SO every week is turning into a blur more or less. Last week I spent making preparations for the trip to Germany. I wanted to dress the part for Oktoberfest so I went to everyone's cheap clothing store Primark and picked up a few plaid shirts and a hat and an awesome pair of sneakers for 13 euros that no one can tell are cheap-ass. This time I took the metro instead of riding my bike. I don't remember if it was the same day, but I went to buy a sleeping bag because apparently we would be camping near Oktoberfest. So I went to the sporting goods store and got one for about 50 Euro. The extra 10 euro I spent for the more thermal insulation proved to be a mighty good investment. I also went to Media Markt to buy an SD Card (who knew a map package they could sell could be bigger than the entire memory on the device 1.9 GB > 1.8 GB) so I could load the Europe maps and also bought a car charger (didn't think I would need one going to somewhere I wouldn't be driving so I left it home!) This same week we also had to meet to finish up a presentation on Cristiano Ronaldo in Consumer Behavior class. God, am I glad that project is done. So because I am such a bad budgeter of time and because we had to be up early on Friday to rent the car (let me correct that, I with the convenient printer had to be at the Hertz office by Central station at 8am when it opened with the voucher receipt and somehow everyone else would be picked up along the way). We waited outside a while and finally were shown the car, it was not the Volkswagen Golf we thought but actually a Ford Focus station wagon. On the other hand the other group waiting with us got an Automatic transmission Hond Civic hybrid. Our car came in just in handy though as a spacious station wagon for 5 people, no problems fitting anything. Of course though I as the navigator and owner of the GPS got dibs on the front seat. We finally left about 9am, and got on the highway. Our first destination would be Bonn, Germany, former capital of West Germany. There is the Haribo Candy Company famous for its gummi bears. So we stopped off there about 3 hours into the trip. It was cool but really just a big candy store. I didn't see the point in throwing my money away for candy so I bought a variety pack bag for 4 euros while others spent 10 and 20 euros on gummy candy, ehhh. Then we were starving so we went to the supermarket to look for sandwiches but we ended up getting bottled water instead and I was ready to just buy cheese because I had bread in the car but everyone was feeling McDonald's. So We found a McDonald's in the town center down the block and ate there. I practiced my German by ordering "ein hamburger bitte" That was my first American fast food in Europe. I lasted exactly 6 weeks withouth it, not bad. After that, we were on our way to Munich, at this time it was already like 2pm. As in one of my videos on my camera, traveling Germany by highway is boring, it's like the American midwest, rolling hills, and nothing but fields and farms, there were some cool solar panels along the way. And then traffic hit, so my GPS told us to take another highway, and then get off at Highway 25, which was nothing more than a winding 2-lane road in the countryside, very interesting, little towns spotted along the way each with their own towering church, and this was around the time the sun was going down close to 6:30/7:00. We often saw signs for Bopfingen which sounded funny. There was 1 town that had an impressive pedestal in the middle of a traffic circle and also a random Italian restaurant. Later I found out some of these towns many years ago had small Jewish populations each with a synagogue. Finally we got to Munich around 8pm and went to the campground, as we got off the highway I saw a sign that said Dachau and it was quite the sobering sight, not realizing how close we were to a major concentration camp. When we got to the Thalkirchen campground we discovered it was full. Having had a full day of travel this was not what we wanted to find, so we got to developing ideas. First was to sleep by the park but there was really no good place to park. Sleeping in the car wouldn't be a big deal, my main concern was not having a bathroom at my use for 2 days. Upon finding the campground full, I was pretty grumpy and then the group that had come up with the campground idea just up and caught the shuttle to Oktoberfest leaving us to find out where to go. So we got in the car and went to the city center to have dinner because we were also very hungry. We went to a beer hall that was reportedly built in 1358, it felt like that but I highly doubted it was. I was not a happy camper at that table, not knowing where I would be spending each of the next 2 nights. After, we got back in the cars and went to drop off 2 people at friends' places (why didn't I know someone staying in Munch :XP ) and I couldn't understand why they couldnt lend space on their floor for us to sleep, I mean I had a sleeping bag and other people had sheets or to at least let us use a bathroom. So we resolved to park the car on the street and when we realized how hard it would be for 4 people to sleep in a car, I said fuck it I'll sleep on the bench in the little park across the street and that's just what I did and Julio too for both nights. Took my sleeping bag and it was nice, wasn't cold at all til I woke up each morning. 