and watching the beautiful talented women work their magic. After the tassel-ed dancer women leave stage, two gorgeous new women in bikinis and Victoria Secret caliber bodies start dancing and continue for the rest of the night. The adorable one in the black bikini is dancing at the front of the stage at times and I am just standing there, drooling, stupefied, with the hugest grin on my face. Later on there are people going up on stage and crouching… they’re white so I’m not too worried, but curious instead. Someone brings out a bag and they pull out a tremendously large white sheet that then extend and throw over the crowd. We are all pulling it back, and it becomes a thousand people dancing under a ceiling of a white mesh sheet, bouncing up and down, touching the sheet as it thrives to the beat of the people and ripples in waves from the crouching people, now standing, setting waves in motion from the edge. This reminds me of Zion in the Matrix where everyone is a hot sweaty dancing globular mess. Though we have all the colors of the rainbow and neon lights, WE AINT SCURRED O NO AGENTS!
Haven’t really left the front of the stage area so decide to walk around the club a bit. Go upstairs where there is a smaller room and its own DJ. Open super gorgeous maybe 30yr old Spanish woman upstairs with her short troll friend. She can’t really talk English so I attempt some Spanish. She’s from Madrid! Yo trabajare en Madrid en Julio! High probability that doesn’t make sense whatsoever. Dance with them a bit. Bailamos en America este, and then I do a silly little dance. Later on do en India and do my fake bhangra move that’s not a bhangra move according to Benny. Spanish woman is a really good dancer and her shirt is cut in the middle and she enjoys what I do, a little striptease action in the club. I unbutton my shirt and join in and spin Spanish woman around a few times but alas she’s like all other Spanish girls that won’t let me dance close or acknowledge I have a penis. Play around for a bit and give them kisses and Buenos noches and walk to the top patio. The top patio is nice it’s on a rooftop and there’s a huge white cylinder with pillows where people are relaxing and laying down.
Go back downstairs and the Turbo Hotties in sunglasses and basically booty shorts and flashy bras are sitting down. Tell one of them she is having too much fun sitting down on her ledge. She doesn’t really understand but asks me where I’m from. We talk for a bit, apparently she used to live in New York for a bit. She’s from Argentina originally and I tell her I can’t take on any more Argentinean girls named Florencia. Lucky, she is the first Argentinean girl that has a different name: Mariela. She works in Cancun; I guess Ibiza is the place to go for a crazy vacation if you already are normally in a place like Cancun. For looking like an unapproachable gorgeous model bombshell with badass sunglasses and a don’t-give-a-fuck attitude, she is surprisingly really nice. xx goodbye and see the guys are dancing by the bar so I go join them and 5:30am ish seems like it’s time to go home. We reflect a little: even though groups of Indian and random girls were checking us out, we were surprised how much fun we had just dancing in a group of dudes. Awesome night.
Wake up at 1pm after like a week of going to bed at 6am. We finally head over to lunch at Bar Tapas, the Tapas place that the Dutch man Michele owned. A little hint of a sore throat so I get café con leche. For tapas, I get filet and a tortilla Espanola and both are quite delicious. The filet is cooked in oil with a metric ton of garlic which is awesome. After this amazing meal, we go get some drinks and sit by the beach and relax. We find a hotel hot tub, but it’s filled with two creepy old men and a couple semi-cute women. The old guys leave after we brood in the corner, but sadly so do the girls. So it becomes 7 guys huddled up in a like 4 person hot tub. And by hot tub, I mean it was a sausage fest in luke warm water. We play around with the jets, if we turn the jets off and back on, there’s a splooge of water that shoots up into the air. Naren and I get out and he dries himself with the blow dryer in the men’s bathroom and I use the women’s. A little bit of PRANKS in mind, I start chucking rolls of toilet paper over the bathroom wall and into the hot tub. PRANKS! sidenote: back in barca I pulled out the new poster PRANKS while Aman was sleeping so he woke up to my padunkadunk ass 6 inches from his face.
We end up buying two bottles of Absinthe, which seems like a good way to ring in Tiesto for opening night. Oh, and Aman is in the number one party place in the world and he is fine with three beers. My first time having Absinthe, apparently we are supposed to caramelize sugar, light the shot on fire, blow it out, and take it. This shit burns my throat. That’s What She Said. Me and naren being lightweights feel shot one almost right away, but go for three rounds with all the guys and chug our coke-black absinthe mixed drink. The blue flame over the absinthe looks sick as shit though, I wanted to play pyro, but that probably is not the best idea in a foreign country.
