So apparently I´ve resurfaced from my blackout. I spent five days walking the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage to the Tomb of the Apostle St. James that lies in the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. The pilgrimage itself dates back to the 11th century and was immensly popular during the middle ages, so much so that later the Vatican decreed that those who walked the pigrimage would be absolved of their sins. I walked the last 116 km (about 70 miles) of the most known and popular route: the Camino Frances. The actual route starts in France and is 780 km and there are tons of people who do it, over 100,000 last year starting from France or anywhere in between. The suggested walking distance each day is anywhere from 20-25 km. My journey was much smaller and I´m sure much less painful than many of those I walked with, but I did a decent job of handicapping myself by overpacking (I had about 35 lbs of luggage on my back), walking far too long each day, and wearing a worn out pair of tennis shoes. Since this entry covers five days it may be a bit long but I will try to be concise, for those of you limited in time or interest skip to the bottom where I will have my highlights.
DAY 1
I took the overnight bus to Santiago from Madrid, which was a terrible mistake. The amount of sleep I got could be counted in minutes and not hours. Nonetheless, my eyes were jostled open as our bus navigated the windy streets of Santiago. At first I could see nothing, then I clear my eyes and still was lacking in vision. The city was covered in a blanket of fog thick enough to enduce legarthy on even the most energetic, it was really quite amazing. After arriving I made my way into the city trying to figure out how the hell I was going to complete this journey. This was, by far, my most unplanned and (and therefore liberating) experience yet. There is a breadth of information about the camino in books, but I could find none in English and had to rely on the little tidbits I could find online. Through the next 6 hours I attained my credential (like a passport, you get stamps along the way), packed my things, and took another bus out to my starting point. I started my journey at 3:30 pm in Sarria, although I´d say it really started at 4 since I spent a half hour wandering around trying to find the trail. My first leg took me up a great hill and into the countryside. I attained my first stamp at an old Romanesque church in Barbadelo and met Edmon, a Filipino I ended up walking with for the rest of the day. Exisitng along the trail are Alberques, many of which will house you for a donation (a euro or two) but the one we made it to was full that night so we either had to hike back 1.5 km or ahead 9. It was late, we hiked back and stayed at a private hostel. It was only 8 euros and probably one of the best nights sleep I´ve had while in Europe, though it spoiled me for the rest of the trip. Distance covered today: 14 km.
Day 2
I awoke around 8, packed my things, broke my fast and headed out. I enjoyed meeting Edmon and other travelers that evening and sharing stories but wanted a little time to myself. The sun doesn´t rise until around 8:30 or 9 so the morning is really peaceful and I had some time to reflect (on what, I don´t know). After about an hour and a half (7.5 km) I ended up meeting back up with Edmon and another couple we met the previous night, Pedro and Carolina. We spent the rest of the day navigating trails, tending to foot wounds, hydrating, eating, and conversing. At one point we ended up being slowed by a farmer and his cows and bulls. He was walking them to a field and they took up the entire road, I didn´t mind. The fun part was that a bus was actually trying to pass and the farmer made no effort to move his herd to the side of the road, but the bus driver didn´t seem to mind either. The trails took us through many small villages with friendly locals, everyone you see is greeted and if you see a fellow traveler (and you will usually see many) the common phrase is `buen camino,` or good walk, trip, etc. We made it to our stopping point in Palas de Rei around 4pm at a public hostel. My feet were absolutely killing me, but I had to keep walking around the city to keep my muscles from cramping. I prepared for the next day, got some food, read a little, then off to bed around 9:30 pm. Total Distance: 34 km.
DAY 3
The general schedule of a person on the camino is to wake early and start let´s say before 9AM, walk until 1 or 2, then take rest for the night. This is allow for time to wash clothes and still have sun to dry them and it also keeps one from walking in the mid-day heat (which there actually was in October). Today I decided to start my adventure solo again, figuring I´d meet up with Edmon along the way. I was a bit slower due to lactic acid and stiffness in my shoulders, knees, quads, and feet. Edmon, however, was in a similar situationa and I actually ended up walking the entire day by myself which turned out quite nice. I made it to Arzua a little before 3 pm and followed the nightly ritual mentioned above. Edmon actually ended up staying at the same hostel and we spent a good amount of time talking with some Spaniards and Portugese men. The Spaniards had been in our hostel the night before and they made great alarm clocks, once one of them was up, everyone was up. Since the Alberque I stayed in a public, most varied in size in quality. Last night I slept in a room with 10 people and the unisex showers had no doors. This one at least had mens and womens bathrooms but I was sleeping in a room of 32. I also had no sleeping bag and for the past two night was not provided a blanket, so I had to put all of my layers on and huddle in the fetal position for warmth as the nights got pretty cold and there was very little installation. Total Distance: 27 km.
DAY 4
After talking with the Spaniards Edmon and I had set our mind on a goal: Monte de Gozo. From Arzua we were a little more than 40 km from Santiago and are choice was either the aforementioned, which was 5km from Santiago or O Pino, 20km from the city. We wanted to be in the city by noon on Friday for the Pilgrams mass and decided a nice easy 5km stroll would be our best bet, problem being we had to walk 36 km that day to attain it. I taped up my feet, covered my blisters, put on a new pair of socks and hobbled out in hopes of making it there. The journey was brutal, not only on my feet and legs, but also my stomach. We were determined and rpessed on frequently but found ourselves hungry for lunch but without a restaurant, cafe or bar in sight (which are very common along the way). It took us 7km to find our welcome reprieve but boy did we enjoy it. Afterwards we only had 5km to our destination, which were damn tough as they were all uphill and I was pretty sure my feet were going to fall off. Monte de Gozo means ´hill of joy´because its the first place where you can see the Cathedral spires in the city. Although the cathedral is somewhat hard to see, it was certainly joyous for me since I had accomplished my goal. They developed a huge complex there to house thousands of pilgrams on their final night before their descent and it was actually quite nice. On my way up I was passed by a group of 13 yr olds on a field trip and thought how cool it would be to get to do this as part of your formal schooling, WRONG, NOT COOL! Those little shits spent the night running around yelling and screaming while pilgrims were trying to sleep. The security guard wanted nothing to do with them so Teacher Dan came out and started to regulate. At first I asked nicely in spanish, an hour later I asked sternly in spanish, then I started to angry in English and they got the point pretty quick. I´ll continue this aside below as there is more that I want to say but it doesn´t involve the camino. Once the kids were quiet our building could sleep and it was nice since i actually had a blanket this time. Total Distance: 35 km.
