Crazy Week & The Southside Festival 2010

Swimming in Schwaketenbad, experiencing the World Cup and the disappointment of England, playing baseball with a vuvuzela and a ping-pong ball, being crushed in the crowd for a Prodigy gig and being absolutely covered in mud, watching 11 other live bands, dancing on a podium in a nightclub, talking 5 different languages, eating nothing but bread and not showering for 72 hours, having a house party and having to call out the Hausmeister to turn off the fire alarms at 1am, almost dying in a mosh pit and almost freezing to death in a tent, watching a man eating a cupcake full of pubic hairs and then run around his halls of residence chasing people with a blow up sex doll. And last but not least, having Ollie and Macca out here to visit. WHAT AN AMAZING WEEK!!!



Thank fuck I'm not having my birthday in Konstanz, cos if I had to do 21 dares including eating a cupcake full of pubes, chase people with a sex doll, drink vodka from someone's belly button, drink alcohol through 2 guys butt cracks, swap clothes with a girl, run around in nothing but an England flag and many other things, I do not think I would survive. Hands up to Chris though on Monday, outstanding performance and the best ever prelash I've been at, before a great night at Berries.

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but Mate, as lovely as he is, has significant problems with his w's and v's. A lof of European languages, namely German and Hungarian don't have a 'w' sound, and use a 'v' instead. I have taken great but rather cruel pleasure in often telling Mate that is is "wery lucky that ve are friends". He surpassed himself though by saying we'd go hang out in building w at the uni the other day and then taking us to building v. It's one thing to have trouble pronouncing something, but this event on Tuesday helped me establish that the poor kid has trouble reading.



Like most of the guys in Stortford (where I come from back home), I hadn't seen Ollie and Macca since last year, so it was great when they came to visit on Wednesday. Ollie experienced some of his Istanbul illness again so I left him in my room and me and Macca went swimming with the Ktowners, before returning back for a curry and then going to Cocktail bar. If I have to say one thing I have learnt this week, it's that the White Russian is a fucking awesome cocktail. Had a nice little conversation with Marco in Italian and then a good chat with Gabii, everyone loves Gabii! Then we went to Berries, apologies to Kellie for trying to bundle her in the taxi, haha. After a bit of dancing on the podium and a few hours of banter, we talked the taxi driver into giving us a cheap ride home and slept until the beautiful smell of British bacon motivated me to get out of bed. Man I miss bacon!

After a general tour of the city in the pouring rain and letting the guys establish Currywurst for the first time, we had a house party at mine. It was an absolutely great night, watching Mexico beat France and then getting Beer Pong going. However, some negotiations with the Hausmeister at 1am because of 3 fire doors being opened and the alarms going off is inconvenient. Mike was fairly stupid to ignore the big alarm sign. Mate was even more special to think that opening 2 other doors to distract attention from floor 5 would be a good idea. It would have been a 50 euro fine per door (which I would not have paid), but instead I think we just get a letter cos we were polite with the arrogant Hausmeister. Nothing is ever simple in my life. Except for my brain maybe...





Southside was the next day. I got my hobo sack ready and we all headed into town to be met by people coming back from the festival who had gone a day earlier. Their sleeping bag was soaked through, their phones, iPods and cameras were broken and it was a bit of an ominous sign. But we waded our way through the mud and set up our communal camp. The artists I saw included Florence & the Machine, Paramore, Enter Shikari, The Prodigy, Mando Diao and La Roux amongst other bands. The best gig though was Prodigy were me, Ollie and Macca ran into the muddiest mosh pit of all time and I dived into someone about 3 times my height. I disappeared into the crowd before he could kill me though. Saturday night was amazing, Sully was on top form in his batman mask, and we headed to the DJ tent after some beer, whisky and various other drinks. The whole weekend was an absolute blast and the quote of the weekend goes to Macca, who, whilst straining to see the screen and see who Holland were playing he described their opponents as "Some sort of Chinesey team". By that, he meant Japan.





That was the last big weekend of Erasmus, because of money and the fact that I have exams to prepare for. I'll take some great great memories from it though and will be home in England on July 24th, just under 5 months since I left. Thanks to everyone who made this week amazing!

