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| The Irish crew and us on Arthur Guiness Day |
Salut! ça va, tout le monde? il y avait des semaines très occupés et plein d'alcool. my my my, so much to write. But fear not, my loyal, yet anglophonic friends, My night is clear, my camera is loaded and I have nothing to do besides write some of my exploits here, right now, for your amusement. I've got a bottle of wine popped and I'm ready to roll.
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| Me taking my first. The first of three, I think. |
First lets start with a few pictures of arthur guiness day, the day, september 23rd at precisely 17:59 pm, arthur guiness created the guiness beer. it is a HUGE day for the irish (from what I've gathered, its more or less their independence day), and luckily enough (get it, lucky??? i'm funny, damn it) we had some irish around to help celebrate it proper. Below are some pictures from the day. warning: explicit pictures of public drunkenness ahead.
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| Check out this progression... |
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| Going... |
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| Going.... |
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| Gone! |
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| Annnndd.... There it is again! |
I introduced them to irish car bombs, which turns out aren't irish at all. but, it got us all hammered by 7:00, so it did the trick. It's an odd thing in france, you can drink all you want in public, and no one really cares, so long as your not disorderly. We had open bottles of whiskey and enough empty guiness cans to make a volkswagon, but the cops didn't give us a second glance. c'est la vie I suppose
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| Irene bein' a champ |
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| Peter taking it like a true Oregonian College student |
Now on to the one, the only, the totally packed to point that while waiting in line, my friend's only option was to pee in a bottle, OKTOBERFEST!!! Not only Oktoberfest, but the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest. Arguably the biggest clustercuss of people all year anywhere
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| The beginning, outside the train station |
Here's some pictures of the holy day, along with some lengthy videos that, with my extraordinarily slow computer, is taking about 19 hours to upload (I love you all so much, it's worth it). The first video is on the way to germany, passing into the border, or at least taking the ramp into germany. The second is the last day at the camp ground, and our plight back home, which turned out to be about 14 hours in the car. The last is just some drunken ramblings on the train I decided to record. So if you miss my melodious voice, take a gander, but don't expect to see anything of real depth or meaning. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.
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| Train ride to Strabourg. Left to right, brandon kirsten steve peter |
It all started with the train ride to strasbourg (some pictures above show us on our way). Strasbourg is a small town on the edge of France. Originally, we were going to just stay in the trainstation, but our friend steve suggested, with grand forethought, that we just spend the extra 5 euros and get an ACTUAL hotel. Which turned out to be a great idea, because first of all, I doubt they would have let us sleep in the train station to begin with, second of all, we found a really decent hotel for only 55 euros, which between the 7 of us, was only like 7 euros a piece, and third of all, we would have gone into that weekend feeling like a bum's asshole. Some pictures of strasbourg and our hotel are below.
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| Strasbourg. Gorgeous city actually |
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| me and peter drinking on the windowsill |
In the morning, we rented a car and began our decent into europe's powerhouse, the great beer-maiden known as Germany. Lots of corn. and hardly anyone spoke french, let alone english. But they were surprisingly nice, helped with directions and had incredible sausages (go figure). after a few set backs (we got lost once and couldn't figure out how to get the van into reverse, neither of which affected me because I didn't drive (yay not knowing how to drive a stick, and having uselessness be unavoidable!), and was drunk from about 8 am that morning). But we made it, set up our tent and were on our way. The first day, friday, we checked out the scene at oktoberfest, which turns out is more than just people getting wasted off good german beer. it is a full on carnival, with rides and booths and so many pastries and sausages, I felt a little like a polka dot on the giant deutsch dress that was Oktoberfest. It was packed though, so determined to get a beer, we decided to hit up a few rides and head back to the campground, then wake up early and get into a beer tent. However, when we returned, it seemed the campground had it's own agenda for us. We got free beer and sangria all weekend, there was free dinner and they played music well into the night.