DAY 5
There was little that was going to stop me from reaching the city. 5 km downhil pailed in comparison to what I had done on previous days and even though I was stiff and soar, my excitement took over and carried me through. Edmon and I completed the journey down with relative ease and stopped in the Pelegrino (pilgrims) office to get our compostela. The compostela is the certificate saying you completed the walk, although you only have to do a minimum of 100 km, getting at least two stamps each day along the way. When getting your compostela you can either mark religious on non-religious reasons. I embarked on this journey in hopes of gaining a little solitude. Some time away from tv, internet, cell phones, iPods, etc. I would find it hard to believe that someone could complete the camino without feeling somewhat spiritual about it, even for those like me who embark without religious intent. Nonetheless, I couldn´t in good conscience mark religious and was somehwat surprised by their reaction (I think I was the first, and perhaps the only, of the day). I was given a different certificate, my name was written in English instead of Latin, and definitely felt that I was looked at a bit differently. Oh well. We made our way to the cathedral around 11:30 in preparation for the mass. The mass, in Spanish, started at 12 and they actually began by reading the starting points and countries of origin of pilgrims who had finished on that day, it was pretty cool. I was ún pelegrino de Estados Unidos desde Sarria.´ Since the mass was in Spanish most of it was lost on me and it wasn´t as solemn as I had hoped since it was overrun by tourists (those who didn´t do the camino). However, they ended the service by swinging this immense incense burner across the archway over the congregation. I´ve been told it started because the smell of the pilgrims used to be so bad they used incense, but who knows, it was cool either way. Total Distance: 5 km.
HIGHLIGHTS
The most memorable events in my excursion was all my interactions. The list of nationalities is too long to mention but I think my favorite people to talk to were the Brazlians. Most who speak Portugese speak Spanish and since the languages are so close the often take a little more time and speak a little slower, which is more to my spanish level. Edmon was my Filipino travel partner. He had been studying philosphy and religion in Belgium for three years and was on his way back to the Phillipenes, probably to become a priest. It was great hearing about his customs and traditions and it was fun to share cultural stories. Pedro and Caralina were from Toledo and Pedro was a bullfighter, they both only spoke Spanish. Pedro had a very humble perspective but I could tell that he was good at his profession from the fact that he had been in it for 15 years and he fights annually in Madrid, the mecca for bullfighters. I talked a bit with him about Hemingway and was surprised he hadn´t read The Sun Also Rises.
My favorite moment was a morning when I was walking alone. Watching the fog lift and the sun paint the hillside made it almost look as if the earth was waking up, it was a perfect moment frozen in time and I will never forget it.
It´s interesting to hear the reasons why people do the camino. Some have lost a loved one, others are trying to figure out their lives, some do it for religion, and others just because it´s there. I´d say I landed in the later portion but already talked about the spirituality. There is also a grand commroderie amongst walkers. Not only is everyone a visitor away from their home, everyone is also a pilgrim. Everyone is so nice and so friendly and conversations are had even when people don´t speak the same language.
I am definitely putting this on my list of things to do, except next time I want to do the whole thing. Special thanks to Tony Kupersmith who actually did the whole thing awhile back and was a great help in planning my journey.
SPANISH KIDS
At first I felt a little bad about yelling at those kids. I was a guest in their country after all. Then I started to realize that we were all guests and that guilt went away. The situation is also unique in that the kids were actually operating within the techinal rules of the hostel. Quiet time was at 11pm and the height of their noise was around 10pm when i first asked them nicely to quiet down. The thing is, I wasn´t the first to ask. For those of you who read my description of the typical day, you know pilgrims turn in around nine or ten. Some of these people had walked 780 km and were trying to get a final nights rest before the service the next day. These kids come in, having walked probably about 50km with no packs and they are going to keep everyone up? I don´t think so. I was astonished most at the fact that their teachers were nowhere in sight, it turns out they were at the cafe having a beer or coffee. At this point was completely embarrased for the Spanish education system. All of the cultural experience was lost on these students who spent their time running around with their cell phones screaming instead of talking to pilgrims. They obviously knew nothing of the journey that the Camino entails and decided to make it more of a summer camp, and then their teachers weren´t even there to supervise them? Had I been their princepal heads would have rolled.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Hairlip Dan
In an effort to make myself as unattractive as possible I´ve decided to grow out my facial hair. For those of you that know me and know I only have to shave about once a week, you know that this is truly a daring feat. For those of you that don´t know me, know this: I don´t really have facial hair, stubble doesn´t exist, and what does grow is sparse and only present in the moustache/goatee area of my face. Better but, in the words of Dennis Miller from Joe Dirt `you mean you are so inbred with White Trash DNA that your facial hair actually grows in all white trashy like that?` Not his most poetic work but it gets the point across nicely.
The reasons for my doing so are threefold:
1) I get really lazy when it comes to shaving
2) Frugality - Shaving cream is expensive here and `travel size` doesn´t exist
3) Practicality - Shaving cream is bulky, takes up luggage space, and can´t make it through on a carry on
My previous record for days without shaving was somewhere around 12, leaving me looking slightly more masculine than your local 15 year old backwoods boy who is trying to impress his girlfriend/cousin. Right now I´say I´m somewhere around day 20, and although my manstache has grown in darker and thicker than previous there is one slight problem: very little hair grows below the bridge of my nose. I´m not sure if this is common among men and I just don´t have the fullness or if I am some kind of hairless freak, but I am left with what looks like a cleft between the two sides of my mustache: essentially a hairlip. It´s subtle but beautiful in it´s own oddity and I´ve decided to keep it, so from hear on own just assume that every interaction I talk about people are having to deal with covering up any reaction to my temporary oddity.
The reasons for my doing so are threefold:
1) I get really lazy when it comes to shaving
2) Frugality - Shaving cream is expensive here and `travel size` doesn´t exist
3) Practicality - Shaving cream is bulky, takes up luggage space, and can´t make it through on a carry on
My previous record for days without shaving was somewhere around 12, leaving me looking slightly more masculine than your local 15 year old backwoods boy who is trying to impress his girlfriend/cousin. Right now I´say I´m somewhere around day 20, and although my manstache has grown in darker and thicker than previous there is one slight problem: very little hair grows below the bridge of my nose. I´m not sure if this is common among men and I just don´t have the fullness or if I am some kind of hairless freak, but I am left with what looks like a cleft between the two sides of my mustache: essentially a hairlip. It´s subtle but beautiful in it´s own oddity and I´ve decided to keep it, so from hear on own just assume that every interaction I talk about people are having to deal with covering up any reaction to my temporary oddity.
Madrid
I arrived in Madrid on a Friday ready for an exciting weekend. That Friday was EL DIA DE ESPANA, somewhat similar to our independence day though I´m told it´s in honor of the military. I was supposed to meet a friend of a friend for a drink but those plans fell through at the last minute...oh well. The aforementioned actually serves as a pretty good example of one of the reoccuring themes of this trip: make due. It has been very seldom where what I have actually planned has come to fruition, nonetheless I have adjusted and it has worked out better than fine, just as it did in this case.
I actually ended up meeting up with a couple of Aussies and an American that night and we drank and talked until the wee hours. Although I would have preferred some spanish, after several weeks of immersion I was ready for some reprieve. The Aussies were great, the American not so much. He wasn´t one of those obnoxious over the top americans who embarass our country, but I could point him out as a fraud. He failed what I like to call the Shitmus test (supposed to rhyme litmus test, clever huh?), as in he´s full of shit. The general trend among travelers is to share stories and experiences and, if at all possible, a few recommendations; however, he would always try to one up everyone with his stories so I put him to the test. We were talking about Octoberfest as he had been too and obviously had a much more amazing time than me, so I put it to him asking him what he thought of the german´s playing John Denver all the time. He got up to give me a high five saying `hell yeah, leaving on a jet plane right!?!` WRONG! Could you imagine Germans swilling lager, holding hands and singing leaving on a jet plane? Might as well grab a guitar and bust out a rendition of Kum-By-Yah (spelling anyone?) he song is THANK GOD IM A COUNTRY BOY and anyone who has set foot in a beer tent knows it because they cram it down your throat with all sorts of versions, including a techno remix. He had been beaten, and though I chose not to share with the rest of group, he knew. Sorry, I had to get that off my chest, I had falsity.
