So it’s been almost a month since my last post. What has occurred since then? Some really great stuff that’s what. I believe my last post was from Vienna. After Vienna it was time for some serious hanging in Prague. School was done the weather was great and everyone was ready to just soak it all in since the end for most was drawing near. The days consisted of reading at my favorite little Hobbit Café where they now (at least the cute little waitress) know me and know my order. That was one of my goals before coming to Prague, to gain regular status at some place. I’d say I half achieved it. Coffee and reading was usually followed by a trip back home to eat and then we would just go to a bar somewhere or to the beer garden. Especially since the World Cup had started there was never not anything to do. On two boring nights I made my way to Old Town Square with a bag of beer and watched the madness that is Football in Europe ensue. Pretty exciting stuff, I don’t think anyone gets that passionate over sports in the States save for Jack when baseball season starts.
I don’t really know what to say about those few weeks in Prague. They were extremely relaxing but also sad. Near the end nights out turned into going away parties. I’d say the hardest goodbye was to dear friend The Mark Murphy. You all remember him, the first friend I made here, the cool Phish fan from Buffalo, the kid who acted as my ATM for a week and a half. What a great guy. I got super sick after he left and it was a bummer cause I really was all alone in my dorm. It kind of felt like that first night all over again when I knew I had no one to talk with. He was definitely my best friend here and not just because we were neighbors and American, he was just stoked to do things and also was down with gossiping. Without him I would not of been a happy camper living in Hvezda. One of my biggest regrets is not hanging with him more, oh well, Euro Trip 2015!
So now I’m leaving Munich. Would you like to hear about Munich? Fine. So after the failed plan that was the French Rivera and Paris I was left struggling for places to go. I knew I didn’t want to go anywhere where I didn’t know anyone. It’s just more fun and easier to show up somewhere and have an immediate friend, why waste time trying to find someone to hang with when you could just as easily go somewhere you can sleep for free and have a tour guide/drinking buddy. Anyway, that’s my philosophy and thankfully I had enough friends abroad that I could figure something out. But sorry, how did I come about going to Munich you ask? Well let me tell you.
One day my friend from Glenbard West Lacrosse, Mike Udelhofen sent me a Facebook message informing me he was in Munich, had a floor, and wanted to hang. End of story.
After mostly recuperating from one gnarly cold I took the train to Munich and started hanging. Mike was pretty busy with summer school and a lab report that thanks to me (I think) he had to stay up all night finishing. That’s what you get for taking summer school! Anyway, Munich is in Bavaria, which for those you that don’t know is like, the strict, law abiding, extremely proud part of Germany. It is also the home of October Fest and huge beers and huger pretzels. Since I was still battling the cold we didn’t hop right to the getting wasted. The first night was spent in the famous Chinese Beer Garden at the even more famous English Garden. Cool tidbit, Central Park in NYC is modeled after the English Garden in Munich. Unfortunately this Beer Garden experience was not too grand. I made the cocky yet adventurous decision of ordering a one-liter Ruß’n beer. Turned out to be half weiß beer and half orange juice. Gross right!?! I know! Who the fuck mixes those two things? Let me tell you who, Bavarians. They are also big fans of the Radler which is weiß beer and lemonade?!?! Yuck, I’ll stick to my pilsner, thank you. So after this 9-dollar jug of shitty ass beer, we went home and I set up camp at the foot of Mike’s bed, which became my home for the next 5 nights.
Unfortunately, Mike was pretty busy with school during the week so I was left on my own all day. I used this time to be a tourist, which I hadn’t really done since my first few weeks in Prague. I went to the main town square, the garden etc. Most of the sights were pretty non-enthralling. The best part was probably the palace because since Munich has the massive English Garden no one goes and chills at the Palace gardens. There may have been only 20 or so people on a hundred acres, pretty cool and tranquil n’shit. What was super crazy to think about while there was that you totally know Hitler and the other Nazis did exactly what I did. They went and wandered around those gardens, sitting in the shade, taking in the beauty. Kind of terrifying, kind of sad, but also kind of awesome, LIVING HISTORY!
