The 'Us' Day

So, Amanda and I decided (well, not really decided, but ended up sleeping in and then being stuck with the decision) to stay in from our respective excursions and have an 'Us' Day. This is how it went:

I awoke around noon and knocked on Amanda's door. We decided to head over to the small market and exchange our bottles for precious MONIES as we were both low. But wait! What was this in our mailboxes?! A Sparkasse card?!?! Our hopes hinged on this single event, we had waited with baited breath, and here it was: OUR SPARKASSE BANK CARDS.

We laufed over to the Geldautomat and checked to see if there was any money on the card and WHAT? 350 EURO?? We rejoiced and threw our bottles into the air, dancing and singing. We celebrated with an extravagent meal at an Indian restaurant and by going on a shopping spree (don't worry, we were still budgeting).

So, after our delicious meal Amanda and I went into town where she bought a new red and black dress and I bought a small black dress for 5 Euros along with earrings, stockings, and a new matching underwear set and the most bomb awesome black and white scarf. I was in a shopping mood for the first time in my entire life. We rejoiced heartily.

Later, we grabbed a bottle of wine and drank while watching Treasure Planet, getting ready for the Mexican birthday going on in Martinskloster. I wore high heeled boots which was the biggest mistake of my life as we not only walked to Martinskloster from the Porta Nigra (a 20ish minute walk) we also walked to A1 from Martinskloster which was another 20-30 minute walk. My feet were bloody stumps by the end. I spent the whole of the night sitting on a bar stool, drinking tap water and feeling, or rather, not feeling, my feet.

Met up with this strange guy who is what I will now dub 'MexiFrench'. Born in Mexico, lives in France, speaks complete gibberish almost all of the time. He was smitten with Amanda and, because he was a nice guy, he came home in our cab with us and we made some food which he ate with us before leaving to catch his train to France. I forgot to mention that it was 6:00 am when we left the club and almost 7:30 by the time I got to bed. The saddest part was that I was not even drunk, just tired and in pain.

I could never recall the MexiFrench's name and so I refer to him as Bippidee Bopiddy Boo. It was something in that area.

Finally got to sleep after a night of being pressed close to smelly people and it was wonderful. My stuffed dog awaited me and all was right with the world.

THE LAST THREE WEEKS IN RHEINLAND-PFALZ

So, the few of you who follow my blog are probably wondering where the fuck I've been over the last three weeks or so. Here is a very fast and sweet summary of events:

One day Matt Bongers and Forehead from The Great Land of Minneapolis called and said they were hitch hiking through. The next day they were here with three other friends and they stayed in our rooms (me and Amanda) for a good while. There was much drinking and partying and fun to be had and most of them got really sucked into watching House. Forehead gave me a tattoo with a sewing needle and some India Ink and then I gave myself one on my knee of musical notes that hurt like a fucking bitch.

We spent many nights at the Irish Pub and, after about three days, the OTHER International students got here. There was Anne from Virginia and Matt from Colorado, and then Buket and Selver from Turkey and Andres and Didzes (which I cannot spell or pronounce) from Latvia who are beautiful, and many, many more. So now we ALL went out drinking and partying every night and Jake, one of the hitch hikers, fell desperately in love with a beautiful 28 year old Polish waitress. She took him home and treated him like a King and managed to get me a job at a bar (which I am still waiting on news for) and when he left they parted sweetly.

The hitch hikers eventually left, first the four, Britney, Mitch, Jake, and Bongers, and then Forehead several days later. Forehead, having fallen into something resembling love with a beautiful Turkish girl, was verliebt for the last couple days. I had an affair and then another and fell into a pattern of drinking and singing and dancing and then drinking and then passing the fuck out. In a healthy, regular drinker sort of way. Not in a 'drunk at 10 am' sort of way. Don't worry, Amanda Dutcher's relatives. I know you read this.

So, the hitch hikers left after giving me a bitchin' tattoo and being awesome for about a week and a half and now it feels lonely around here. It went from nothing going on in the Land of Douche to a million things happening at every second of the day. Amanda spent a day washing her floor since our rooms were pretty trashed. I had to move everything around and now my bed is under the window (A MISTAKE). It's cold all the time there and I wake up sort of damp feeling from dew.

During The Hitch Hiker Time we went to new bars, Forehead sang 'Sweet Caroline' and it was the greatest karaoke performance ever, we all got drunk by the Mosel River and rolled in itch weed, met another student from Hamline (Heather), and everyone fell in something like love. It was a crazy, crazy time. I had a lot of weird dreams during this period, too. I can't even begin to describe them.

So, this is the first part of 'What's Been Up With Monad'. When I think of more I'll update again. Right now there is not much to do and not much happening. Tonight, I plan on being drunk again and dancing, an activity I only participate in when totally 'shit faced' as we say back in the States.