Madrid itself is kind of cool. I´d compare it to a Philly (sorry Matt) in that it´s historical and cultural but you don´t really ever need to visit it more than once. I checked out the museo de Prado , Spain´s most famous art museum with works from all the Spanish greats (de Gama, Velasquez, etc.), pretty nice though my eye for art is not what it should be. I also enjoyed the museo de jamon (literally the museum of ham) which is a local restaurant that serves up E 1.20 ham sandwhiches that I pretty much lived off of while I was there as it´s an expensive city. On Sunday I got to check out the ATP Masters event that came to Madrid. I was with my Aussie friend and we went early and got to see Federer playing a practice match with a popular spanish player whose name escapes me right now. That alone was worth the 6 euro, but we also got to see five more hours of competitive tennis with some mid-level names...not bad. That night I headed off to Santiago de Compostela.
TERRORISM
I doubt many of you heard about this as I had to check on BBC.com for the international scoop, but the previous Tuesday, el dia de Valencia, a car bomb went off in Bilbao. This was in response to the day even though it was nowhere near valencia, Basque seperatists were trying to assasinate a mayor but felled. Nonetheless Madrid was on high alert for Friday as it has been a common target. I didn´t mention this previous as the common targets are usually mass transport, though in all fairness Spain´s high alert really just means police gaurds at stations, it´s not quite like in America. Spain is one of the few unfortunate countries that continually suffers from international and national terrorism. As many of you rememeber a few years back Al Quieda hit madrid in a parking lot at the train station, and for several decades Basque seperatists (the northern region) have targeted Spanish authorities and public areas in hopes of gaining there independence. It´s quite sad really but it was unable to quell the spanish thirst for celebration and the weekend went off without a hitch.
I actually ended up meeting up with a couple of Aussies and an American that night and we drank and talked until the wee hours. Although I would have preferred some spanish, after several weeks of immersion I was ready for some reprieve. The Aussies were great, the American not so much. He wasn´t one of those obnoxious over the top americans who embarass our country, but I could point him out as a fraud. He failed what I like to call the Shitmus test (supposed to rhyme litmus test, clever huh?), as in he´s full of shit. The general trend among travelers is to share stories and experiences and, if at all possible, a few recommendations; however, he would always try to one up everyone with his stories so I put him to the test. We were talking about Octoberfest as he had been too and obviously had a much more amazing time than me, so I put it to him asking him what he thought of the german´s playing John Denver all the time. He got up to give me a high five saying `hell yeah, leaving on a jet plane right!?!` WRONG! Could you imagine Germans swilling lager, holding hands and singing leaving on a jet plane? Might as well grab a guitar and bust out a rendition of Kum-By-Yah (spelling anyone?) he song is THANK GOD IM A COUNTRY BOY and anyone who has set foot in a beer tent knows it because they cram it down your throat with all sorts of versions, including a techno remix. He had been beaten, and though I chose not to share with the rest of group, he knew. Sorry, I had to get that off my chest, I had falsity.
Madrid itself is kind of cool. I´d compare it to a Philly (sorry Matt) in that it´s historical and cultural but you don´t really ever need to visit it more than once. I checked out the museo de Prado , Spain´s most famous art museum with works from all the Spanish greats (de Gama, Velasquez, etc.), pretty nice though my eye for art is not what it should be. I also enjoyed the museo de jamon (literally the museum of ham) which is a local restaurant that serves up E 1.20 ham sandwhiches that I pretty much lived off of while I was there as it´s an expensive city. On Sunday I got to check out the ATP Masters event that came to Madrid. I was with my Aussie friend and we went early and got to see Federer playing a practice match with a popular spanish player whose name escapes me right now. That alone was worth the 6 euro, but we also got to see five more hours of competitive tennis with some mid-level names...not bad. That night I headed off to Santiago de Compostela.
TERRORISM
I doubt many of you heard about this as I had to check on BBC.com for the international scoop, but the previous Tuesday, el dia de Valencia, a car bomb went off in Bilbao. This was in response to the day even though it was nowhere near valencia, Basque seperatists were trying to assasinate a mayor but felled. Nonetheless Madrid was on high alert for Friday as it has been a common target. I didn´t mention this previous as the common targets are usually mass transport, though in all fairness Spain´s high alert really just means police gaurds at stations, it´s not quite like in America. Spain is one of the few unfortunate countries that continually suffers from international and national terrorism. As many of you rememeber a few years back Al Quieda hit madrid in a parking lot at the train station, and for several decades Basque seperatists (the northern region) have targeted Spanish authorities and public areas in hopes of gaining there independence. It´s quite sad really but it was unable to quell the spanish thirst for celebration and the weekend went off without a hitch.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Alicante
My first thought when our bus pulled into the city was "I made a mistake, I should have lived here." My first sight was the beach, which spanned the city and was absolutely gorgeous. There was also a port with a multitude of sail boats and it helped that it was a maginificent day. This was my first trip without booking a hostel ahead of time so I was a bit tentative but also proud of my new nomadic tendency. Finding a hostel was no problem and after settling in I headed straight for the beach (a block away). I never would have thought I'd be spending time on the beach in mid-october so it was a welcome surprise. I decided to hold off on the picture taking until the next day as I was so exited to just ramble about the city.
That night I went out to two bars, el coscorron and coyote ugly. The first claims to be the oldest bar in the city. Dating back to 1936, it gets its name from the bump on your head you're likely to get from walkin in under the 4ft door. It's made even smaller by the fact that you have to step down immediately after, I swear it was meant for hobbits! Cool bar though. Although it sounds like a cop-out, my trip to Coyote Ugly afterwards actually was somewhat cultural. I'd never been to one before and although I'd imagine the ones in the states are a bit wilder, this still had value. The port in Alicante juts a few hundred meters out into the water and a string of restaurants and bars line it, Coyote Ugly is one of them. A midnight beer while gazing upon calm waters and beautiful boats isn't a bad way to spend a night.
I'd have to say the most memorable part of the evening happened during my trip to the port. There's only one way in and as I wandered along I was acosted by some very upfront prostitutes, shouting "you want sexy" and "sexy time." Fortunately I was able to contain my laughter until after I had passed them. On my way back I tried to be stealth and walk on the other side and literally had one of them chasing me down shouting various sexual propositions to me...no more port.
DAY 2
I awoke to the sound of rain...not good. After a quick breakfast and a walk through the rain I decided I was going to hike up to this castle that is situated 200 meters up on a hill along the water. It seems very out of place but is really quite a spectacle. I made it about a fourth of the way of when lightening split the sky, this was not the time to test fate. I headed back down, kicking myself for assuming the weather was going to be as good as the previous day. I filled sometime by planning future excursions, reading, and doing a bit of writing. In the afternoon the rain continued but the storm has subsided so I made my journey up to the castle. The scenes were spectacular (city, ocean, coast, etc.) but culturally, the castle wasn't much.
