Day 35 2/23/2010

Day 22 continued.

Wow I'm getting farther and farther behind.

Well on my birthday.

We hung out in front of that grocery story till the guys showed up. I took pictures of all the costumes and talked. There were people in costumes everywhere. Finally we walked over to the area that we would stay for the Karneval parade. By this time, my feet were numb and extremely cold. We stood there for a while waiting for the parade. It was late, so Trisha and I decide to walk over the grocery story across the street and walked around so our feet would warm up and stop hurting from the cold. We just wondered around there for about 20 minutes till we felt that we could face to cold again, then headed back to our group. We stood there a bit more waiting and finally it came. It was a long parade. They are all dressed up in costume each float/group has their own theme and they all throw candy. The crowd yells "Komella" and you get candy pelted at you. I didn't catch most of it with my hands it was all with my face or into my bag that I would hold up in front of my face when I wasn't taking pictures. The parade pasted slowly. Soon our feet were hurting again. However, it was fun all the same. At one point we spotted a mallet that was dropped by a drum player as some point. When the guard wasn't looking I ran over there and grabbed it because Trisha said that she wanted it. After the parade we all walked back to the AIB it was better than trying to grab a train because I don't think that there were any trains going back to town and they would have been full anyway. We walked back along the bridge then the streets till we got to the building. After we grabbed some lunch we spent the rest of the day messing around and doing studio work. We only had two more weeks to get our models finished and passed on to the other groups. After that I spent some time watching an episode of House. Eventually I headed home to drop my stuff off because I was going out to a bar or two for my birthday and for Karneval. I went home to drop my stuff off and realized that I left my keys inside when I had left for the day. I didn't know what to do. I milled about trying to decide when I called Trudy and left a message for her to call me back on her cell phone. She didn't answer so I decided to go over to the neighbors house. This is another family that is hosting a student from LMU. They told me to go over there any time I was locked out. This was a good of time as any. I walked over there and told her whats wrong. Her name was Elizabeth. She let me in and gave me some food. It was good. We talked about different things. I told her about my ranch and the goats. She told me a little about where she was from. She grew up in Minnesota but moved here and so on. After a little while Trudy was finally able to call me. She told me to buzz the guy upstairs and to tell him who I was and he would let me in. She also told me about the spare key down in the cellar that I could use to get inside. Elizabeth offered to walk me over to the house till I got inside. So, I grabbed my stuff and we walked over there. I buzzed and he opened the door. The nice thing was that he didn't ask question. He knew who I was from a previous meeting. I put away to food that Trudy's mom had made me that I didn't get home in time to eat. Then I grabbed my purse and headed out to meet up with every body at the Hauptbahnhof. I got off the train and I thought I was meeting them at the top of the platform but as it turns out they were in the main area of the station where we normally meet up with the group. So I waited around for a while waiting for them to show up. Finally I called them to see if they were coming. That is when I figured out that they were upstairs. I met up with them and we set out toward the first bar. Meeting up with a few others along the way. We walked to a bar called Painless and grabbed our first drinks. We stood around and talked and laughed. David H. was acting really retarded because he had already had a few drinks before meeting up with us, so we laughed at him. We talked and sang to songs we didn't know because they were in German. Finally I told David that if he filled up my glass I would do my ring dunk. He immediately poured me a glass so I had no choice but to dunk. I dropped my ring in and chugged as best I could. It isn't exactly easy to chug a beer. After that Allie got some pictures of me with my ring in my teeth. After that we decided to go to a different bar. I didn't know the way but somebody did because we ended up there. It was a quite bar we all went in to sit and talk and get a drink. The waitress/bar tender was an awesome person. She bought us all at least 3 drinks apiece. One of them was a shot that was nasty. The other two were a Karneval tradition. Its this small bottle of liquor that you first bang upside down on the table after you make a lot of noise. You grab it with your teeth twist the bottle open, spit out the lid, then stick the neck of the bottle in your teeth. Toast to everybody by clinking the bottles together looking everybody in the eye and say "Prost." Then you lean your head back and shoot it. It was very good. We did this twice and she payed for it which made it even better. At one point an older guy just came up and sat with us. He was very taken by Allie and she played along which made it even funnier. He kept kissing her on the cheek and I think she was really weirded out by the whole thing but she never let that show. He told us where he was from and a few stories about his childhood. Then I made us promise that we would see him again although I don't think that we will. He was amusing, but got annoying after a while. You could tell he had been drinking. After a couple of hours there, we decided to go on our way out the bar tender lady bought me one last shot for my birthday. It was Jaeger and it was nasty. I can tell you I won't try that again on purpose. So after that we walked to a different bar. We didn't stay there long. I got caught up by the door talking to a German guy he was cute but kinda imposing. It was really weird talking to someone I didn't know because the rest of my group went farther inside. He had this anti-American thing about him it made me uncomfortable after a while. Small world moment happened right here though. Turns out that he has a friend that goes to A&M. Its funny because hes not the last person I've met that had a friend that goes to A&M. So I made my excuses and went to meet up with everyone else. We squeezed our way back out and that was when everyone decided that it was about time to go home. I walked back to the train station with Jake, Kevin, and Jason. I caught the train I needed then headed home.