Go to the bar where we got free shots last night and there are a lot of people there, hrm there might be a discobus here too. There are two cute girls standing by the lamppost so I go talk to them. I guess they are Dutch in the first like 20 seconds, but after Amanda, aka Emo Glasses says “come on dude”, I know they’re from California instantly. They go to UCSD but are from SF. Blithe tries to call me out on my wet-suit shirt.
Blithe: Why are you wearing that?
Shiva: I’m hunting sharks in the Ibiza waters tonight in my wet suit; it’s going to be awesome.
Blithe: That’s not a wetsuit, it’s a rash guard.
Shiva: Your mom’s a rash guard.
So turns out the discobus comes here too, and the girls are going to Tiesto too. They tell me my friends are glaring at me. I say I should probably go back over there, come with. We get there, and they are talking to a fun young couple that is trying to get on the bus too and they have been waiting for 40 minutes. If the bus doesn’t come soon we decide to cab it. Luckily the bus shows up out of nowhere with the party already started on board. All seven of us get onto the bus somehow, and we plead with the bus driver for dos mas, but sadly the couple didn’t make it on. Should have kicked these Cali girls or Malaysian guys out. Talk to one of the Malaysian guys because well, Wei is awesome, and maybe his people are awesome too. These guys are pretty lame and weird looking quiet Asian guys who probably listen to Tiesto while they play starcraft. The bus ride is a party and frankly awesome in itself. There are guys standing up in the back singing and chanting and we join them in hums, dad a daaa daaa, oleeey oley oley oley, and (rap das armas) parappappapapapa. I throw a “Time’s up, Let’s do this, LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEROY MMMMJENKINSSSSSSS” once the club comes into view. The club is a enormous building with enough land around it to make a small amusement park. Finish our to-go absinthe bottle during the walk up to the club. Malaysian guys and Cali girls cross over the railing and sneak by on the grass: a-holes true, though I don’t care because I am amazing and we are having fun with the people around us with crazy hairpieces on.
Get into the club as the Love Lock Down remix is playing, SUPERSTAR. That’s all I have to say. We mosey all the way up to the DJ booth where we are literally 10 feet from Tiesto. The energy here is unbelievable; the only thing that rivals this is the White House crowd on election night. After a few people leave, we get on the rails, so we are right at the stage and it’s just the DJ booth between us and Tiesto. This music is awesome because you can dance anyway you like to it, some of the guys are doing bhangra, and there’s nothing wrong with some powerful fist pumping as well. The lights are spectacular, the music surreal, and the whole ensemble is LE…. wait for it, sorry if you didn’t get the chance to milk to thousands of people in a packed venue with some awesome music… GENDARY. Highlights of the night include Sex is on Fire remix, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and sampling from Tiesto’s new CD as well. The rest of the guys leave around 5:15am, but Shiva isn’t old yet and wants to hang around a little. Naren and I buy 6 euro water, our mouths are like deserts. We walk around past the pool which I am suited well for in the wet-shirt thing and to the back of the club. From seeing afar, we can now really appreciate the light show and the LEDs up front arrayed in different designs and figures. Leave around 6am, sun is coming up, an amazing day. Definitely considering cutting out a bit of London to come back here with Rishi.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Estoy estudiando espanol
Fue a madrid ayer y practico mi espanol. Necesito mi dicionario amarillo pero.
update from now: went out in madrid last night. got a good amount of spanish speaking in. yes i am carrying around this yellow spanish pocket dictionary.
corto un relampago en mi barba y pone un sabana ayer por la cena porque tene la pinca a la once en la noche
shaved a lightning bolt and wore a bedsheet yesterday for dinner because i had the clothespin at 11pm (this clothespin game)
update from now: went out in madrid last night. got a good amount of spanish speaking in. yes i am carrying around this yellow spanish pocket dictionary.
corto un relampago en mi barba y pone un sabana ayer por la cena porque tene la pinca a la once en la noche
shaved a lightning bolt and wore a bedsheet yesterday for dinner because i had the clothespin at 11pm (this clothespin game)
I’ll Play Brown If It Gots Some Vanilla In It- Night of Three Quarters of Indians
june 6th i think this was
Anuj, Surmeet, and I finally get to the all you can eat tapas after napping and relaxing while the grandpa group goes and does touristy things. This tapas place ends up being amazing and so worth it. The waiter would ask us if we want more? Of course.