I started my evening with some more reading as the weather poured down. As I was heading back from the port to grab some dinner I noticed the rain had increased substantially (especially for someone who only had a poncho). The silver lining, however, is that I saw the most vivrent rainbow of my life stretching across the port. I snapped what was probably the most amazing picure I've ever taken and noticed an added bonus- the castle in the background actually had a second (though somewhat faded) rainbow coming out of the top.
That night I went out to a disco for "happy hour" which was from midnight until 2am, I felt embarrased leaving before it ended. In the end, I decided Alicante is nice for a weekend but I'm glad I didn't live there, it's a bit too small and the beach is too much of a distraction.
CAMINO
I'm starting my walk on the camino tomorrow so I'll be 'going dark'for about a week. Look for another update around next sunday.
That night I went out to two bars, el coscorron and coyote ugly. The first claims to be the oldest bar in the city. Dating back to 1936, it gets its name from the bump on your head you're likely to get from walkin in under the 4ft door. It's made even smaller by the fact that you have to step down immediately after, I swear it was meant for hobbits! Cool bar though. Although it sounds like a cop-out, my trip to Coyote Ugly afterwards actually was somewhat cultural. I'd never been to one before and although I'd imagine the ones in the states are a bit wilder, this still had value. The port in Alicante juts a few hundred meters out into the water and a string of restaurants and bars line it, Coyote Ugly is one of them. A midnight beer while gazing upon calm waters and beautiful boats isn't a bad way to spend a night.
I'd have to say the most memorable part of the evening happened during my trip to the port. There's only one way in and as I wandered along I was acosted by some very upfront prostitutes, shouting "you want sexy" and "sexy time." Fortunately I was able to contain my laughter until after I had passed them. On my way back I tried to be stealth and walk on the other side and literally had one of them chasing me down shouting various sexual propositions to me...no more port.
DAY 2
I awoke to the sound of rain...not good. After a quick breakfast and a walk through the rain I decided I was going to hike up to this castle that is situated 200 meters up on a hill along the water. It seems very out of place but is really quite a spectacle. I made it about a fourth of the way of when lightening split the sky, this was not the time to test fate. I headed back down, kicking myself for assuming the weather was going to be as good as the previous day. I filled sometime by planning future excursions, reading, and doing a bit of writing. In the afternoon the rain continued but the storm has subsided so I made my journey up to the castle. The scenes were spectacular (city, ocean, coast, etc.) but culturally, the castle wasn't much.
I started my evening with some more reading as the weather poured down. As I was heading back from the port to grab some dinner I noticed the rain had increased substantially (especially for someone who only had a poncho). The silver lining, however, is that I saw the most vivrent rainbow of my life stretching across the port. I snapped what was probably the most amazing picure I've ever taken and noticed an added bonus- the castle in the background actually had a second (though somewhat faded) rainbow coming out of the top.
That night I went out to a disco for "happy hour" which was from midnight until 2am, I felt embarrased leaving before it ended. In the end, I decided Alicante is nice for a weekend but I'm glad I didn't live there, it's a bit too small and the beach is too much of a distraction.
CAMINO
I'm starting my walk on the camino tomorrow so I'll be 'going dark'for about a week. Look for another update around next sunday.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
El Dia de Valenica
So I left Valencia on October 10th, but fortunately for me El Dia de Valencia was on October 9th. The day is a celebration that would equal a combination of our valentine´s day and 4th of july. It´s actually in honor of King Jaime´s expulsion of the Moors (or is it Moops?) from the city in the mid-thirteenth century. As the celebrations began hundreds of year ago, the use of fire was prohibited. In order to stick it to the man, bakers made pastries in the form of fireworks and those were based around. This eventually transformed into scarves that are wrapped in the form of rockets (think conical) and filled with sweets, the tradional gift on this day. I wish I could have partaken in this cultural treat, but as many of you know I gave up eating desserts for new years (and what many of you don´t know is that I also gave up eating scarves).
The night before ´the big day´ I was at my spanish-english conversations at a local bar and ended up meeting up with some locals and a few of their german friends. We made our way to the fireworks in the Rio (as desribed in an earlier entry) around 11:30 as they were to start around Midnight. I have to admit my bias that I had a feeling these were going to be the best fireworks I had ever seen...they didn´t disappoint. I was taken aback by a 45 minute show that literally made my teeth shake in my mouth. Adding to the effect was the booming echo that could be heard (and felt) reverberating through the city. I kid you not, someone who was both deaf and blind could have enjoyed this show. It took place in three acts, with the final act being the Grand Finale, which also had three parts. The first two were simulatenous burts of fire from both bottom and top, in white and orange colors that made it look as if it was raining fire on an erupting volcano. The last was a similar display in a variety of colors that almost induced an epileptic seizure. The show ended a little before one but my newly acquired mates and I were lacking in our search for the next thing to do. I had expected the Valencians to make this a raucous night but left around 2AM slightly disappointed.
I made my way downtown the next day for the parade and it was unlike´any I´d ever seen. The procession itself is not that long, but it stops frequently and acts are performed. Dances, fireworks (they love fire), and reinactments of Christians cahsing out the Moors all unfolded in front of my eyes. It was quite a site. That evening I made my way back to the Rio where I had seen them setting up a stage the day before. It was to the left side of one of the main fountains, placed in a pool that is equal to about the size of your standard swimming pool. All around the pool were tents setup for children to play, etc. Just before the event ended there was a procession. First came the nights, who looked very Christian and rode horses to the sound of trumpets. Next came a group a joksters that I would equate to Ken Kesey´s merry meddlers they held oversized plastic mallets and would prank people by tapping them on the head. I´m not sure of the significance of them, nor the following act, but it was incredible. Men wearing flame retardant suits started in one corner and were doing incredible things with fireworks. By incredible, I mean insanely stupid. All of them had lit fireworks in their hands and even though they had gloves and suits, no masks were worn. Some would push exploding carts and others would jump in and out of explosions. Then they proceded around the pool, fireworks in hand, and began to spray the crown with sparks. They had no boundaries or concern for safety as they would run directly at you, spraying the sparks on the ground. The crowd didn´t seem to mind and I didn´t either. I even noticed one guy who decided to use his firework as a fallacy. I´d chastise him, but there´s a distinct possibility that I would have done the same. What a way to leave Valencia huh?
The night before ´the big day´ I was at my spanish-english conversations at a local bar and ended up meeting up with some locals and a few of their german friends. We made our way to the fireworks in the Rio (as desribed in an earlier entry) around 11:30 as they were to start around Midnight. I have to admit my bias that I had a feeling these were going to be the best fireworks I had ever seen...they didn´t disappoint. I was taken aback by a 45 minute show that literally made my teeth shake in my mouth. Adding to the effect was the booming echo that could be heard (and felt) reverberating through the city. I kid you not, someone who was both deaf and blind could have enjoyed this show. It took place in three acts, with the final act being the Grand Finale, which also had three parts. The first two were simulatenous burts of fire from both bottom and top, in white and orange colors that made it look as if it was raining fire on an erupting volcano. The last was a similar display in a variety of colors that almost induced an epileptic seizure. The show ended a little before one but my newly acquired mates and I were lacking in our search for the next thing to do. I had expected the Valencians to make this a raucous night but left around 2AM slightly disappointed.