Year Abroad Review (So far) Part 2 of 3

Still, the positives in France vastly outweighed the countries seemingly huge inefficiencies. In the first few weeks, me and Matt raced a tram, played against a group of French guys at football and even though we lost 7-6 it was probably one of the best games I've ever played in, and regularly went to Mezzanine, where everyone partied, except the Americans who seemed to use the club scene to discuss the American Civil War/ The War of Northern Aggression (as Lacy labelled it) in detail.

By the time I went home for a week in November, I almost didn't want to leave, yet as me and my future wife Sam got on the plane in Basel, I couldn't wait to see the guys in Bath and get things you just don't get in France, namely efficiency in everyday life and BACON. OMG, if there are two things I had missed up until this point it was watching Premiership football and eating proper bacon (of course family and friends I missed guys too :-) ). On returning in November, we had some crazy nights at Laura's, where we learnt never to give Lorcan a camera, after we took 160 photos in the space of 2 hours.

The highlight of the month though, was the lads trip to Prague with Matt and Patrick. Setting off for Kehl at 9 at night, we made the 15 hour journey to Prague through the early hours via 3 trains and 1 bus from Nuremberg to Prague at the end. We found blood all over the platform at Frankfurt, and spent 2 hours waiting there expecting to be confronted by a frosties killer (cereal killer -gettit? haha). We then got told to get up of the ground by some German policeman who thought we were hobos. On making it to Prague and staying with a lovely family, Patrick snored so loud on their bed he probably produced more decibels than your average Boeing 747. We went to Beer Factory on the main street, where you pour your own pints and it measures how much you've drunk in litres. Much to the probably dismay of our Czech hosts, we ran down the hill from the castle on the last day having sword fights before heading back the next day. I think Matt fell in love with his camera on the journey back, taking no fewer than 38 photos of the long road ahead from the front of the top of our double decker bus. Still a bit confused by that Pizz.

December came and went in Strasbourg, with the Christmas markets being everywhere, freezing cold temperatures of minus 13 degrees at the lowest (which incidentally killed 8 homeless people in a week over the border in Germany) and the exams were upon us. After horror at Michelle Benoit's leather trousers and pure anger at Monsieur Clement cancelling an exam on the day we were supposed to have it, we began the epic journey of getting home. Flights were cancelled cos of the weather. The Eurostar shut down. Thus began an epic race of getting home on time for Christmas. I made it home in the early hours of December 22nd sitting between two of my favourite people from the year abroad on the plane home, the legendary Pete Sawyer and Toto Padden.

By the time mid January came and I had completed my exams and spent some time hanging out for the last time as a Strasmus (Strasbourg Erasmus student), I headed home to England once more, having been given a nice send-off from the station by Sam, Laura and Lacy. I began 6 weeks of work at home getting ready for Konstanz. Thing is though, could Konstanz possibly be as good as Strasbourg? As it turns out, it was. If Strasbourg was Christophe Dugarry, Konstanz was Zinedine Zidane (minus the headbutt), if Strasbourg was a man on a good salary at an insurance firm, Konstanz was Richard Branson, and if Strasbourg was completely inefficient in terms of the uni and bureaucracy, Konstanz would just shit all over it. And it did :-)

(To be concluded)

Year Abroad Review (So far) Just Cos I Felt Like Writing

As I sat on a chair in 8 West in Bath, and heard yet another guy stand up and tell everyone that the year abroad had been the best year of his degree, I just sorta though 'Yeah, yeah, whatever, living in France can't be as good as that...it's France!!' Next year, I will be that guy, standing up, telling everyone to go to Strasbourg, and telling everyone to go to Konstanz. Before I continue writing this, I'm gonna try and summarise this. Over the last year, I have:

Been to the following cities:
Vernet-les-Bains, Girona, Colmar, Strasbourg, Kehl, Prague, Bath, London, Rome, Naples, Bari, Patras, Athens, Thessaoloniki, Kalambaka, Paleofarsalos, Istanbul, Catania, Palermo, Milan, Zurich, Basel, Stuttgart, Konstanz, Ulm, Crailsheim, Nurnberg, Freiburg, Baden-Baden, Vaduz, Barcelona, Neuhausen, Meersburg, Cambridge, Oxford, Munich, Kreuzlingen, Singen, Friedrichshafen and many more.