3.5 hours of sleep friday night a more reasonable 7 on Saturday night. I even developed my own little system for getting ready to go to sleep and carrying my sleeping bag across the street to the benches. There were a few bars in the neighborhood so each night we would wait by the car until like 1:30, I would get what I needed, change into boxers for the next day in the front seat, put on gym shorts, then put on my pants. I also took off my chains, and left everything valuable in the car,e xcept for my cell phone. I took a pocket knife with me just in case, you never know what crazies will be out there at night. Grabbing a bunch of jackets and scarves for pillows me and Julio made our way across the street to the long benches next to the bushes that thankfully obscured the benches from plain sight we laid out the sleeping bags. I would get in mine and take off my pants but I had still my gym shorts underneath, gotta sleep comfortable ya know and I'm wearing those jeans all day long. That night we slept for a little more than 3 hours, it was a sound sleep and I was not cold until Dianna woke us up at 5:30am as my phone alarm was going crazy under my arm. My face got cold and it was still darkish outside, I didnt want to get up but it was Oktoberfest day! I put my pants on and took off my shorts in the car and got ready for the day. We met up with others and walked to Max Planck station and took the metro over to the place I forget the name of where Oktoberfest is, we came upon the 1st tent Hippodrom, I had heard this to be one that occasionally attracted celebrities. It was by far not one of the largest. At first we lined up at like 7:30am and there were not too many people. Then the door people I suppose decided to fuck with everyone and said the entrance was going to be on the side, so like a bunch of animals everyone stampeded over to the biergarten. After that, we were then told to go the back of the building, granted the people were shouting in German so I did not understand anything and just followed the crowd. Finally in the back, everyone was squished up against each other for close to 2 hours until they let the doors open around 10am, the whole time was spent as people speculating when they would or why they wouldn't let us in. I just numbed my mind and drifted off, figured it was like being at a big concert, no stress, no concern, no worries. Then finally the doors opened and it was another stampede, hmmm thats funny there couldn't have been THAT many people who came through the doors already. There hadn't been, it turned out they had opened the front doors first but us all like dimbos listened to the orders to go to the back. Nevertheless, we all got 2 proximal tables, and they had the beers out for us in a jiffy. 1 liter mugs of beer, thats a bit more than 2 pints in 1 glass, a good amount of beer for 8 Euros, not cheap by any means but its the experience this huge tent with many colors and sitting at picnic tables with friends and drinking in the morning. We had until 1pm because the table was reserved after that or something. I had considered dressing up and as I mentioend had gone to Primark and bought a plaid shirt and hat and suspenders. I had planned to dress up on Sunday and just go normal on Saturday but I did grab the suspenders just in case. As i was commended for being in the spirit of things by wearing the plaid shirt I was inspired to go to the bathroom, tuck in and button my shirt, put ont he suspenders and put on the hat and you know for a total of about 12 euros I looked pretty legit save for my jeans :P I had wanted a 3rd beer but by 12:30 I guess they didnt want to serve us anymore so I just helped people finish theirs. After this, we went outside to check out the amusements. We played a shooting game that I severely sucked at only make 4 of 11 successful shots, and as the cheery guy in the booth observed to me I 'got shit.' Thank you German.Since the crowd was so huge we got split off from some in the group and the remaining I went on the roller coaster and the log flume. They were fun but a tad expensive, need to ride the rides, it's compulsory.. Later people wanted to go back to the car to sleep, its like wtf we're at oktoberfest we don't have a real place to stay and youre going to LEAVE?? fuck that, so some of us stuck around a big longer and then we ventured into the city center in the afternoon, tried to catch a tourist bus about 6 times and failed, and ended up going to dinner at a good Italian pizzeria where they had about a million varieties of personal pizzas. I really wanted sauce but what I ordered ended up being a white pizza. Getting through the pizza was sort of difficult for some reason, like a big test, I was breathing heavy after every few bites and like I was full but I wasn't really. It was stifling in that room and I had only slept 4 hours over the past 50+ hours, I felt like I was going to die so I got my jacket and went outside and took a walk. I came back 15 minutes later and promptly fell asleep in a chair for 30 minutes . Then we got gelato and walked back to oktoberfest for the last hour, got seats at an outdoor garten and of course picked the most soaking wet table, it was disgusting and some guy behind me kept leaning into me while a girl on his lap, I was not happy I wanted to go home I was done.
