So I haven’t posted a life update on this blog in a while, and there’s a really good reason – I’ve been busy actually living life. Things got pretty hectic really quick, and along with the 50 hours weeks (I remember what it’s like to be a grown up), there have been happy hours, dinners, picnics, beer festivals and one pretty wild weekend in Prague. Here are some highlights:
The infamous bike auction – and ensuing hilarity:
My efforts to land a cheap bike led me to a German bike auction at 10 am on a Saturday. I wasn’t prepared for what I witnessed – it was a legitimate auction, with tons of screaming people and an auctioneer speaking very quick German. One of the main problems in this situation is that I don’t know (much) German, so I listened to the numbers until I figured them out and made my German friend Anju yell numbers for me when I saw any somewhat reasonable bikes. When I saw the neon pink monstrosity that looked like it came straight out of “White Men Can’t Jump”, I had to have it. I don’t know whether all the German people laughed at me because of my pronounciation of “funf und funfte euro” or the fact that I bought a bike that early Fresh Prince Will Smith would have rocked, but 55 euros later, Cotton Candy was mine. And I got to outbid Anna and Anette in the process, so I got some bragging rights, for the day at least.
Efforts to ride to and from work weren’t quite as successful. It was a great idea in theory, as it’s a really pretty ride through the countryside and 25 km a day would put me in really good shape pretty quick, but Cotton Candy wasn’t really up to the task. On 8 rides, she’s broken down three times (only two of which were my fault), and has led to a lot of coldness, lateness, and overall frustration, but pretty good stories. I’m gonna keep trying though, cause it’s kind of fun, and I’ll keep getting reasons to visit my friends at the bike shop in Buchenbach.
The weekend in Prague:
A broken down car couldn’t stop us – Sean, Lucy, Vicki, Anju, Edouard, Maurice, and myself all made it to Prague last weekend. Even though we only had one car, the rest of us relied on this carpooling website, where we get tag along with random strangers in exchange for gas money. It worked out really well – I’m not sure why we don’t have a similar system in the US (outside of the fear of getting hacked up by a disgruntled hitchhiker).
Once we made it, the awesome weekend commenced. Prague is a really cool city, so there was a lot to see in just a couple days. We tried to walk across the Charles Bridge, but it was way too crowded and some drunk British girl fainted so we had to turn around. There was a lot of wandering around and looking around, which I’m convinced is the best and only way to really get a feel for a city and attempt to put your finger on each city’s unique vibe. The only negative thing about this approach is that one bad experience can tarnish your view of the city as a whole. For example, our first dinner featured unimpressive Czech food and a fight with an angry waitress who was trying to charge me 500 krone for losing my receipt (“VAS PROBLEM!!!”). Let’s just say it was time for a couple of beers afterward.
The first night we did the most touristy thing we could think of – went on a travelers’ pub crawl. It was pretty awesome, and we got to meet some fun people. My theory about being better at languages proved true – I was able to keep up a rather elementary conversation with a German chick after a few drinks (or she humored me and was just glad I was trying). We ended the night at this 5 story club, where every floor had different music but looked exactly the same. It was the kind of thing that I was glad I had been to 4 bars in preparation (see my earlier post regarding my disdain towards clubs).
The second night was kind of similar, but unstructured, which can lead to more spontaneity, but is difficult to make 7 people happy with every bar we go to. We ended up at 2 of the same places we were at the night before, which to me, is kind of a missed opportunity to see new and different things, but was fun nonetheless. I will say that it’s a little disconcerting to leave a club and walk into the straight in broad daylight. It wasn’t even that the sun was rising, the sun had fully risen, and we couldn’t even find the McDonald’s to get breakfast.
Generic thoughts about life in Germany
I like it here, for the most part. It’s tough living in a foreign country, but it’s the classic battle between new and exciting and old and comfortable. Outside of a little homesickness, it’s pretty cool to jump into a completely different culture with tons of different people. The highlight so far has been the Berg, which is the massive beer festival that has rolled through Erlangen for the past 250 years, and is the second biggest behind Oktoberfest. So far the highlights have been the drunken pseudo-teacup type ride with Sarah, the game of “Who can spin the most fat chicks” game with two semi-random German dudes, and the attempts to belt out German drinking songs that we don’t quite know the words to. The lowlights have been the massive crowds, the pricey steins, and the nearly disastrous projectile vomit (dude missed me by about 6 inches). And that’s only the first three days – there are nine more (My friends are there as we speak, but I needed to give my body the day off). My favorite part, though, is that a table full of strangers who sometimes don’t even speak the same language can all cheers, sing together, and generally be merry.
Beyond that, though, life has been relatively ordinary. I do the same things I would be doing back home – going to work, going to the gym, grocery shopping, checking out new bars and restaurants with friends, paying bills, and the like. Some of the things are weird and different, like the fact that we don’t have a dryer so I have to hang my clothes, and the cast of characters at the gym is much more entertaining than usual, but it’s hard to complain when more often than not, you wake up with a smile on your face.
Song of the Day: “Simple Man” – Lynyrd Skynyrd
Book of the Day: The Alchemist – Paolo Coehlo