More?
Si.
Mas?
Si.
Keep on getting plates of different tapas, get to try almost 20 different things. Amazing mushrooms and papas fritas and this dough thing with meat inside. They even make us a whole plate of Paella. The shrimp are kinda scary with the legs and heads still on, but we do some trauma surgery and get the meat out. I describe the clams as boogers to the other guys who haven't had clams before.
Actually the best clams I've had are at Anthony's when his roommate brought out some clams from Boston that are stuffed with breaded chorizo and spices. Didn't take too fishy and was quite delicious. This all-you-can eat tapas was definitely worth the 16 euro.
See a familiar face walking by down on the street, and yell “HERMIT”. Haha, this is random, Hermit is this guy I’ve played racquetball with back at GW. Get out of tapas, the rest of the guys go and see some water fountain show.
Quote of the night when there are 4 guys in the bathroom: “Suck it in, suck it in, suck it in!”
James Bond solo night again. Go back to the hostel and shower, meet some Aussie girls on the walk up the stairs. Head over to the travel bar for the pub crawl and whaddya know; the Aussie girls are here. So I step into the bar and open up one of the Aussie girls with “I feel like I’ve seen you before in another life”. Aussie Girl: “Try 5 minutes ago.” Shiva: “Were you a beetle? You reincarnated into something a tad less scaly.” Talk to her for a bit and there are a couple Aussie guys around too.
Meet one guy Nate, Nate Dog, who is generally an awesome guy. His friend is Rowan, Ro-Dog. And I am Shiv-Dog. 5 out of 6 of the Aussie Girls are super super cute. The 6th is a bit larger with curly hair and does not have a smile on her face all the time like the other girls. Jealousy: It lurks in the corner reminds me of that poster. Nate Dog has to work to befriend this girl whereas I go through the shit tests and dirty looks without a care in the world. Even though there is a large group, each girl has a very unique look and personality. There’s the redhead who’s all smiles and seemingly responsible. Rani the half Indian girl is just a super cutie with huge eyes and brunette hair. Gemma, the birthday girl is the crazy, skinny, dirty blonde drunk. One blonde girl has frizzy big hair and she has a slight punk look to her which is awesome. Another blonde has slightly curly hair and is super friendly.
Walk over to the next bar with our group. Nate Dog is talking about how he’s eaten a fossilized snake that’s been in a tequila bottle, and liquor from Thailand that had a goats head in it. You sir are a real man. Walk down with the 6 Aussie Girls and one of the different pub crawl manager guys that I’ve talked to is standing on the street with two people, smile at him because he told us his pub crawl was better. He’s standing there amongst all two sober people, humbled and definitely jealous. Get into the first bar and get a drink ticket, wasn’t really going to drink tonight, but o well, it’s free since I am just “hanging out” with the pub crawl and it’ll be fine later because the pub crawl guy Al taking us around is pretty chummy with me. Have an orgasmo shot with the Aussie girls and guys. Nate Dog buys three beers for himself, Shiv-Dog, and RoDog. Wow, I’ve bought I think a round of beers for Anuj’s birthday this trip; that might be it.
Gemma’s 22nd birthday is tonight so I take their picture and accidentally cut half of the readhead’s hair off. She has really dark red hair; it’s close to the dark brown hairs in my beard, nice hair, is it real? Though I don’t like the half I cut off obviously. She says of course it is real and not dyed. I tell her to get some blue hair on the other half and I’ll like that side too. End up talking to Rani, who is extremely cute and also sports the title Aussie girl with a half British and half Indian background, which worked out very well: She doesn’t have fucked up teeth, and from what I see, she isn’t bombarded with facial hair and a mustache. This bar is pretty sweet because they are doing flaming shots left and right and just washing the bar up and down with liquor and setting it ablaze. The bartenders are lighting shots aflame and roasting marshmallows on them.