We went back and started making our night arrangements around 1, after having no issues with the benches on Friday night Julio and I looked to return, this time Mayank would join us on the ground next to us. Did the routine in the car with the shorts and the pants, and all was good. This time went to sleep at 2 and woke up at 9, saw the sun rise, and plenty of people passed us in the morning but did not say a word. We decided to go get breakfast in the city and do some sightseeing, we ended up at marienplatz, a beautiful plaza by neubergstrasse witha little outdoor cafe that had some good breakfasts. I had an Italian breakfast and a hard boiled egg. I have some newfoundappreciation for egg now. Though I dont understand the grumpy nature of Germans, I asked if they could make scrambled eggs and the waitress told me to the extent that the kitchen would get angry by the request because they were really busy. THe Italian breakfast consisted of mozzarella, olive oil, tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, and a nice loaf of bread, capuccino was good too. After breakfast, it was actually almost 12:00 and we all wanted to get a move on to get home and we wanted to see a bunch of stuff so we saw the big St Michaels church actually while a mass was occurring we only for like 5 minutes. Then we got to the cars, actually I had to show everyone around the block first, and there were 7 of us in 1 car to shuttle to the other. Then we were off to Olympic Park, it turned out that if you parked longer than 30 minutes you had to pay 5 Euro per hour. We didn't want to pay, so Dianna said 15 minutes out, 15 minutes back, just enough time to take pictures mainly. It was okay, it reminded me of the World's Fair remnants in Flushing, Queens. Then we were off to Dachau, the concentration camp. Not far out of Munich was one of the most prominent labor camps, mostly for political opponents, it was a tough place. A very unassuming cluster of houses and gridded street and suddenly boom parking lot to visit the concentration camp. Built on the grounds of an old munitions factory, it was just like movies and documentaries show with the big dusty courtyard, the iron-wrought fences, the guard towers. Not sure what the main buildings were for, but they turned it into a long chronological museum, very comprehensive. I was not in much of a mood for a history lesson, I just wanted to pay my respects. The eeriest part I think was the old crumbling train platform and the uprooted tracks by the main entrance, and of course the Arbeit Macht Frei, the words Never Again kept coming to mind as I wandered around, then I thought Never Should Have Been. Why In The First Place? Never Again, there never should have been anything to begin with. God fails again yet we continue to place our faith in Him, Yom Kippur? We sinned? I think he make a big transgression 60 years ago. To make it ironic, we stopped to eat at Burger King after. So I had McDonald's twice and Burger King once in one weekend whereas in 6 weeks prior I had only had Subway, oh well. Now I need to get myself some KFC and Pizza Hut, never had KFC before even in the US! Then we were planning to stop in Heidelberg to see the surroundings and the scenery. When we left the GPS said we would arrive about 7:45 which is right when the sun would be almost down so we were going to be cutting it close esp since the sun keeps going down earlier and earlier. Well, that wouldn't be happening as we would encounter traffic pretty much the entire way between Augsbrug and Mannheim. 