A Week At Europahaus!

I am told that this week was a pretty fun week. Unfortunately I don't remember much of it. I remember playing wizard staff at Europahaus (The aim of the game is to drink as many beer cans at possible and tape them together until you get a wizard staff that is taller than you. Of course, for vertically challenged peoples like myself, this was not as much of a challenge as for others). I also remember going out to dinner with Mike and his parents and eating so much lasagne that Erik/ Jesus could have definitely fed more than 5000 with that. I remember thinking how Alex and his brother are pretty much like doctor evil and mini me, how I could have probably done better than some of the pole dancers in the Corso bar, and that the WG of some random American called Tom Jones was broken into for a house party.



The things I didn't remember however, and recalled soon after, were challenging Anneli's fellow Fins to see if they could slap me harder than she could :-/, the breakage of one of Anneli's glasses when throwing that inflatable ball around in her room and me using my wizard staff quite graphically later in the evening...



Going to Schwaketenbad is ALWAYS fun when you go with Mate, who did some more of his most graceful jumps. I dived off the 3 meter board and landed on my eye, which sorta hurt, and did another of my spectacular backflops, which fucking hurt like hell. Anneli is too much of a woman to jump properly and holds her nose. The slide was fun, although without Mike and the Irish, there was a significant absence of being kicked in the head.

Due to persistent reminders which give my flat a homely feel, I took out the rubbish and the recycling today. Because of Germany's overkeenness on recycling, I have a small army of 43 empty beer bottles to take back to Kaufland, for each of which I can get 9 cents back as a deposit. Remains to be seen how carrying my own body weight in beer bottles to Zahringerplatz will go though.



I went to Uni today with a dilemma. Here in Germany, you can miss a maximum of 2 of each lecture, but missing any more than that means you don't get the credits for the course and therefore fulfil the end requirements. To cut a longer story short, I was going to have to come back from Rock-im-Park on Sunday rather than Monday and therefore miss seeing Muse and Motorhead, which I was very pissed about. Then, with a stroke of luck, both my lectures next Monday morning were cancelled! What are the odds??

3 days til Rage Against the Machine
4 days til Wolfmother and Airbourne
5 days til JayZ Patrick O'Brien!!!
6 days til Muse
11 days til the world cup
16 days til Ollie and Macca come to visit
And about 50 before my dreaded return back to Britain...

Das Leben koennte kaum besser sein!

Barcelona Based Banter

After watching the breakage of Miha's bed live, then being slapped senseless by Anneli and then stepping my way round the sticky beer areas on the floor, talking to a hippy, and a thoroughly unsuccessful trip to the kebab shop, I got up 4 hours later to go to Barcelona. Ok, so having my wallet stolen on the first night in the Catalan capital wasn't ideal, but at least I chased the bastard down and got it back!





Barcelona is possibly one of the most awesome cities in the world. I went to the beach and went swimming in the freezing sea, I saw the Nou Camp (girls, that's the Barcelona football stadium) and had my pictures taken next to the pitch and the 6 trophies they won last season, I did a pub crawl which ended with me, Sam and Matt darting down the back alleys off La Rambla at 5.30am to escape a crazy American called Tyger McGee, I spent my last night in a hostel with a rather fat American girl vomming up her guts in the bed next to me about a metre from my face, I watched the CL final, and obviously saw all the main sights, before buying possibly the best T-shirt ever. Unfortunately, wearing this latest purchase on 6 different forms of transport on the way home possibly wasn't the best idea, as I got a number of awkward looks.













Unfortunately, as amazing as this trip was, it has pretty much bust my bank account meaning that the dream trip to Tromso to experience 24 hour daylight is now not likely. But plenty to look forward to anyway - in roughly 180 hours - not that I'm counting, I will seeing Killing in the name of, by Rage against the machine, live in Nuremberg. I won't mind too much if I die in the moshing process, as seeing them was my number one aim in life. Also very much looking forward to Southside, the pre-Southside party and the visit of Ollie and Macca to Konstanz, including the possibility of a day trip to Liechtenstein. I filled out one of those Where I've Been maps on Facebook yesterday, there're still so many European countries I need to visit, though all I can say is, hopefully they'll be a little less sketchy that Barca.

It's good to be back in K-town now. I realise that with all the travelling I've been doing, I don't think I've spent 2 weekends in a row in this place, and I have to go home in 2 months, so I'm determined to make the most of this amazing place and the amazing people. Looking forward to a bit of Kantine fun with Bene and Nadine heute Abend. Gotta love the mentors.

From Baden-Baden-Baden-Baden to Barcelona

"So my brain is like a lot of little people. And there's this guy behind a desk. And someone will run in with some information for him. And he'll either sign it and they'll run off or he'll ignore it. That's for my basic motor functions. And in his office there's a big window, but tbh, he spends most of his time just gazing out of the window into space." (Scott)

Class entertainment like some of Scott's quotes, as well as craaaazy parties and spontaneous visits to places have characterised the last few weeks. I have booked tickets to the Southside Festival in Neuhausen in mid June and the Rock-Im-Park festival in Nuremberg in early June, so that as well as probably watching approximately 64 world cup matches over the next 6 weeks, I will probably also be seeing about that many bands live. Some of them are siiiiick, including Muse, Kasabian, Motorhead, Kiss, Jay-Z, Them Crooked Vultures, Airbourne, Rammstein, Sum 41, Rage Against The Machine, Pendulum, Slash, Ellie Goulding, Alice in Chains, La Roux, The Strokes, Florence and the Machine, Paramore, Beatsteaks, Biffy Clyro, Mando Diao and many others! Jealous? You should be! What will make the Southside Festival twice is good is that two of my friends from home, Ollie and Macca will be out here for it, so everything in Konstanz, there will be a big Schwaketenbad session on Wednesday 16th June and a houseparty at mine on the 17th!