I made my way downtown the next day for the parade and it was unlike´any I´d ever seen. The procession itself is not that long, but it stops frequently and acts are performed. Dances, fireworks (they love fire), and reinactments of Christians cahsing out the Moors all unfolded in front of my eyes. It was quite a site. That evening I made my way back to the Rio where I had seen them setting up a stage the day before. It was to the left side of one of the main fountains, placed in a pool that is equal to about the size of your standard swimming pool. All around the pool were tents setup for children to play, etc. Just before the event ended there was a procession. First came the nights, who looked very Christian and rode horses to the sound of trumpets. Next came a group a joksters that I would equate to Ken Kesey´s merry meddlers they held oversized plastic mallets and would prank people by tapping them on the head. I´m not sure of the significance of them, nor the following act, but it was incredible. Men wearing flame retardant suits started in one corner and were doing incredible things with fireworks. By incredible, I mean insanely stupid. All of them had lit fireworks in their hands and even though they had gloves and suits, no masks were worn. Some would push exploding carts and others would jump in and out of explosions. Then they proceded around the pool, fireworks in hand, and began to spray the crown with sparks. They had no boundaries or concern for safety as they would run directly at you, spraying the sparks on the ground. The crowd didn´t seem to mind and I didn´t either. I even noticed one guy who decided to use his firework as a fallacy. I´d chastise him, but there´s a distinct possibility that I would have done the same. What a way to leave Valencia huh?
Monday, October 8, 2007
DAMN YOU STEVEN SEAGAL
For you´re smooth one-liners and sweet karate moves. One of the things I was most looking forward too during my time here in Valencia was trying my hand at touch rugby. I´ve never played before but like the concept (sacrificing your body then drinking the pain away). The ´team,´ and I use that word in the loosest or terms, meets every sunday at 10:30 AM. Saturday night wasn´t even a big night for me as I was getting over my ailment/still hurting from Octoberfest. I was home by midnight and turned on the tele to relax a bit and what comes on but ¨Under Seige.¨ It turns out that BADASS is an international language and I stayed up all night watching it, overslept, and missed my Rugby.
The Rugby is held in El Rio, which is spanish for The Rio. It´s a river that surrounds the city that the spanish drained. Although this sounds like a terrible idea, it actually worked out quite well form them. Now, in its place, is a stretch of about 8km of park/greenery that has football, baseball, and rugby field, in addition to fountains, playgrounds, bike trails etc. Quite magniicent really and I live about a block away from it.
I went to the Botanical gardens on Sunday to make up for feeling so lazy. Although they have over 80,000 different types of plants, they were all green and there was little color. Still pretty nice though. On my way back I got on a bus. As I sat down the bus driver got off, threw his beer away, lit up a cigarette and started talking to his girlfriend outside the bus. Everyone in the bus kinda questioned it...but not really. For 10 minutes I watched him smoke, flirt, and joke with his gf´s illegitimate child. At one point the kid ran on the bus, behind the drivers seat and hit a bunch of buttons. He activated the hydraulics (used to raise and lower for passengers) and the bus lifted up. Did he reprimand the kid? Nope, just rubbed his hair in a rapscallion manner. I probably could have walked by the time this all finished transpiring, but I stayed on the bus and made it home safe. Welcome to spain.
The Rugby is held in El Rio, which is spanish for The Rio. It´s a river that surrounds the city that the spanish drained. Although this sounds like a terrible idea, it actually worked out quite well form them. Now, in its place, is a stretch of about 8km of park/greenery that has football, baseball, and rugby field, in addition to fountains, playgrounds, bike trails etc. Quite magniicent really and I live about a block away from it.
I went to the Botanical gardens on Sunday to make up for feeling so lazy. Although they have over 80,000 different types of plants, they were all green and there was little color. Still pretty nice though. On my way back I got on a bus. As I sat down the bus driver got off, threw his beer away, lit up a cigarette and started talking to his girlfriend outside the bus. Everyone in the bus kinda questioned it...but not really. For 10 minutes I watched him smoke, flirt, and joke with his gf´s illegitimate child. At one point the kid ran on the bus, behind the drivers seat and hit a bunch of buttons. He activated the hydraulics (used to raise and lower for passengers) and the bus lifted up. Did he reprimand the kid? Nope, just rubbed his hair in a rapscallion manner. I probably could have walked by the time this all finished transpiring, but I stayed on the bus and made it home safe. Welcome to spain.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Florence/Valencia
GERMANY UPDATES
So apparently there were things I forgot to mention/tried to nlack out about Germany:
1) the PROST- it´s said if you don´t do this correctly then you are doomed to seven years bad sex. When I told our table this the common response was ¨bad sex is better than my no sex so who cares!¨ ...classy
2)Lederhosen is amazing. All the German dudes wear it and I want a pair, even if just to weat around the house. I don´t know what the women wear but its great also. Revealing...but not in a trashy way. I´m not a perv, it´s their heritage!
3) Ok, so maybe I am a perv
4) Earlier I called the white powdery substance snooze, that´s incorrect, it´s called snuff. Snooze is the Swedish equivalent to our dip and it comes in packets and you put it between your gums. Very socially exceptable there and also worth a try for those of you who can stomach it.
5) Overall I found the Germans very agreeable (surprisingly). Most loved america and I got yelled out very little (again, surprisingly). Though when they did yell, especially the women, it was scary as hell.
FLORENCE
I arrived in florence hungover as hell around nine am. I was probably working off of 1.5 hours of broken sleep and stunk to high hell as I hadn´t showered in a day )due to the night train) and alcohol was leaking out of my pores. In other words, I wasn´t worthy of such a beautiful city. Nonetheless, I had a little over a day to kill before my flight so I tried to make the best of it. I dropped my bags at the hostel and joined an english tour and probably made them all sick. I´ve already been to Florence and seen the galleries, the David, the tombs of all the great italian artists (Dante, et al) so I decided to take the day to appreciate the city as much as I could, considering my state. I walked up to the Plaza de Michaelangelo where you have an amazing view. The Plaza itself is about as touristy as it gets, but its worth the sacrfice to view the skyline (with the duomo), the river, and the tuscan hillside all in one. It´ll make your heart skip a beat. That night I decided I could stomach an italian meal and set down for a traditional one, it did not disappoint. Salad, pasta, meat, bread, all the best. The only thing missing was wine (for obvious reasons). I wandered around a bit and checked out the Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge the germans left standing. Back then bridges were built with houses jutting out on them, but now they are jewelry stores. It´s quite a sight.
When I returned to the hostel I decided to plan out some future travels in order to improve my mood and ended up meeting a fellow traveler from madrid. We spoke in Spanish for a little over an hour then I met another traveler from Argentina who I spoke to for about another hour. Although I struggled at some point they did make me feel a little bit better about my language abilities, as well as being a total waste of space.
VALENCIA
Since I´ve been sick/hungover for the past four days and spending most of my time in my spanish books, I´ll share some Valencian cultural things with you that I´ve noticed:
-they LOVE cigarettes: everyone, even mothers with babies. It´s so wrong yet they have the longest life expectancy in Europe and beat out americans, who knows!
-They also love the lotto! They don´t sell them in stores but there´s usually a little stand on just about every street corner.