And no, Tyler, no one has stolen my asian treasures. They're still safe and sound, tucked away. I'm trying to figure out which cigarettes to get you, if I could find cigarettes made from the water of the Rhein and the blood of a Nazi, and tobacco dried in the heart of a German volacno, I would dub them 'Guten Tag' and bring them to thee. But German doesn't really have 'GERMAN' cigarettes. Everything says 'AMERICAN BLEND!' on them and then 'Made in the EU' in tiny lettering.

So, bis bald, until next time, dear readers. A lot is happening, a lot of German is being learned, and someday I hope to be able to post in Deutsch. Vielleicht. Go ahead and throw some comments my way, it's still lonely sometimes in this vast interweb.

The Shittiest Night Ever

...and was it shitty. Tonight all I achieved was a lot of pizza eating (which was not the shitty part, this came before), shitting in a train yard, staring at a sad puppy while I smoke all of my cigarettes for two hours, and then spending a weeks worth of grocery money on a taxi. Do you know how important 15 Euros is? I'm lucky to have two coins to rub together, 15 Euros is amazing. 15 Euros is food, toilet paper, shelter, cigarettes, snacks and drinks and so much more. Bus tickets, phone calls, everything. I can get all of that for 15 Euros. And I spent it on a taxi ride because it was cold and I was a long, long way from home. This is how it goes:

Amanda and I went to this club, A1 Music Park, to meet up with some people. We get there and it is a huge, ridiculous CENTER, like Target Center, with a giant light on the top like a casino and a line at least 500 people long to get in. We stand in line, leave the line to meet Yu at the bus station, and then stand in line again. I am sick. I have a stomach ache that moves buildings, I feel like I'm going to die and I'm near tears. It's like my bowels exploded inside my stomach, from a scale of 1 to 10 my pain is a 5,000. Eventually, I abandon all hope, run into the far train yard after telling Amanda I'd go there, and end up squatting in a desolate train yard, in a bramble bush.

Feeling better, I go back to the line and Amanda and Yu are nowhere to be found. I look all over, call their names, but I figure they went in. I am disheartened and stand at the back on the line, having no cell phone, hoping that I will find Amanda inside and everything will be good again.

I wait in the line for two hours. Halfway through I see a dog, sitting all alone inside the stairwell, looking sadder than I have ever seen a puppy look before. It stares at every person that goes past and then lies down and cries. It was horrible. I was very cold and very depressed, realizing that there are MORE people inside and that the chance of finding Amanda is very slim. I wait, regardless, and when I finally get to the front I am kicked out along with ten other people, for reasons that are no explained to me. I hear a guy say there are too many people and I stand there, completely bewildered, and ask in bad German if the bouncer has seen Amanda (fat chance, I know). The guy in front of my offers 500 dollars to get into the club and when the bouncer turns him down I figure I've been ousted from the line of Trier's elite and grab a cab home.

Now, this I don't get. I talk to the driver in German, but he answers me all in English. I answer his English questions in German and he keeps answering me in English. Okay, really, what the hell? Am I that obviously American? I could have been fucking Chinese or something, he didn't know. Anyway, the cab ride is silent except for Fat Bottomed Girls and Jesse's Girl on the radio which almost make my night okay, and I pay a week's worth of comfort for the ride. Now I'm in my room, hoping that Amanda is worried about me because I could very well be dead in a ditch and everyone else is having fun. I am going to be miserable when she tells me how much fun she had because I am not classy, pretty, or rich enough to get into some goddamn club and I had the worst stomach ache in the world tonight. I am most pissed about losing all that fucking money. What do I do to deserve this? Come on, really? I'm a Catholic. I live a pretty clean life. I'm in college, working my ass off to be somebody, right? Why is the world shitting on me? 15 EUROS. :O My god, I'm going to be poor again so soon and once you've been dirt poor, no money poor, no food poor, even for a week or two, you never want to be that way again.

So, yeah. It was a bad night. Never going out again if my life depends on it.

The Poorest Monad in the World

I was poor. Was. I was so poor that I didn't have toilet paper. I was so poor that I ate plain rice and cried over my empty stomach. I was so poor I rolled the remaining tobacco from my butts into dictionary paper to smoke it. I was so poor I went to bed sad every night. But no more! I have entered a world called BUDGETING and I have over 50 Euros on my person and another large amount stashed the fuck away. No more crying over spilt water because it's the last of my water (I'm kidding, water comes from the tap.) I even bought SPONGES today. I had enough disposable money to buy sponges. Thank god, now I can do my dishes in peace.

MEXICO PARTY

So, two nights ago Amanda and I ventured out to meet our buddy Miguel for a party for Mexico's Independence Day. I ate some sort of meat and chocolate dish that was delicious but once I discovered that there was chocolate in it I sort of 'ughed' and felt weird and chocolately.