So, what could make life better than the World Cup and all those bands live? Probably some more excursions and trips abroad? Well in 24 hours I will be on a beach in Barcelona with Sam!!!! I will be there for the Champions League Final, shame Barca didn't make it, I will see the Nou Camp, La Rambla, all the cultural sights, and obviously a lot of the nightlife! Speaking of nightlife, quality party at the Konzilgebaude last week, though I don't remember a lot of it. Apparently I sung all the words to Backstreet Boys, put a beer bottle in a bike water bottle holder, got thrown into an advertising board by Mate, and nicked some ppls drinks. Nejc, that may have been you, sorry about that bro.







There have also been some awesome Schwaketenbad sessions with the Irish guys, Americans and Marco, including Mike taking me out on the slide. Last time that happened, I broke my nose and lost some teeth and had to miss out watching an england match on TV, so this time was slightly less painful, hahaha.



Plans for the next little while might include some work, but otherwise the last plan for the end of the semester is to go to Tromso, in Northern Norway, where at this time of year there will be 24-7 sunlight. Would be an awesome camping trip and a goodbye to everyone at the end of July, and a real once in a lifetime experience. You can go to cities at any time, but I doubt I'd travel to the furthest northern points in Scandinavia and camp at any other time in my life!! I will also be visiting Liechtenstein in mid June to add to the list of places this year, most likely to the capital, Vaduz.

Erasmus is amazing, and so far Konstanz is absolutely shitting all over Strasbourg (except for you Patrick O'Brien, and you Sam Mueller!!)

:-D

Football, Strasbourg, Enrique's, Heidelberg, RACOON EYES :-)

The last 2 weeks have been the best of the year abroad. Special mention to Kellie Schieber and Lauren Harn for enterting THE GAME, to Lorcan Murray for being a legend, to Sam Mueller cos she ........ EVERYWHERE, and to the LEI for organising Heidelberg :-)

All I can say though, is if the shim in Strasbourg hadn't been racist and told English people to f*** off, I wouldn't have asked he/ she/ it whether he/ she/ it was a man or a woman. Strasbourg was amaaaazing, big thanks to Lorcan Murray, cos I probs destroyed his chance of passing an exam by staying at his. Still, procrastination in the form of Rollercoaster Tycoon and Sporcle means doomed to failure anyway. Despite the first thing Matt said to me after 4 months was that I looked remarkable homosexual, was great to see everyone, especially my future wife, Sam, and Laura and Katherine and many others. Irish people were also good banter, shame I didn't get to know them in first semester. Mustn't forget to mention that Sam CHUNNNNNDERRRREDDDD EVERYWHERE. (I know you will appreciate me mentioning this in my blog). I just feel sorry for Katrina's bin, haha.








Back in Konstanz, I've been playing a lot of football, with the politics department and the physics department. I think I'm starting to get my form back a bit, but I don't know whether to take it as a compliment or an insult when German defenders say to each other "Watch the little one!". A lot of the players are good though, especially the Chileans, Enrique is a bit of a demon.

Towards the end of this week has been a good week for birthdays. Enrique's Palace of Love was the destination on Thursday for his 26th birthday celebrations, where Kellie Schieber entered the racoon eyes game. I thought that this might be a good time and place to explain to everyone what I would devise as a rule book for this game. I think that considering I have started having dreams about it, and therefore cannot escape it even in moments of consciousness, I'm probably well placed to define some rules for those of you that don't know.
1) When someone in the game cups there hands and fingers around their eyes to make racoon eyes, and someone else sees it, they have to lie on the floor wherever they are. Alex has had to lie in a church, me on a bus, etc.
2) You enter the game by making the racoon eyes gesture, and once you're in it's a life long contract, you can't get out, as Kellie's is beginning to regret after laying on the floor 6 times over the space of 15 fun-filled hours with me too.
Below are some of the pictures of Enrique's party and the racoon eyes. It was a good party anyways, with the dance floor where his old bedroom was and some Chilean salsa tunes flying out of the speakers. I regrettably went home early to watch the British elections, falling asleep at 3am with pizza on my lap. That was an interesting wake up.







Friday was to celebrate the birthday of Erika, everyone's favourite Slovakian, with the unconventional idea of a toast party. That is the biggest mound of toasted sandwiches I'll probs ever see in my life. Korina was the cook, and I began to wonder what the filling actually was, til I opened it up and realised she has forgotten to put anything inside. We also went swimming yesterday, with some very impressive diving from Chelsea and some hilarious jumps from Mate on the 1 meter springboard. Going down the slide with Mike and the Irish was good banter too, even if I did headbutt some poor guy in the arse.

Saturday was, despite the early get up, amazing. 3 and a half hours after starting our journey, we arrived in Heidelberg, and were shown around the castle by our Danish tour guide. Highlights of the day involved Marco telling a man on the street that Alex was the president of America, Lauren entering the racoon eyes game; a decision she will undoubtedly come to regret, and watching Enrique do salsa dancing on the back of the bus. Photos soon to be uploaded from that.

Oh Konstanz. Ohhhhhhhh Germany. I never wana leave you!!