Seen the following games and bands live:
Bayern Munich vs Hannover, Strasbourg vs Lyon, Muse, Rage Against the Machine, Kiss, Rammstein, The Hives, Bad Religion, Kasabian, Jay-Z, Ellie Goulding, Dizzee Rascal, Katatonia, Kamelot, Airbourne, Pendulum, The Editors, Motorhead, Slash, Alkaline Trio, You Me at Six, Alice in Chains and 30 Seconds to Mars. (Soon to be added) La Roux, Mando Diao, The Strokes, The Prodigy, Florence and the Machine, Biffy Clyro and many more!

Made friends from the following countries:
England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile, Singapore, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Slovakia, Italy, Croatia, Spain, Slovenia, Greece, Czech Republic, Mongolia and many many others.

The journey begins:
I set off for Strasbourg on the 5th September 2009 with Sally. I took 16 kilos in a suitcase and some hand luggage, yet didn't have a place to live. A flight and a train journey from Stuttgart later, I began to feel the efficiency drain out of my blood, as I enjoyed a fortnight of searching for accommodation and enduring language lessons with Monsieur Meyer which made me comtemplate suicide for the first time. The accommodation hunt went on, and one day, I walked into an Internet cafe and checked my emails. I had received an email 10 mins before about a student room in halls available, and was the first of 70 people to reply. Result! So I gots me a room. Time to relax? Hell no. Sally was staying with a family and within a week, the dad of the family had come onto her while the wife was out and the kids were brushing their teeth. It was all drama as operation, let Sally escape from the house commenced!

Settling in in the first few weeks was fairly easy. People like Petr in my accommodation were friendly, and I soon got to know the 2 most important people of my year abroad. Step up Samantha Muller, everyone's favourite half German, half Philippino, born in Malaysia, lived in Egypt, studies in sheepland, so she's basically an international hobo. Secondly, but not necessarily in that order :-) Patrick O'Brien, a man who chats girls up with pizza, a man whom I taught the word banterous, my drinking buddy and future husband. Some of the highlights of the first few months were the day trip to Colmar, when everyone had got less than 3 hours of sleep and most people were still hungover, and Europapark, which was an amazing day of riding on some of Europe's biggest rollercoasters. We'd established a friendship circle too. All english speakers, but still totally awesome nevertheless. Lorcan Murray - Irish procrastinating legend, Matt Pizzorusso - most sarcastic American in the world, the Canadians Katherine, Jean and Taryn who were always ooot and abooot, everyone's favourite nicest person, Katie Harris, Petr from Czechland and Jean-Pierre, with a name like that, obviously from Germany! Along with many other cool people like Laura and Lacy and many others.

Whilst I may have met many lovely people, I stick by my vow that I will never live in France ever again. If you try and set a bank account up and it takes 4 weeks, you get annoyed. If a professor cancels your exam on the day of an exam, you get annoyed. If Thierry Henry robs Ireland of a place in the World Cup due to cheating, you get annoyed!! (To be continued)

American Pub Quiz Answers

Did the pub quiz in Shamrock yesterday. Wondered why the Americans on the table next to us left early. Took their quiz paper. Here are some of my favourite answers:

What is the capital of Brazil?
Rio de Janeiro. (Brasilia)

What is the capital of Croatia?
Ljubljana. (Zagreb)

Where is Port-of-Spain?
Portugal. (Trinidad and Tobago)

How long does it take for sunlight to reach the earth?
2 days, hahaha (8 minutes).

Why 2 countries played the 1990 world cup final?
Brazil and France (they played 8 years later in 1998, it was Germany and Argentina).

And this is just magic, absolute magic:
Who was the longest-serving French President in history?
Napoleon Bonaparte hahahahaha. (I believe that to be Jacques Chirac between 1995 and 2007).


Ohhhh America.