There is a large commotion and I am not in the center of it, and I wonder why. I look over to a side of the bar and am mesmerized. There is a large chode dildo that is wider than a fist and about a foot long. There is a Spanish girl, god bless her (it must be really important if I use god bless, because I hate using that term), licking whipped cream off the dildo and giving it a real work around. She is very thorough with her task, licking and tea bagging the balls of the dildo as well. The bartender starts stroking the dildo and starts shooting streams of seemingly liquor all over the girls face and chest. We all give the trooper a round of applause as she goes to the bathroom to clean up.
I mosey back to the Aussie girls and comment that there’s a list of like 100 shots on the wall, but that girl ordered off the menu. Clearly there is no shot called “Money Shot” listed on the wall. Laughter ensues. English language, even though I’m horribly bad at it, is my crutch to communicate. Wish I could pick up girls by simply scratching them a la Kamal Patel.
Neesha says that's the Monica Lewinsky shot and she took it to the face. Trooper.
Next bar I meet two girls who are bored of just sitting around at small bars. They love to dance, just LOVE TO DANCE. They were at razzmatazz last night too apparently. Did you see the shirtless guy? No? Sorry for you then. One is UVA because she goes to UVA, and the other one says she is from Philly but is really like an hour and a half away, Philly Poser. Philly Poser is pre-med so I give her my GW Med bracelet so she can be a med student for the night.
Brazilian girls are at the bar and they are apparently going to Ibiza Tuesday. Sorry guys, missing out on Tiesto! They hate me so much right now, and I love it.
British guy Hunter at the next bar tells me to go to Space and Pacha in addition to our Tiesto night at Privilege. He says there’s also café mambo in San Antonio that people go to watch the sunset and pregame and when the sun sets everyone claps. Pretty sweet, reminds me of sunset across the ocean on our cruise a few years ago. Amazing sight.
All the pub crawl groups join up and it’s about 150 people and we get into the club which is the same marina one but it’s packed with about another 600 people.
We are with the Aussie girls; I love them because they are such good friends. Birthday girl is kissing her friends are trying to get everyone in but max they can get in is four girls. Love friendly people. There are another couple guys that latched onto our group, older bald Aussie guy, Hungarian guy, and Mexican? guy. The Aussie girls go over elsewhere on the dance floor to dance and we are at the bar still. Around 3am RoDog is tired and talks out some logistics. He thinks the Aussie girls are a coop and won’t budge. Nate Dog is optimistic and just tells him to wait. I ask them if Nate Dogs drink is half empty or half full. >> It's only like a quarter full. Shiva: IT DOESNT MATTER IT HAS BOOZE IN IT.
Optimism. I say we'll catch up later I'm going to go play around.
Outside on the patio:
Overheard in Barca: Probably the stupidest conversation I’ve had this trip, inclusive of the slurring, muttering nonsense.
Shiva: What are some good comedy clubs in London?
French Girl Olivia: I was an Au Pair. How do you like London? I loooove English people!
….
Olivia: I don’t like these kinds of places because you never meet anyone interesting. I'm glad I met you though. I love English people! When are you going back to London?
Shiva: uhh.. I’m going there around August-ish.
….
Olivia: English people are really nice, I’m glad to have found one in Barcelona!
>>>more nonsense I don’t remember
Shiva: I’m going to go now…….
Try to dance with Spanish girls, most will let me dance with them at this point, but won’t let me dance close. gr.
Punjabi MC comes on and yes Shiva the only Indian guy in all of the club does some fake Bhangra and gets all the Spanish girls to dance like an Indian this time. Because well, everyone knows I am the authority on Indian dancing. This would actually have been even sweeter if the Bhangra boys were here.
There are groups of bachelorette/birthday looking parties of girls and hang out with some of them. Don’t know Spanish well still so this is interesting. A bachelorette party group I end up trying to talk to but the girl I am talking to doesn’t know English well and I try to dance with her and she looks at her friends and calls me Loco. Call her out on it, Yo comprendo loco, yo conozco vocabulario. Owned. her face is priceless and she is pretty embarrassed. We dance for a bit and I can’t entertain all 8 girls and get bored so I go to play around a bit.
Run into the German guys from the bar and talk to them for a bit, and meet some Dutch people. Love Dutch people.