-The spanish people are really friendly and Im starting to make passing jokes with some of my neighbors. I usually can´t understand what they say to me, but we have a laugh. I swear valencians speak faster than anyone else in spain.
-LOVE the mullet, then again, so does the rest of western europe
So apparently there were things I forgot to mention/tried to nlack out about Germany:
1) the PROST- it´s said if you don´t do this correctly then you are doomed to seven years bad sex. When I told our table this the common response was ¨bad sex is better than my no sex so who cares!¨ ...classy
2)Lederhosen is amazing. All the German dudes wear it and I want a pair, even if just to weat around the house. I don´t know what the women wear but its great also. Revealing...but not in a trashy way. I´m not a perv, it´s their heritage!
3) Ok, so maybe I am a perv
4) Earlier I called the white powdery substance snooze, that´s incorrect, it´s called snuff. Snooze is the Swedish equivalent to our dip and it comes in packets and you put it between your gums. Very socially exceptable there and also worth a try for those of you who can stomach it.
5) Overall I found the Germans very agreeable (surprisingly). Most loved america and I got yelled out very little (again, surprisingly). Though when they did yell, especially the women, it was scary as hell.
FLORENCE
I arrived in florence hungover as hell around nine am. I was probably working off of 1.5 hours of broken sleep and stunk to high hell as I hadn´t showered in a day )due to the night train) and alcohol was leaking out of my pores. In other words, I wasn´t worthy of such a beautiful city. Nonetheless, I had a little over a day to kill before my flight so I tried to make the best of it. I dropped my bags at the hostel and joined an english tour and probably made them all sick. I´ve already been to Florence and seen the galleries, the David, the tombs of all the great italian artists (Dante, et al) so I decided to take the day to appreciate the city as much as I could, considering my state. I walked up to the Plaza de Michaelangelo where you have an amazing view. The Plaza itself is about as touristy as it gets, but its worth the sacrfice to view the skyline (with the duomo), the river, and the tuscan hillside all in one. It´ll make your heart skip a beat. That night I decided I could stomach an italian meal and set down for a traditional one, it did not disappoint. Salad, pasta, meat, bread, all the best. The only thing missing was wine (for obvious reasons). I wandered around a bit and checked out the Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge the germans left standing. Back then bridges were built with houses jutting out on them, but now they are jewelry stores. It´s quite a sight.
When I returned to the hostel I decided to plan out some future travels in order to improve my mood and ended up meeting a fellow traveler from madrid. We spoke in Spanish for a little over an hour then I met another traveler from Argentina who I spoke to for about another hour. Although I struggled at some point they did make me feel a little bit better about my language abilities, as well as being a total waste of space.
VALENCIA
Since I´ve been sick/hungover for the past four days and spending most of my time in my spanish books, I´ll share some Valencian cultural things with you that I´ve noticed:
-they LOVE cigarettes: everyone, even mothers with babies. It´s so wrong yet they have the longest life expectancy in Europe and beat out americans, who knows!
-They also love the lotto! They don´t sell them in stores but there´s usually a little stand on just about every street corner.
-The spanish people are really friendly and Im starting to make passing jokes with some of my neighbors. I usually can´t understand what they say to me, but we have a laugh. I swear valencians speak faster than anyone else in spain.
-LOVE the mullet, then again, so does the rest of western europe
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Octoberfest
For those of you who read my last entry you probably realized how bad a shape I was in. Today isn´t much better, but I´m going to get this over with in fear that I may actually never do it since I´m trying to block those memories out. I´ve created subtitles for each day and toned down the stories a bit since my parents are reading this. If you´ve met my parents that wouldn´t make sense, except for the fact that this past weekend was THAT outrageous.
DAY 1- HELL
Leading up to our adventure Mike and I had decided to meet in Munich, but that was about all we had planned. Frantically emailing him at the last minute I outlined the plan, along with two other backup plans in case the former fell through. This was a constant source of preoccupation during my entire train ride. It didn´t help that my train was late and therefore we were going to have to check to plan b (if he even got the email at all). However, as I walked up to the hotel I had a sudden sense of ease because I saw that they had a bar. I skipped over every plan and walked straight up to the bar to see one Michael John with a shit eating grin on his face and a beer in his hand. After meeting a few others of the motley crew and a quick shower, we decided to head to Octoberfest. It was a wednesday night at 8pm and raining so we thought ¨no problem.¨ Wrong, big problem. The rules of octoberfest are as follows:
1 If you want beer, you need to be seated at a table
2 If you are seated at a table, you must be drinking beer
Well, every table was full and absolutely no one wanted to help us. After running around from tent to tent trying to find seats and being surrounded by people who werent only drinking, but having the time of their lives, we decided to cut our losses. Since, after all, when all you want is a beer and you are surrounded by tons that you can´t have is my definition of hell. We hit the streets, but apparently all the beer drinking was going on in the tents cause a bar was hard to find. After an hour of wondering and being mislead, AJ yells at some german ´HEY! Do you speak english?!¨ Surprisingly he did, and even more surprisingly he didnt walk away. Peter was his name and he was not only kind enough to lead these four horses to our proverbial water, he actually joined us for a round or two.
DAY 2 NOSE CANDY
I decided to not put the end of the night in the previous chapter since it was getting too long. Oh yeah, and the four of us had a collective blackout. The problem with German beer is that its so smooth. Smoother than light beer, yet about twice as alcoholic. We also had trouble with the liter conversition, and by trouble I mean we each drank four of them. I awoke to a splitting headache to meet (or shall I say re-meet since I actually met them the night before) the other five joining us. We rallied and made it to the tents a little before noon to ensure a table. This is a thursday by the way. About two liters into the day I noticed a table next to us sharing in nose fulls of white powder. Let me preface this by saying that Ive NEVER done coke, and don´t even think Ive even seen the stuff. But we were at the biggest party in the world so who knows. It looked like they were being a little to liberal with it, so to settle our tables debate I went up and asked them. Instead of giving me an answer they requested I try it, to which I refused...twice. My manhood was questioned, but hell, thats happened before. An american told me its their equivalent to tobacco, but I decided to err on the side of caution until I saw it being sold by a tabacconist. I bought some, but this stuff was brown. Brought it back to the table and got some very questionable looks from our table. As the hours and days of drinking went on everybody eventually loosened up to it and we had a ton of fun with it on the last day. The truth about it is that its powdered mint, not even tabacco, it is literally nose candy. Im sure half of you reading this now think Im a coke addict, but just wait til you go, you´ll see. I digress. For some reason I decided to race everyone and drink my beers faster than them. After four I was apparently passing out at the table, so Mike, being the good friend that he is, took me out. Did he take me home? Nay I tell you, the ass took me on roller coaster rides. Surprisingly I held my lunch and it actually worked, but who thinks of that? I mean honestly.
DAY 3 PROST!