Day 23 2/12/2010

This was Friday. We didn't have class so I slept most of the day. I woke up around one o'clock in the afternoon. Adam was coming in that day so I decided that it was about time to get up. I got ready and threw on some clothes. At about 2 I found out that he had missed his train and wasn't going to get here till about 6. At that same moment I asked via text, Trisha and Catie when they were going to a movie we planned on seeing. Percy Jackson and the Olympians. It was only going to be playing for a week here in Germany in English. They texted me back and told me three. Crap! I wanted to go but I had less than an hour to get there. First I had to figure out where it was then what station to get off at then where to go from there. This ate up my time really fast. As soon as I knew the when and where, I grabbed whatever I needed and basically got to the trains as fast as I could. As soon as I got on the train I knew it was going to take forever. I needed to get there quickly and the train took forever. I waited and waited. At one point they checked my ticket. And waited some more. As soon as I got to the stop I jumped out of the train and ran up to street level. After a moment of indecision I chose a direction and started walking according to the map picture I looked at earlier I headed toward the theater. Luckily it was in the right direction. I got there and got in line, that ate another 10 mins because the line was long. Then I sped walked to the theater. After stepping inside I had to wait for a bright moment in the movie to get to my seat by Trisha, Catie and Brian. I came in about 5 mins. into the movie so I didn't miss much. We watched the movie, and came out. Brian headed his way while Catie Trisha and I headed toward a train station. Once we were on the train we rode it all the way back to our stop and went home. After I got home it was around 5:45. I decided to make dinner while I was waiting for Adam. I cooked some noodles and some seared some chicken in the pan so we would have something to eat. Eventually he called me and I game him directions as best I could to the house. He was going to stay with me this weekend because Trudy was out of town and I didn't think he should have to pay money. Well a few hours before he got here Trudy had called me and told me that she told one of her former students that she could stay the night here. So I was like crap. Later we ended up just getting him a cheap hotel for that night. More about that later. Anyway, he couldn't follow my directions so I had to go out and get him. Luckily, he was able to follow them well enough that I didn't have to walk far. I met up with him at the end of the second street. We hugged and walked back talking. After we got here he took off his jacket and got comfortable we ate. Then we just sat in the living room and talked. Forever we just talked. This was the first time we've seen each other in close to 6 years. Right after we broke up. We just talked until eventually we decided to go to bed. He slept in the floor of my bedroom because it was the only place in the house that was warm.

Day 24 2/13/2010

Well I woke up at around 11. I was getting ready to take a shower when the doorbell rang. I was like crap shes here already. So I immediately got dressed and ran down stairs to get the door. The girl's name was Nikki. She says "I don't know if Trudy talked to you." I said that she had and I invited her in. I told her that I had a friend upstairs and that I was about to take a shower. I hoped in and out of the shower. Got ready and Adam and I headed out to walk around town. I showed him Munster Platz and the Dom. We also walked over to the Cathedral and Beethoven's house. We just walked around. At one point we walked through the market that is out in front of the Altes Rauthaus (Old Town Hall) and bought some Currywurst. I hadn't tried that yet and I ended up liking it. We also milled around a shop that I bought a shot glass at and at poster. I really like the poster. After that it was getting kinda late so we decided to head back to the house so I could get a costume for Karneval and to head to Cologne for the Ghost Parade. We met up with Nikki as she was heading out the door. I asked her if she would wait for us because she was headed to Cologne as well. I ran up stairs threw on my costume and was back down before she and Adam had finished transferring the alcohol that she had to the plastic bottle she was carrying. She was told that she couldn't bring any glass bottles over so we were trying to get the alcohol into a plastic one. Well since they had just finished that and I was dressed we headed to the train station. When we got there we waited for her friend to get there on her train and then we went up stairs to wait on the train that would take us to Cologne. We had like 10 mins to wait so we went into the shopping center that is at the top of the stairs. The one that I walk through everyday to get home. We sat there and talked till it was time to get to the train. When we got back down to the platform, Catie showed up. We talked her into joining us to Cologne. We rode the train all the way there. It seemed to take forever. We talked and Adam embarrassed me a few times because he just said somethings that could have been worded better. Also he was being a bit obnoxious with some of his comments. Other than that though all was ok. We got to Cologne and came out of the Hauptbahnhof. By the way we rode there without tickets. Anyway, I thought that the parade was suppose to be in that plaza. Turns out that it wasn't. Natalie, Nikki's friend we met, and Nikki found a person that was willing to take us to the parade. So we immediately turned back around and caught another train to go to the parade. Catie wasn't too happy with this because she thought we knew exactly where we were going and we didn't. When we caught that second train she stayed on to go back to Bonn. I felt kinda bad because we talked her into coming. So we got off, said thank you to the guy who led us and headed out of the station. This wasn't exactly the parade we were thinking it would be but there were lots of costumes and awesome people hanging around. We got to see some fire dancers which made my day. They were really really cool. I also got to see some guys juggle balls that were flaming. That was really neat as well. We walked around and eventually found a Doner shop so we could get something to eat. Adam fell in love with them. I think that will be one thing that he missed the most when he goes back to the base. Well, while we were sitting inside what we think was part of the parade passed by outside. We hurried outside to watch and after that passed we walked up and down the streets taking swigs from the Rum in the plastic bottle to stay warm. We continued to walk and we saw some cool stuff with the costumes. Nikki made me learn a new sentence because she wanted me to ask people if I could get a picture with them. "Foto Sussamen Bitte." The spelling might be wrong but she made me remember because I wanted pictures and she wouldn't translate for me. Well I was finally able to use it with two guys who were dressed up like Mario and Luigi. That made me laugh pretty hard. After seeing the "Parade" we decided it was time to see what was going on in Bonn. So we hoped on the train heading back to Bonn. But this one didn't go all the way there. We got kicked off at around half way. That sucked because we were cold and tired of the train. They were packed both ways. So we stood around talking two other people joined us and we talked to them for a little while. Finally another train came to take us the rest of the way. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when we got to the train station. I was so afraid that they would check us. Adam doesn't have a ticket. Well we got off and proceeded to walk around Bonn. The city was dead. I guess all the partyers when to Cologne. Well after walking around for a while and seeing penises drawn in the snow and such we started to walk toward the bars in town. At one point Natalie slipped and fell. We all started laughing as well as these two guys who were walking by. After we got over the laughing the guys invited us to a bar where the beer and atmosphere was good. So we decided to go with them. It was a good bar. We just sat at a table talking and drinking. At one point we started playing spin the bottle, Truth or Dare. So after a lot of embarrassing questions were asked and a lot of stupid things were done, the bar tender pulled Nikki aside and said "You need to be aware of these guys. They're scam artists." So right after that Nikki sobered up really quickly. After that we decided it was about time to go. This is when the truth came out in what the bar tender said. When we said that we were ready to go "guy #1" asked if we wanted to go to another bar. When we said no we were ready to head home he just got up and walked out. He didn't pay his tab or anything. So Adam and I ended up paying for all but 10 Euro because "guy #2" paid that. After that Nikki helped me because I was feeling pretty good. We walked to the Hauptbahnhof and there we split ways with Natalie. Nikki, Adam and I headed for Adams hotel that we checked into earlier that day while we were walking around. I forgot to mentioned that this is the smallest hotel room I've ever seen. it was about the size of Sean's old dorm room wide and about half as long. There was a bed, shower, sink, chair, and Tv on a table all shoved in it. I sat down in the chair at first but after a little while Adam told me to lay down on the bed because I was falling asleep. The trains weren't running till 5 so we had to stay there for a few hours. Needless to say I crashed. I don't remember getting the covers pulled over me but at some point Adam put the covers on me. Nikki crashed there for the few hours till the trains came but I barely remember her leaving. At another point I noticed that Adam was shivering so I told him he could get under the covers as well. This was a little weird because it was a single bed but nothing happened and nothing ever would happen. So don't go getting any ideas.