So besides the groups of bachelorette and birthday parties, there’s a group of girls in flamenco dresses as well in this club deemed Sunset. There’s a really cute one by the bar. White British girl who can dance flamenco, interesting. The whole troupe of them are British. I can’t seem to get away from British people this trip. London is going to be funn. Apparently they were dancing for 10 hours for a wedding. I tell her to put her show on for me since she’s still dressed up. She is apparently tired and will only do it for weddings. I say we are getting married then so she can dance. I’m marrying you only so you can dance though; I REALLY don’t want to marry you. This rocks her reality and she is appalled and insulted. That’s okay; I usually try to make it so people think Americans are rude, ignorant and foolish. So this girl looks white, talks with a British accent, and now tells me she’s a quarter Indian. No way, I don’t see facial hair, this can’t be true. I ask her friends and one of them doesn’t know but the other girl says it’s true. You guys are just helping her out. I go back to talking to the quarter Indian and one of the friends looks at her and just gives a disapproving nod to the BriQI – British Quarter Indian.
Hindsight comment: Thanks friend, I wonder if you’d still give that look if you knew later in the night I would give your friend a piggy back ride for 20 minutes.
BriQI swears it’s true and asks me why I she would lie about being Indian. I say cockily “Because you want to have an arranged marriage to me, don’t you”. I say something else a bit too inappropriate or a little mis-calibrated and BriQI says “I’m actually engaged.” Ignoring things I don’t like has been working pretty well and BriQI might have just said that similar reasons why girls say “I have a boyfriend” so I keep plowing along. One of the other flamenco girls is dancing around so I pull BriQI in for a spin and start her dancing and dance with her and her friend. BriQI won’t get close and flutters around so I start dancing with the friend.
I look around and BriQI is gone so I go to leave and look for Aussies. I run into BriQI further on the dance floor and tell her to stop stalking me; she has to talk to my parents to arrange the marriage. I get her to start dancing with me. What in the world? Shiva is dancing somewhat sober with an Indian girl??? Well I guess it doesn’t technically count since there’s no way you can tell she has a hint of brown in her. We end up getting close finally and before I do anything stupid, I kiss BriQI, this lasts all of half of a second where she exclaims “I can’t do this” and turns around and runs away.
I’m used to girls laughing themselves out of the room, damnit. Go around look for the Aussies, No Aussies. Sadface. Don’t remember much but leave after half an hour or so, it’s getting to be pretty late and I have to wake up early tomorrow.
Run into British Flamenco girls and they are looking for a cab because they can’t walk. One of the girls feet are bleeding and a little cut have left the rest of the foot red and looking quite bad. I give her some doctorly advice to clean it and keep it elevated when she gets home. I offer her a piggy back ride and we walk up to the main street and look for cabs. Of course every single cab is taken. In Barcelona there are yellow lights for cabs with people in it, and green lights for empty cab. We had about 50 yellow light cabs come by and another 10 green light cabs that were stolen or turned yellow right in front of our eyes. Piggy back ride is getting taxing and I’m getting tired but I need to burn off some food anyways. BriQI is with us but a little reserved so I’m not pushing it. I always kid around even when it’s too soon so with my piggy backee Meghan I ask her if she thinks I’m rude.
Meghan: No of course not.
Shiva: Well next time tell your Quarter Indian friend. She said I was rude.
Meghan: Who’s my Quarter Indian friend?
BriQI: I am!
Haha, apparently Meghan didn’t know either that Beth was a quarter Indian. I can be extra nice and help flag down a taxi! I go to fake put my hand up and Meghan: you’re going to drop me! Play around a bit more and the girls finally get a taxi and head home.
Quote of the night:
Walking quickly back home in an alley past the prostitutes after dropping the UVA girl off at her hostel, I see a girl on her back with a guy by her. Walk over to check to see if everything is okay. Guy seems to be her friend, I tell him to keep her on her side not passed out on her back. He pulls the girl up to a sitting position. Her eyes are closed but apparently she can hear us.
Drunk Passed Out British Girl: “Why’s an American telling me what to do?” (in a British accent)
Inner Monologue: Love you British people.
Shiva: Because this American’s a medical student. (reply in a British accent)
….
Unlucky Taking Care of Girl, Guy: uh….She’s actually a medical student too
Shiva: Well she shouldn’t be passed out in a random street at 530am ya think? Buenos Noches.