Short summary of the rest of the trip. Pizza dinner, lots of ice cream and kebabs, super crazy awesome party at the main university in Munich, rioting in the streets after the Germany soccer win, people throwing up on me/next to me, throwing bottles off the roof in celebration of the 4th of July. Yeah! That’s the jist of it. Big ups to Mike for letting me invade his home for 6 days, it was definitely a lot of fun and really nice to hang with him since it had been so long.
So now I’m sitting on Ilka’s back porch while she and her cousins play in the pool. She resides in a town called Dorste, which is basically the size of downtown Glen Ellyn. I think the population is a little over 1,000 maybe less and it’s in what I’m deeming the Midwest of Germany. If I look to my left I see rolling meadows of wheat, barley and other crops and to my right, in the distance, the same. There are two friendly neighborhood hawks that are always outside my window. At night the skies are clear and full of stars after the sun sets behind the hills and since we are pretty far north, it lingers there for a while giving you a longer sunset than usual. Even at midnight there is still a glowing in the west silhouetting the trees, it’s pretty fucking badass and despite being super drunk last night I got to see a very beautiful sunrise sky.
What I’m getting at is it’s a very small town. I like to joke that I’m the first American any of these Germans have seen since the war and for the old people, I think it’s true. So far it’s been a crazy experience.
So you all know I like to talk. I’ll talk to anyone about anything especially if I’m drunk or know I will never see that person again. But here, in Dorste I don’t really talk with anyone and not just that, I can’t understand anyone else’s conversations, why? Because everyone only speaks German. You may have just asked yourself, “but Greg, I thought you speak German” well yeah I do, but these people are German, it’s their language, I wouldn’t expect Ilka to understand everything me and Jack talk about at 3am. The first two nights, one of which was Ilka’s birthday, I just sat amongst 15 Germans, all speaking super fast catching a word here or there, twiddling my thumbs. I would have gone to bed but I was so desperate to talk to someone I waited for everyone to leave just so I could talk to Ilka. We went for a walk through the wheat fields checking out the stars n’shit. It was pretty rad but made me homesick for the nights when I would tag along with Setu, Grant, and go scoping. Saw some pretty cool shit back then, strange to think it was almost a year ago when that all happened.
So a few days have passed. Germany lost in the semi-finals against Spain. This resulted in everyone getting absolutely wasted at the place where we watched the game. This little hut more or less had a bar (conveniently being run by Ilka’s mom) that served beer only in .2 liter glasses. Now this has its upsides and downsides. The upside is you never think you’re drinking that much and compared to the 1 liter mugs in Munich your arm doesn’t get tired while holding your beer. The downside is they are extremely easy to chug or in German “x” or something like that. I told everyone the various ways to say chug in English i.e. pound, slam, down, they were stoked. So needless to say, that night got sloppy. There were several times where I had 3 full beers in front of me because people just kept buying round after round. The positive of everyone being drunk was that everyone I had met the past 2 nights were much more inclined to speak their awful English with me. This may have also been provoked because I basically said fuck it and started speaking German as much as I could with everyone. I was so sick of sitting in silence I had to try and it worked! The night ended with after hours at Ilka’s cousin’s house that has a pub in the garage. Apparently Ilka’s parents used to party there when they were our age so it has a lot of history, pretty awesome, no bro-lair though. One solo Bruce Springsteen/blink 182 sing-a-long later, the sun was rising and we were on our way home. Not much happened the next day, obviously.
Well except for one thing. Which is what I plan on talking about because I guess it’s kind of important.
I am very fond of this girl. So now lets just say I am very content staying in this small town with her until I have to go home. Alles gut.
This will be my last post. In a couple of days I will be on a different continent. See you all very very very very soon. Except for those of you from Europe reading this, probably won’t see you very soon.
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