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| The next morning. Much more comfortable than a train station |
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| Our soccer mom van, in all its glory |
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| Sign into germany |
Needless to say, we took full advantage of the situation. Which, also needless to say, left us unwilling (or incapable) of waking up anywhere near 6 am to try to get into a beer tent. So, we figured we'd get up around 9, grab some free breakfast and make our way in around 10, maybe wait 20 minutes in line and be set.
This was the biggest (and most incorrect) assumption we could have made. After waiting for about 2 1/2 hours in front of the hafbrau house and making it to the front of the line, the guards told us no more people were getting in. Disappointed and pissed off, we pushed our way through the mass of people behind us and retreated for a quick repose. Formulating the next step of our plan, we decided to split up. Team alpha was to wait in line, while the others, team beta, left to get beer for the wait. As peter and i left to collect some provisions for our comrades, we prayed the other team had picked a valid line. We got back, were told the line had been moving smoothly and eagerly waited while drinking our beers. However, about 2 hours, 3 empty 6-packs, and 3 feet later, we found ourselves in exactly the same position as earlier that morning, crammed between 40 other people up against a door that every 4 minutes swung so wide, we had to squeeze together and, one time, almost formed a singularity. It would have been fine, we would have waited til we saw jesus again, if it hadn't been for the beers we chugged. The beer was gradually collecting in our bladders, and one by one, the urge to pee had grown into an anvil of heavy bladders. Our friend Irene was in so much pain, but trooper that she is, hung on until we heard some load popping sounds, which we later found out were her kidneys.
I'm kidding. But she did try everything from shouting at the door man that she had to pee, that no, no, she REALLY had to pee, that she was giving birth, and was about one hair of disregard for shame away from peeing in the empty beer bottle we were carrying (makes you think of the circle of life, doesn't it? Also made me think of dumb and dumber. tic tac, sir?). So, when were all fed up with this game, we made our way out, once more, peed for a collective half hour, and scurried on back to the campground.
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| Peter's seat there and back. also what he had in his hand there and back |
that night, we met up with the other friends who we had lost track of, shared stories of equally unsuccessful exploits, discovered brandon and steve bought full leiderhosen and drank our troubles away. The next morning, we packed up and headed home. The ride was all kinds of dreadful: we got lost 3 times, the traffic was worse than downtown los angeles during a breast implant convention, and we crammed 4 people into a 3 person bench seat. We left at 1 pm and didn't get into poitiers until 4:30 am. Let me tell you, the only way we survived was because our bodies were young enough to say, alright, I'll let you abuse me now, but just wait until your old enough to feel me. Then we'll see what's what.
All in all, an incredibly fun weekend, lots of ups and downs, oktoberfest is ridiculously enormous, and the car ride back sucked something I can't describe on this site. (I was going to say on the internet, but seeing as how I just closed 3 pop up ads describing just that, it'd be a lie)
Whoof, what a weekend. To finish it off, here's some pictures of my new place, like I promised, because I'm a good little blogger. Hope you all enjoyed my tales from the intoxicated crypt. I'm going to finish my bottle of wine and continue planning the first leg of my Great Reactor Race, which will be taking place in I believe 2 weeks. As a teaser, let me tell you that my weekend consists of visiting some old chateau's around france in a little field trip arranged by the site director, Sylvie, who's turning out to be one hell of a cool lady. I'll get those pictures up asappy. but until then, I love you all, thank you for reading (thank you mom for sending me cards, I just got 3 yesterday and they absolutely warmed my heart) and have a pleasant tomorrow.
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| my bathroom. note the absence of a shower curtain or any division from the rest of the bathroom of any kind |
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| Outside my place. The building is named after Michel Foucault, the french poet. I think he's a poet anyway |
French Mot du jour (lines from a fatal picards song):
you talk too much: tu parles trop
you talk too much: Tu parles trop
you don't listen to anyone: Tu n'ecoutes à plus personne
and no one listens to you: et plus personne n'ecoute à toi!