And with that, a Good Night boys and girls, hope you are enjoying the read.
Anuj, Surmeet, and I finally get to the all you can eat tapas after napping and relaxing while the grandpa group goes and does touristy things. This tapas place ends up being amazing and so worth it. The waiter would ask us if we want more? Of course.
More?
Si.
Mas?
Si.
Keep on getting plates of different tapas, get to try almost 20 different things. Amazing mushrooms and papas fritas and this dough thing with meat inside. They even make us a whole plate of Paella. The shrimp are kinda scary with the legs and heads still on, but we do some trauma surgery and get the meat out. I describe the clams as boogers to the other guys who haven't had clams before.
Actually the best clams I've had are at Anthony's when his roommate brought out some clams from Boston that are stuffed with breaded chorizo and spices. Didn't take too fishy and was quite delicious. This all-you-can eat tapas was definitely worth the 16 euro.
See a familiar face walking by down on the street, and yell “HERMIT”. Haha, this is random, Hermit is this guy I’ve played racquetball with back at GW. Get out of tapas, the rest of the guys go and see some water fountain show.
Quote of the night when there are 4 guys in the bathroom: “Suck it in, suck it in, suck it in!”
James Bond solo night again. Go back to the hostel and shower, meet some Aussie girls on the walk up the stairs. Head over to the travel bar for the pub crawl and whaddya know; the Aussie girls are here. So I step into the bar and open up one of the Aussie girls with “I feel like I’ve seen you before in another life”. Aussie Girl: “Try 5 minutes ago.” Shiva: “Were you a beetle? You reincarnated into something a tad less scaly.” Talk to her for a bit and there are a couple Aussie guys around too.
Meet one guy Nate, Nate Dog, who is generally an awesome guy. His friend is Rowan, Ro-Dog. And I am Shiv-Dog. 5 out of 6 of the Aussie Girls are super super cute. The 6th is a bit larger with curly hair and does not have a smile on her face all the time like the other girls. Jealousy: It lurks in the corner reminds me of that poster. Nate Dog has to work to befriend this girl whereas I go through the shit tests and dirty looks without a care in the world. Even though there is a large group, each girl has a very unique look and personality. There’s the redhead who’s all smiles and seemingly responsible. Rani the half Indian girl is just a super cutie with huge eyes and brunette hair. Gemma, the birthday girl is the crazy, skinny, dirty blonde drunk. One blonde girl has frizzy big hair and she has a slight punk look to her which is awesome. Another blonde has slightly curly hair and is super friendly.
Walk over to the next bar with our group. Nate Dog is talking about how he’s eaten a fossilized snake that’s been in a tequila bottle, and liquor from Thailand that had a goats head in it. You sir are a real man. Walk down with the 6 Aussie Girls and one of the different pub crawl manager guys that I’ve talked to is standing on the street with two people, smile at him because he told us his pub crawl was better. He’s standing there amongst all two sober people, humbled and definitely jealous. Get into the first bar and get a drink ticket, wasn’t really going to drink tonight, but o well, it’s free since I am just “hanging out” with the pub crawl and it’ll be fine later because the pub crawl guy Al taking us around is pretty chummy with me. Have an orgasmo shot with the Aussie girls and guys. Nate Dog buys three beers for himself, Shiv-Dog, and RoDog. Wow, I’ve bought I think a round of beers for Anuj’s birthday this trip; that might be it.
Gemma’s 22nd birthday is tonight so I take their picture and accidentally cut half of the readhead’s hair off. She has really dark red hair; it’s close to the dark brown hairs in my beard, nice hair, is it real? Though I don’t like the half I cut off obviously. She says of course it is real and not dyed. I tell her to get some blue hair on the other half and I’ll like that side too. End up talking to Rani, who is extremely cute and also sports the title Aussie girl with a half British and half Indian background, which worked out very well: She doesn’t have fucked up teeth, and from what I see, she isn’t bombarded with facial hair and a mustache. This bar is pretty sweet because they are doing flaming shots left and right and just washing the bar up and down with liquor and setting it ablaze. The bartenders are lighting shots aflame and roasting marshmallows on them.