350 km that should have taken 3-4 hours took over 5 hour and we still had over 500km to go and it was past 10pm. I even took us on another highway and it was this standstill bullshit at fucking 9:00pm on a Sunday night, oh yeah and the Autobahn DOES have speed limits. In the US where the federal and state speed limits are either 55 or 65 mph, just in Germany there is no such universal default, each area has its own as depicted by the signs. Anyway, even after we turned off Route 7, the GPS detour wouldn't have done any good based on where we were and no other big roads. Finally we stopped at a McDonalds around 11 and then wandered around some quiet dark towns looking for an open gas station, we were paying close to 1.40 euro per liter which when I did the conversions is like $6-$7 per gallon!!! Thats insane I am so glad I dont have a car here, not sure how people afford it. After a long long long ride home and counting the time down til we reached the Netherlands border and a driver switch at HamburgerLand, I got in my room after 4am, went to sleep by 6am, woke up at 1 and went to class from 3-6. That was a long weekend and then the rest of the week I played sleep catch up, Tuesday went to Amsterdam to see Sublime with Rome, was pretty cool, got right up front for most of the show. Melkweg is a neat venue if not a bit too packed both times I have been there. I discovered Melkweg means Galaxy or Milky Way. Next concert there will be next week for Steve Ignorant and Crass. Wednesday did all the statistical tests for Assignment 2, and Friday went to see THe Upsessions, a first-wave skinhead reggae ska band at Bibelot in Dordrecht. Stupid GPS couldn't find a signal so I navigated myself from the train staton to the venue winding through little old streets and obscure bars. Finally I found it a big old church on a corner, and went inside. At first I thought the guy was waving me through as I thought it was weird to pay at the end of the show. So I walked to the front of the venue and The Defenders a slightly swing-ska band still had a handful of songs left, the guy at the desk came and found me and said something to me so I explained to him that I dont speak Dutch (Ik geen spreek Nederlands!!) and it turned out I was to pay and I apologized for the confusion. There was NO ONE at this show and even fewer to watch and dance for The Defenders, not sure why, they were pretty good. Then I went to get a beer and I gave the guy a 2 euro coin because I thought a beer cost 1 euro but the guy said something about change so I assumed the place tobe exact change only. So I went to the 'change' machine and all I had was a 10 bill (damn captive audience) and it gave me tokens, 1 token buys a half-pint, 2 tokens buys a pint. I settled for HoeGaerden because Jan-Hertog is nasty. I wanted Jupiler but they only had malt kind. At the bar, I noticed the regular type of crowd, your mod skinehads in rolled up jeans, with Doc Martens, plaid and shaved heads. Your ska skinhead type with the messenger boy hat plaid and leather jacket, your Toasters groupie, your younger kids one with dread locks. Seemed like a normal group, and I was glad there was nothing but ska tonight. From what I had heard of Upsessions they soounded boring though I went anyway for 8 euro. They ended up rocking the place, very tight group, wearing green track suits pretty cute. They were very reminiscent of The Aggrolites froM California, and I think are even signed to Moon Ska Europe. Of course they have yet to appear on Yo Gabba Gabba. Good show, botched a chance once again thinking too much, tookthe train back to Rotterdam Blaak and my water bottle and beers were still untouched in my bike bag, amazing. Then I went to I-House around 12 for the huge birthdays party on the balcony o f floor 6. That was fun, lot of pictures and getting good and drunk, stayed until almost 4am then went home. Exams are right around the corner and I need to make my travel plans. How the hell is it October 10 already????? PEACE homez.
OKTOBERFEST SLEEPING, DRINKING, LARGE CROWD BEFORE ENTERING, MUCH MUCH MUCH TRAFFIC, MORE AMERICAN FOOD, DACHAU, NO HEIDELBERG, PASSING THE NONEXISTANT BORDER, home at 4am, sleep at 6, wake up at 1. then SUBLIME and JAYA THE CAT ON TUESDAY
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten