Erin Visits Germany

Offically leave Germany in a month. Very excited, mainly because my remainding time here is going to kick so much ass. This weekend Erin visited and from here on out it's all downhill. I'm constantly working on stuff for school it seems (school here and the seminar I'm missing and summer stuff). The last week of March I'm taking over all of Mrs. W's English classes. Oddly enough the program I'm a part of is having it's conference in Athens, which means that she'll be at UGA for a couple of days while I'm here. I find that hysterical and am still deciding on which restaurants she has to eat at. Five Star, of course. Maybe Last Resort Grill? The Globe?

Anyway, adventures from this weekend!

Friday:
Erin gets into town via plane (from Verona to Frankfurt-Hahn) and bus (from Frankfurt-Hann to Cologne). The main station in Cologne is really nice, but the bus depot is kind of creepy. Especially at night.

Back to my place where we ate Indian food I had made earlier. Showed Erin the ghetto kitchen and much laughter was had at the expense of the oven. Gave her a tour of the place and we decided on which bathroom I should be using on the floor (you would never understand how that can be confusing until you come here). Showed her Dingleberry's, which was absolutely dead. Dingle's was dead. It was just the two of us, Christie (from California) and Jay, a guy who is also from Athens and has been living in Germany for 18 years. Four Americans in a bar in Germany, three of which have lived in Athens. What the hell.

Saturday:
Erin's Birthday/St. Patrick's Day.

We wake up and grab some Starbucks and rolls for breakfast. Head out around noon and hit up the Dom. The weather wasn't great and we decide to not go up thr 509 stairs to the observatory and instead I give Erin a shoddy tour of the church. It was so cold inside that you could see your breath.

Next is the Ludwig museum which definitely had its highlights. The first being the colored statue of David (he's a blond), the next being a fake movie trailer for a non-existent remake of Caligula starring Helen Mirren, Gerard Butler, the girl from The Fifth Element, and Courtney Love. God...I just..I wish I had taped it, but I found a clip of it on Youtube and you just have to see it for yourself.

Warning: Not suitable for those under 16 and please don't watch this at work. It's pretty...sexually graphic. It is also supposed to make you "question your morals" but instead it just made me question who told Courtney Love she could act. Watch it HERE

After walking around the city for three hours, eating Currywurst, and shopping at H+M, and buying awesome pens (like my colorkilla) we took a pretty nice nap. We made plans to eat at Jameson, an Irish pub that is supposed to have great hamburgers, and just hang out there the rest of the night.

Well low and behold Jameson at 8pm: backed to the brim with Irishmen and most of the crowd well into their third round of drinks. Or sixth. Gave up the idea of an actual solid dinner, grabbed some Kolsch and enjoyed the atmosphere. An hour later Judith and her friend Kirsten joined us and basically the night turned to making friends with the musician (after Judith went up and joined him in song), dancing, and lots and lots of drinking. God, I love the Irish.

Erin and I were desperate for food by the time we left and we walked to McDonald's after being told it was open ("Until 4am!") only to find it very much closed. In our anguish we stumble (literally) home and eat cream cheese sandwiches, one of which I dropped on Erin's bag. Oh, and Erin also ate a tomato.

You would think the night would be over, but you'd be wrong. Turns out I have new neighbors, none other than two Irishmen. A knock on the door tells me one of the fellows wants to talk, so into the wallway we go where somehow the conversation turned to me being "Red in the head, hot in the hole" and the like. If it wasn't so funny it would have been horribly awkward. Erin was absolutely no help in my misery, but it's my own fault. Especially when he decided to "machine gun" my ass. I'm not even going to bother explaining it. I'm sure after that we'll be fast friends. In order to remember the conversation I wrote some stuff down last night to help. Some of it I understand, but there's a note that says "Multiple Languages '69'." I don't even want to know what that means.

Sunday:
Erin had to be on the 11am bus to Frankfurt-Hahn so we got up reasonably early. Lots of laughing over the pictures we took. Finally got our McDonalds (twice), and said our goodbyes. I'll be seeing her on Friday in Brussels, so the rest of my week will be spent working and finding out things to do there. Can't wait.

Plans for the rest of the day: upload photos, sleep, eat, watch The Office.