There is a large commotion and I am not in the center of it, and I wonder why. I look over to a side of the bar and am mesmerized. There is a large chode dildo that is wider than a fist and about a foot long. There is a Spanish girl, god bless her (it must be really important if I use god bless, because I hate using that term), licking whipped cream off the dildo and giving it a real work around. She is very thorough with her task, licking and tea bagging the balls of the dildo as well. The bartender starts stroking the dildo and starts shooting streams of seemingly liquor all over the girls face and chest. We all give the trooper a round of applause as she goes to the bathroom to clean up.
I mosey back to the Aussie girls and comment that there’s a list of like 100 shots on the wall, but that girl ordered off the menu. Clearly there is no shot called “Money Shot” listed on the wall. Laughter ensues. English language, even though I’m horribly bad at it, is my crutch to communicate. Wish I could pick up girls by simply scratching them a la Kamal Patel.
Neesha says that's the Monica Lewinsky shot and she took it to the face. Trooper.
Next bar I meet two girls who are bored of just sitting around at small bars. They love to dance, just LOVE TO DANCE. They were at razzmatazz last night too apparently. Did you see the shirtless guy? No? Sorry for you then. One is UVA because she goes to UVA, and the other one says she is from Philly but is really like an hour and a half away, Philly Poser. Philly Poser is pre-med so I give her my GW Med bracelet so she can be a med student for the night.
Brazilian girls are at the bar and they are apparently going to Ibiza Tuesday. Sorry guys, missing out on Tiesto! They hate me so much right now, and I love it.
British guy Hunter at the next bar tells me to go to Space and Pacha in addition to our Tiesto night at Privilege. He says there’s also café mambo in San Antonio that people go to watch the sunset and pregame and when the sun sets everyone claps. Pretty sweet, reminds me of sunset across the ocean on our cruise a few years ago. Amazing sight.
All the pub crawl groups join up and it’s about 150 people and we get into the club which is the same marina one but it’s packed with about another 600 people.
We are with the Aussie girls; I love them because they are such good friends. Birthday girl is kissing her friends are trying to get everyone in but max they can get in is four girls. Love friendly people. There are another couple guys that latched onto our group, older bald Aussie guy, Hungarian guy, and Mexican? guy. The Aussie girls go over elsewhere on the dance floor to dance and we are at the bar still. Around 3am RoDog is tired and talks out some logistics. He thinks the Aussie girls are a coop and won’t budge. Nate Dog is optimistic and just tells him to wait. I ask them if Nate Dogs drink is half empty or half full. >> It's only like a quarter full. Shiva: IT DOESNT MATTER IT HAS BOOZE IN IT.
Optimism. I say we'll catch up later I'm going to go play around.
Outside on the patio:
Overheard in Barca: Probably the stupidest conversation I’ve had this trip, inclusive of the slurring, muttering nonsense.
Shiva: What are some good comedy clubs in London?
French Girl Olivia: I was an Au Pair. How do you like London? I loooove English people!
….
Olivia: I don’t like these kinds of places because you never meet anyone interesting. I'm glad I met you though. I love English people! When are you going back to London?
Shiva: uhh.. I’m going there around August-ish.
….
Olivia: English people are really nice, I’m glad to have found one in Barcelona!
>>>more nonsense I don’t remember
Shiva: I’m going to go now…….
Try to dance with Spanish girls, most will let me dance with them at this point, but won’t let me dance close. gr.
Punjabi MC comes on and yes Shiva the only Indian guy in all of the club does some fake Bhangra and gets all the Spanish girls to dance like an Indian this time. Because well, everyone knows I am the authority on Indian dancing. This would actually have been even sweeter if the Bhangra boys were here.
There are groups of bachelorette/birthday looking parties of girls and hang out with some of them. Don’t know Spanish well still so this is interesting. A bachelorette party group I end up trying to talk to but the girl I am talking to doesn’t know English well and I try to dance with her and she looks at her friends and calls me Loco. Call her out on it, Yo comprendo loco, yo conozco vocabulario. Owned. her face is priceless and she is pretty embarrassed. We dance for a bit and I can’t entertain all 8 girls and get bored so I go to play around a bit.
Run into the German guys from the bar and talk to them for a bit, and meet some Dutch people. Love Dutch people.
So besides the groups of bachelorette and birthday parties, there’s a group of girls in flamenco dresses as well in this club deemed Sunset. There’s a really cute one by the bar. White British girl who can dance flamenco, interesting. The whole troupe of them are British. I can’t seem to get away from British people this trip. London is going to be funn. Apparently they were dancing for 10 hours for a wedding. I tell her to put her show on for me since she’s still dressed up. She is apparently tired and will only do it for weddings. I say we are getting married then so she can dance. I’m marrying you only so you can dance though; I REALLY don’t want to marry you. This rocks her reality and she is appalled and insulted. That’s okay; I usually try to make it so people think Americans are rude, ignorant and foolish. So this girl looks white, talks with a British accent, and now tells me she’s a quarter Indian. No way, I don’t see facial hair, this can’t be true. I ask her friends and one of them doesn’t know but the other girl says it’s true. You guys are just helping her out. I go back to talking to the quarter Indian and one of the friends looks at her and just gives a disapproving nod to the BriQI – British Quarter Indian.
Hindsight comment: Thanks friend, I wonder if you’d still give that look if you knew later in the night I would give your friend a piggy back ride for 20 minutes.
BriQI swears it’s true and asks me why I she would lie about being Indian. I say cockily “Because you want to have an arranged marriage to me, don’t you”. I say something else a bit too inappropriate or a little mis-calibrated and BriQI says “I’m actually engaged.” Ignoring things I don’t like has been working pretty well and BriQI might have just said that similar reasons why girls say “I have a boyfriend” so I keep plowing along. One of the other flamenco girls is dancing around so I pull BriQI in for a spin and start her dancing and dance with her and her friend. BriQI won’t get close and flutters around so I start dancing with the friend.
I look around and BriQI is gone so I go to leave and look for Aussies. I run into BriQI further on the dance floor and tell her to stop stalking me; she has to talk to my parents to arrange the marriage. I get her to start dancing with me. What in the world? Shiva is dancing somewhat sober with an Indian girl??? Well I guess it doesn’t technically count since there’s no way you can tell she has a hint of brown in her. We end up getting close finally and before I do anything stupid, I kiss BriQI, this lasts all of half of a second where she exclaims “I can’t do this” and turns around and runs away.
I’m used to girls laughing themselves out of the room, damnit. Go around look for the Aussies, No Aussies. Sadface. Don’t remember much but leave after half an hour or so, it’s getting to be pretty late and I have to wake up early tomorrow.
Run into British Flamenco girls and they are looking for a cab because they can’t walk. One of the girls feet are bleeding and a little cut have left the rest of the foot red and looking quite bad. I give her some doctorly advice to clean it and keep it elevated when she gets home. I offer her a piggy back ride and we walk up to the main street and look for cabs. Of course every single cab is taken. In Barcelona there are yellow lights for cabs with people in it, and green lights for empty cab. We had about 50 yellow light cabs come by and another 10 green light cabs that were stolen or turned yellow right in front of our eyes. Piggy back ride is getting taxing and I’m getting tired but I need to burn off some food anyways. BriQI is with us but a little reserved so I’m not pushing it. I always kid around even when it’s too soon so with my piggy backee Meghan I ask her if she thinks I’m rude.
Meghan: No of course not.
Shiva: Well next time tell your Quarter Indian friend. She said I was rude.
Meghan: Who’s my Quarter Indian friend?
BriQI: I am!
Haha, apparently Meghan didn’t know either that Beth was a quarter Indian. I can be extra nice and help flag down a taxi! I go to fake put my hand up and Meghan: you’re going to drop me! Play around a bit more and the girls finally get a taxi and head home.
Quote of the night:
Walking quickly back home in an alley past the prostitutes after dropping the UVA girl off at her hostel, I see a girl on her back with a guy by her. Walk over to check to see if everything is okay. Guy seems to be her friend, I tell him to keep her on her side not passed out on her back. He pulls the girl up to a sitting position. Her eyes are closed but apparently she can hear us.
Drunk Passed Out British Girl: “Why’s an American telling me what to do?” (in a British accent)
Inner Monologue: Love you British people.
Shiva: Because this American’s a medical student. (reply in a British accent)
….
Unlucky Taking Care of Girl, Guy: uh….She’s actually a medical student too
Shiva: Well she shouldn’t be passed out in a random street at 530am ya think? Buenos Noches.
And with that, a Good Night boys and girls, hope you are enjoying the read.
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