There was a man on the bus whose entire head was made of bumps and he looked a little like a weird version of the Hellraiser guy. When Amanda sat in front of him he actually moved his strange head back into my line of sight so I spent a long time staring out the window, trying not to stare at his bump head.

The party consisted of lots of drinking and dancing and lots of people trying to convince me to dance which was harrowing and frightening. I danced a little but once 5 in the morning rolled around I was ready to pass out and dance no more. One might say that I had danced myself out. Amanda, however, was still going strong.

There's not a lot to say, I found out some useful tourist things about Paris and danced ein bisschen but when Amanda and I got back to our rooms we ate pirogies (SP?!) rather than sleep. We made about 80 or so and ate them for three straight days. Delicious and filling. I felt like my ntire lower stomach was a rock for days. I still feel that way. BLARGH.

The Best Band (Shirt) in the World

Alrightie, so last night Amanda and I made our way to Luxembourg for a night of listening to The Faint and hanging around. We got there, immediately were 'Oooh laaa laaa'ed from a car (a triumph, to have been 'ooh laaa laa'ed in a French speaking country) and travelled into the janky warehouse district to find the venue. After much running around for a cheeseburger we got into the show, met a woman named Brigette who was doing press stuff and trying to get an interview with The Faint, and I drank two useless shots of juice and vokda. I asked for vodka. I got it mixed with Loooooza juice.

So, the concert was great except for the group of rowdy British hipster boys behind us. I might have broken one of their hands had they not been slighty amusing and attractive. Hand breaking became more of an issue as I was jostled, had a sticker stuck to my back (which I found later), asked to buy them beers, had my butt grabbed, and was given a massage from one especially drugged out looking one in a suit jacket. I still danced (GASP) and enjoyed myself. The night was compounded later.

Amanda and I, having missed our train (which I cotinued to refer to as the 'bus' for some reason), wandered the club, sat around waiting for Brigette, and then, by Amanda's sly luck, HUNG OUT WITH THE FAINT. Amanda, sticking her head into the tour bus to inquire about Brigette, wanting to say good bye, was greeted with some members of The Faint coming out and having a cigarette with us. We were handed a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of vodka, respectively, and for two to three hours sat around and talked with The Faint guys and the sound guys. It was quite interesting.

But by now I was freezing in a tank top with no jacket, not having foreseen being out in Luxembourg in the early morning hours, and I desperately wanted to put on my Faint shirt. But I didn't want to look weird around The Faint, right? So I waited and, after getting out of sight of the bus, threw it on to be pleasantly surprised that it was INCREDIBLY SOFT AND WONDERFUL. It was a good fit, slightly baggy, and it was made from the softest shirt material known to man.

Go see The Faint. Get their tee shirt. It is totally worth it.

After I cooked Amanda and I meals at 7 in the morning we went to bed and I found that, GASP, I could not sleep. So I sat up and counted for awhile.

And that was my night.

Requiem for Chili Chips

WRITTEN LAST NIGHT:
Someone once told me that certain cautionary things made him terrified of being in certain, unprecedented situations. This certain person used the example of the rape play, the famous and wonderful rape play that Hamline puts on every year. Apparently this play made him terrified that he would, indeed, rape somebody. He was dead serious, too. If I mentioned who this individual was you'd know how serious he was. In other news, TextEdit counts 'ho' as a word.

I made the mistake of watching 'Requiem for a Dream', a movie that requires hugs afterwards (poor Jared Leto, he's going to have trouble hugging people after THAT, amirite? Okay, poor taste). That movie makes me terrified that I'm going to become a drug addict. Ridiculous, right? You don't just BECOME a drug addict. William S. Burroughs once talked about how long it would take to get a junk habit. Something like, a month or more of everyday intravenous drug use for a first timer. Okay, but still. I don't want my arm chopped off. I don't want to become a whore. I don't want to end up an old lady in a mental ward, wanting to be on television. I am just slightly terrified. Although, the movie does a very good job of not glorifying drug use, which is interesting. It also helps to have your druggie friends puking out their guts and screaming, that certainly isn't glorified in any way. In fact, having seen my fair share of vomit and head wounds from all night benders of god knows what, I'm pretty okay with not doing a whole ton of drugs most of the time. The most adverse effect my once friend, mentioned above, had from Adderal and Vodka was becoming 'CROCKLEY FOR BROCCOLI' and forcing his way into the kitchen to devour a bag of frozen broccoli. So it's not all bad. Then again, he did throw me from his house and tell me that I should go DIAF (die in a fire) after my brother was hospitalized simply because he was sick of me complaining about my weight. I try not to do that so much anymore.

It's 3:35 in the morning and for lack of things to do I've smoked a pack of cigarettes and eaten a bag of ChiliChips. I watched some Firefly, some Bleach, and then Requiem. Needless to say, I can't sleep, but it's not all that late so I'll probably be tired by 5ish. I just have fucking nothing to do until I DO become tired.