I would say with each day our cultural experiences grew and grew. This day we decided to go on a four hour bike tour around the city, with the only problem being that it was pouring down rain. In all our hungover misery we headed to the meeting point telling each other how dumb we were for doing this. It literally took the guide to tell us no before we got it through our think skulls that it wasn´t happening. Check to plan b: OCTOBERFEST! Since it was a friday and afternoon, we knew we wouldnt be able to sit all nine together so we divided and quasi-conquered. The four in my ´team´ almost started an international conflict. Our waited demanded we sit in these certains seats (the only ones for four) yet the other six HUGE germans demanded we didn´t. After much arguing between waiter and patrons, we sat with the utmost angst. Im afraid of very few people in my life, yet I was afraid of all of these guys. The one hitch was: they were all sucking on Chupa Chups (lollipops for those of you who never had a childhood) that made it ultra weird. After the most uncomfortable beer in my life Lindsey arranged a deal where we would swap with the four other people where TEAM B was seated. During the transition, however, four german old dudes sat in our place. Not willing to relinquish our seats that easy, we then crammed nine into a space where 5 should fit. Needless to say I wont be having children. The situation proved quite hilarious though as one old dude kept hitting on one of the girls, despite several refutes from her and all of the guys pretending to be her boyfriend. The older men ended up being quite nice however, even though they spoke very little english. Whenever there was a communication breakdown all we did was shout PROST! Which is essentially CHEERS. In germany though they are very particular about their PROST:
-You have to wait until every one has their glass
-You touch glasses with everyone AND look everyone in the eye (shoutout for Chew)
-You clink your glass down on the table and take a swig
Any deviation can reult in some angy germans. Also, about every 30 minutes the band would play a song that just went LA PROSTE, LA PROSTE over and over again and you had to stand and toast for that. I think it was after about 3 liters that I decided I was going to stand on the table (which is pretty common) and chug an entire liter (which I thought was common). The former ensued and I was applauded by many. I then had enough liquid courage to meet the germans next to us, a group of twenty year olds that spoke a bit better english and were quite nice. I think I had one more drink after that but perhaps it was two, I cant remember.
DAY 4 WHO THE HELL DID WE THINK WE WERE
We arrived at the tents around 830, an hour before they opened. I would say there was already a crowd of a thousand or so waiting, the problem being on the weekends (we finally made it to saturday) most of the table were reserved. We wedged our way into the crowd and by the time the doors opened we were so crammed in that people were literally lifted off their feet and moved by the pack. We decided to abandon hope of the inside tent and took a table outside. This is where the nose candy comes back in, and its called snoose by the way. We decided to got ahead and embrace it and at least take pictures like we were rockstars. We also made random people, including forty plus year old parents indulge. At high noon, after two liters, I decided it was time to chug again. It went down too easy. I then get the brilliant idea that this is how I should drink the rest of my beers. After the third chug I felt like Landfill from Beerfest and had random Germans come up to take pictures with me. They were astounded I was still standing. I actually put down a fourth, which was to stop a fight between more random germans I met and the next table. Im not sure how I thought chugging a beer would calm tempers, but it did. I think I had one more (nonchug) but it gets a little hazy. Im not sure how or why we split up to return to the hotel, but we did and I was in charge of a group of three. Right, me in charge! I led us straight for the biggest roller coaster, then took us home.
DAY 4 ROUND 2
We were all so happy we all made it home that we decided to have a drink to celebrate, good idea right? I want to say this was around 10 and I was alternating with water by then as I started feeling actually pretty good. As the minutes passed so did members of the group (we were up to thirteen by then). Once we were down to five or six I actually happened upon another group of americans (and one swed). We got to talking, hit it off, and decided to drink some more beers. We then met up with an irishman and decided to take shots, and drink some more beers. I want to say we stopped around 5am but that´s a rough estimate. That seriously was the craziest day of my life.
DAY 5 WHO THE HELL DID WE THINK WERE, PT 2
Never felt physically worse. Every ounce of my energy was being concentrated on not throwing up. Its been three days and Im still hungover, and its bad. That night I had to take a midnight train from Munich to Florence. Perfect thing for a hangover right? A nine hour train ride in an upright position? Im sure the people hated me to cause I probably smelled like booze as Im sure it was leaking through my pores.
AFTERTHOUGHTS
-Adam Pollock and Colin Young should never go to this event, you won´t make it out alive.
-There may actually be such a thing as too much fun and I think I had it
-If I didnt paint a good enough picture imagine this:
Take all the craziness that is Las Vegas, but instead of 52 weeks in the year, cram it all into 3 weeks.
fin
DAY 1- HELL
Leading up to our adventure Mike and I had decided to meet in Munich, but that was about all we had planned. Frantically emailing him at the last minute I outlined the plan, along with two other backup plans in case the former fell through. This was a constant source of preoccupation during my entire train ride. It didn´t help that my train was late and therefore we were going to have to check to plan b (if he even got the email at all). However, as I walked up to the hotel I had a sudden sense of ease because I saw that they had a bar. I skipped over every plan and walked straight up to the bar to see one Michael John with a shit eating grin on his face and a beer in his hand. After meeting a few others of the motley crew and a quick shower, we decided to head to Octoberfest. It was a wednesday night at 8pm and raining so we thought ¨no problem.¨ Wrong, big problem. The rules of octoberfest are as follows:
1 If you want beer, you need to be seated at a table
2 If you are seated at a table, you must be drinking beer
Well, every table was full and absolutely no one wanted to help us. After running around from tent to tent trying to find seats and being surrounded by people who werent only drinking, but having the time of their lives, we decided to cut our losses. Since, after all, when all you want is a beer and you are surrounded by tons that you can´t have is my definition of hell. We hit the streets, but apparently all the beer drinking was going on in the tents cause a bar was hard to find. After an hour of wondering and being mislead, AJ yells at some german ´HEY! Do you speak english?!¨ Surprisingly he did, and even more surprisingly he didnt walk away. Peter was his name and he was not only kind enough to lead these four horses to our proverbial water, he actually joined us for a round or two.
DAY 2 NOSE CANDY
I decided to not put the end of the night in the previous chapter since it was getting too long. Oh yeah, and the four of us had a collective blackout. The problem with German beer is that its so smooth. Smoother than light beer, yet about twice as alcoholic. We also had trouble with the liter conversition, and by trouble I mean we each drank four of them. I awoke to a splitting headache to meet (or shall I say re-meet since I actually met them the night before) the other five joining us. We rallied and made it to the tents a little before noon to ensure a table. This is a thursday by the way. About two liters into the day I noticed a table next to us sharing in nose fulls of white powder. Let me preface this by saying that Ive NEVER done coke, and don´t even think Ive even seen the stuff. But we were at the biggest party in the world so who knows. It looked like they were being a little to liberal with it, so to settle our tables debate I went up and asked them. Instead of giving me an answer they requested I try it, to which I refused...twice. My manhood was questioned, but hell, thats happened before. An american told me its their equivalent to tobacco, but I decided to err on the side of caution until I saw it being sold by a tabacconist. I bought some, but this stuff was brown. Brought it back to the table and got some very questionable looks from our table. As the hours and days of drinking went on everybody eventually loosened up to it and we had a ton of fun with it on the last day. The truth about it is that its powdered mint, not even tabacco, it is literally nose candy. Im sure half of you reading this now think Im a coke addict, but just wait til you go, you´ll see. I digress. For some reason I decided to race everyone and drink my beers faster than them. After four I was apparently passing out at the table, so Mike, being the good friend that he is, took me out. Did he take me home? Nay I tell you, the ass took me on roller coaster rides. Surprisingly I held my lunch and it actually worked, but who thinks of that? I mean honestly.
DAY 3 PROST!
I would say with each day our cultural experiences grew and grew. This day we decided to go on a four hour bike tour around the city, with the only problem being that it was pouring down rain. In all our hungover misery we headed to the meeting point telling each other how dumb we were for doing this. It literally took the guide to tell us no before we got it through our think skulls that it wasn´t happening. Check to plan b: OCTOBERFEST! Since it was a friday and afternoon, we knew we wouldnt be able to sit all nine together so we divided and quasi-conquered. The four in my ´team´ almost started an international conflict. Our waited demanded we sit in these certains seats (the only ones for four) yet the other six HUGE germans demanded we didn´t. After much arguing between waiter and patrons, we sat with the utmost angst. Im afraid of very few people in my life, yet I was afraid of all of these guys. The one hitch was: they were all sucking on Chupa Chups (lollipops for those of you who never had a childhood) that made it ultra weird. After the most uncomfortable beer in my life Lindsey arranged a deal where we would swap with the four other people where TEAM B was seated. During the transition, however, four german old dudes sat in our place. Not willing to relinquish our seats that easy, we then crammed nine into a space where 5 should fit. Needless to say I wont be having children. The situation proved quite hilarious though as one old dude kept hitting on one of the girls, despite several refutes from her and all of the guys pretending to be her boyfriend. The older men ended up being quite nice however, even though they spoke very little english. Whenever there was a communication breakdown all we did was shout PROST! Which is essentially CHEERS. In germany though they are very particular about their PROST:
-You have to wait until every one has their glass
-You touch glasses with everyone AND look everyone in the eye (shoutout for Chew)
-You clink your glass down on the table and take a swig
Any deviation can reult in some angy germans. Also, about every 30 minutes the band would play a song that just went LA PROSTE, LA PROSTE over and over again and you had to stand and toast for that. I think it was after about 3 liters that I decided I was going to stand on the table (which is pretty common) and chug an entire liter (which I thought was common). The former ensued and I was applauded by many. I then had enough liquid courage to meet the germans next to us, a group of twenty year olds that spoke a bit better english and were quite nice. I think I had one more drink after that but perhaps it was two, I cant remember.
DAY 4 WHO THE HELL DID WE THINK WE WERE
We arrived at the tents around 830, an hour before they opened. I would say there was already a crowd of a thousand or so waiting, the problem being on the weekends (we finally made it to saturday) most of the table were reserved. We wedged our way into the crowd and by the time the doors opened we were so crammed in that people were literally lifted off their feet and moved by the pack. We decided to abandon hope of the inside tent and took a table outside. This is where the nose candy comes back in, and its called snoose by the way. We decided to got ahead and embrace it and at least take pictures like we were rockstars. We also made random people, including forty plus year old parents indulge. At high noon, after two liters, I decided it was time to chug again. It went down too easy. I then get the brilliant idea that this is how I should drink the rest of my beers. After the third chug I felt like Landfill from Beerfest and had random Germans come up to take pictures with me. They were astounded I was still standing. I actually put down a fourth, which was to stop a fight between more random germans I met and the next table. Im not sure how I thought chugging a beer would calm tempers, but it did. I think I had one more (nonchug) but it gets a little hazy. Im not sure how or why we split up to return to the hotel, but we did and I was in charge of a group of three. Right, me in charge! I led us straight for the biggest roller coaster, then took us home.
DAY 4 ROUND 2
We were all so happy we all made it home that we decided to have a drink to celebrate, good idea right? I want to say this was around 10 and I was alternating with water by then as I started feeling actually pretty good. As the minutes passed so did members of the group (we were up to thirteen by then). Once we were down to five or six I actually happened upon another group of americans (and one swed). We got to talking, hit it off, and decided to drink some more beers. We then met up with an irishman and decided to take shots, and drink some more beers. I want to say we stopped around 5am but that´s a rough estimate. That seriously was the craziest day of my life.
DAY 5 WHO THE HELL DID WE THINK WERE, PT 2
Never felt physically worse. Every ounce of my energy was being concentrated on not throwing up. Its been three days and Im still hungover, and its bad. That night I had to take a midnight train from Munich to Florence. Perfect thing for a hangover right? A nine hour train ride in an upright position? Im sure the people hated me to cause I probably smelled like booze as Im sure it was leaking through my pores.
AFTERTHOUGHTS
-Adam Pollock and Colin Young should never go to this event, you won´t make it out alive.
-There may actually be such a thing as too much fun and I think I had it
-If I didnt paint a good enough picture imagine this:
Take all the craziness that is Las Vegas, but instead of 52 weeks in the year, cram it all into 3 weeks.
fin
Monday, October 1, 2007
Interlaken
I should be writing about both interlaken and octoberfest right now, but its been 48 hours after the big event and the mere mention of booze still brings tears to my eyes and a churn in my stomach. Thats going to have to wait until tomorrow.
As for Interlocken, Im pretty sure thats where they got the idea for Busch Gardens, except this is meant for adults. The city is probably the cleanest Ive traveled too, the scenery is poetic, and the town is very quaint. It also helps because the Swiss Franc looks like a huge game token, but the good kind, not the crappy kind like you'd get at an arcade. For those of you who read my last entry you know that I missed my first train into the city, which rendered me useless in terms of really exploring this outdoor paradise. People flock from all over the world to go canyoning, hang gliding, paragliding, sky diving, and many more extreme adventures that make the X Games look like knitting lessons.
What I really wanted to do was the canyoning, where you start off at the top of a canyoning and pretty much travel down it by repelling off rocks, free diving, etc. Ive been having a bit of knee trouble since my Tri though, so I thought better of it and was just going to rent a mountain bike for the day and hit the trails. Milan's transit, however, had different plans for me. Im trying to look at it on the positive side though, that being that now I have an excuse to come back and the scenery was well worth it. I seriously could have been on the train for a week just looking at the alps and the lakes and been as content as Ive ever been.
As you can probably tell by my rambling, misspellings, and various other errs, my mind isnt really at full capacity. I promise octoberfest entry will be better and Ill probably put that up tomorrow.
As for Interlocken, Im pretty sure thats where they got the idea for Busch Gardens, except this is meant for adults. The city is probably the cleanest Ive traveled too, the scenery is poetic, and the town is very quaint. It also helps because the Swiss Franc looks like a huge game token, but the good kind, not the crappy kind like you'd get at an arcade. For those of you who read my last entry you know that I missed my first train into the city, which rendered me useless in terms of really exploring this outdoor paradise. People flock from all over the world to go canyoning, hang gliding, paragliding, sky diving, and many more extreme adventures that make the X Games look like knitting lessons.
What I really wanted to do was the canyoning, where you start off at the top of a canyoning and pretty much travel down it by repelling off rocks, free diving, etc. Ive been having a bit of knee trouble since my Tri though, so I thought better of it and was just going to rent a mountain bike for the day and hit the trails. Milan's transit, however, had different plans for me. Im trying to look at it on the positive side though, that being that now I have an excuse to come back and the scenery was well worth it. I seriously could have been on the train for a week just looking at the alps and the lakes and been as content as Ive ever been.
As you can probably tell by my rambling, misspellings, and various other errs, my mind isnt really at full capacity. I promise octoberfest entry will be better and Ill probably put that up tomorrow.
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