Impending Seefood Diet?

My life as an an insured, pensioned employee is slowly coming to fruition after about a month of dealing with my employer's sloth-like Human Resources department. (Un)fortunately, this happened to occur at the same time as I began to plan for the second of my beloved maxillofacial surgeries, which is causing all sorts of problems because I cannot get approval for the surgery without knowing who's insuring me. Hopefully by the end of the week I'll be good to go and ready to get this thing, and the weeklong recovery, marked on my calendar. That's what I have to look forward to! I'm shooting for sometime right at the end of October/beginning of November, hopefully on a Friday so that I can maximize my recovery time and minimize the number of sick days that I have to use. Lord knows I want to avoid having to use vacation time!

Because of the timing of this, I am planning a lovely Thanksgiving dinner of something like puree'd pasta or Jamba Juice at my apartment because I will not be making the haul out to Cali for Turkey Day for the second year in a row. Because of the fact that I'll be on a liquid diet for probably two or three weeks at least, I briefly considered going on a seefood diet - meaning I eat anything I see - from now until the date of the surgery in a desperate attempt to add five (or more) pounds to my meager 155 pound frame. But after debating the positives and negatives of such a diet (and after watching Super Size Me), I've decided against it. I mean, I just bought new, slim-fit jeans and wool pants for work. I want to be able to wear them for the next two months! Nonetheless, we did walk by a Krispy Kreme donut joint that was giving away their daily leftover donuts and I went ahead and ate two of them. But I would've done that regardless!

Some friends of a bygone era were in town recently. I used to babysit for their family back when I was in high school and the kids were in middle/elementary school. We haven't been in great contact over the years, but I try to see them once a year when they are in town for the US Open and this year was no exception. The oldest daughter recently graduated from college and is going to work down in LA, which is amazing to me. She's a full-on adult! She spent some time in Senegal last year for school and wanted to see if we could find some Senegalese food in New York. Are you kidding? We have a Little Senegal up in Harlem! I had no idea, but sure enough there was a whole neighborhood of West African shops and restaurants that we checked out last week. I gotta say that the food is pretty rich tasting and, given the Anytown USA portions, I don't think I'd have too much of a problem gaining weight if I ate like that on a consistent basis. Then again, my Euro-sized stomach doesn't exactly fit much in it, hence the three-weeks of leftover Senegalese food that's in my fridge!

Speaking of Euro-size, this coming up weekend should be quite interesting. After a day of wall climbing with kids on Saturday, I'll be hosting my annual birthday extravaganza. Typically I like to go out somewhere new for dinner with some friends (yea, as opposed to any other weekend evening), but this year I'm really turning up the notch by requiring my friends to accompany me off the island on a trip through Eastern Europe - in Queens! That's right baby, we're going to Astoria for a legit Czech beer garden to consume some tasty imported beverages and then, against my friends' wills, I want to go down to northern Brooklyn to Greenpoint's Club Exit, which is in the middle of Little Poland and is as Euro of a club as it gets in New York, or so I hope. I can't imagine why my friends wouldn't want to go there, even if it is a triple-subway connection just to get there.

Then, on Sunday night, Paul is having his Back To School party at a karaoke joint somewhere downtown near the nexus of the universe. If I understand correctly, there will be appetizers and an open bar, just what I need on a worknight :- . Then again, it might take some of that liquid courage for me to get up and belt out some Beatles and/or Def Leopard songs!

J. Riley, my wish list hasn't changed much.

Airplane Pilots

Have you ever noticed how plane pilots (sans the Trojanowkis and Knappsteins) always have very WASP-y names? Like John Cameron or Mike Johnson? I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that those were the pilots on my 1.75 hour delayed flight (for no apparent reason) to LA this weekend.

Face Modelling

The face modelling thing was disappointing. They took a bunch of digital pictures. They took impression molds of my mouth again, deciding to let the first-year resident due them. It took them six times to get them right, even though my ortho took perfectly fine molds for the surgeon last week. They took three X-Rays, even though the surgeon took some last week. And they did some measurements. And this took them 2.5 hours to do, causing me to miss my dentist cleaning appointment. Of course 6:00pm appointments are hard to get at the dentist's, so now I have to wait until the end of September to get that done. I told them several times when I walked into the clinic that I had a 6:00pm dentist appointment and they assured me that we'd be done in time. Nice people, but I was basically livid when I walked out of there.

J. Riley, the things we do to be able to eat a sandwich

Day-to-Day Doldrums

You know how it is - you wake up to the same music (unless you have a Mac with PowerController Alarm Clock which allows you to play random songs from iTunes) every morning at the same time, you read the latest Liverpool news from three different sources, you read all the soccer trade rumors, you read the latest Oakland A's news from three different sources, you leave for the subway at exactly 8:00am, you get to work at 8:30am, yada yada yada, then you get home at 6:00 or 6:15pm and proceed to waste the entire evening doing whatever it is that takes 4 hours for me to do at night (I honestly have no idea what it is I do for four hours every night). Maybe it's just me, but doing this routine five days a week, week after week, you start to think about your life and where you want to be a year from now (or, in my case, next calendar year). Am I successful? Am I happy with my job? You know, the kind of questions you can spend four hours a night dwelling on when you live alone.

Yea, I am relatively pleased with my job and despite the incessant social pressure to get promoted and climb the corporate ladder, I am satisfied enough with where I am not to worry about that. The point is, you start to feel like a normal person with a normal job (even though I am not really sure how to define "normal" still) and you associate with other office goons like yourself that, while they don't do what you do, are proficient at their jobs and are "normal".

That is, until you spend two days of new-hire training with 19 year olds who recently graduated from high school who are taking the step to become bank tellers. You sit in class and listen to their questions and then think to yourself, "Wow, I actually know a lot business/job-wise compared to these other 'normal' people". Just when I was thinking that I was just a standard office worker, I could see that the knowledge and experience I have gained over the past five years working is actually valuable and not just anything that anyone knows. It feels pretty good walking out of training shortly after the instructors ask me if I have anything to add about Information Security for the class and knowing that if it wasn't for my ability to press the up, down, and "Enter" buttons on the DVD remote control, the whole class would have to miss a cheesy video about money laundring (sp.) or sexual harassment ;o)

Anyway, this weekend I am off to the West Coast for Vince's wedding in LA. I am also scheduled to make an appearance at a yet-to-be-determined salsa club shortly after my long-ass six hour flight to shake that ass for all the Latina ladies in the house. Hess is also having a small get-together for his birthday on Saturday and I have "TBD" on the schedule for Saturday night, Sunday morning/afternoon prior to the wedding, and all day Monday before my red-eye flight back Monday night. I look forward to wearing my new pair of super-tight , super-discounted Luckybrand Dungaree jeans or my new $20 shorts at some point.

If I cannot wear them next weekend, I may well wear them to see Spamalot on my hot date with Melissa.

J. Riley, just kidding, it's not a date. She's way out of my league, even though I bet she couldn't tell me about phishing attacks or how viruses work ;o)

A Taste of the World Cup

Without much going on this weekend, I decided to join Sean on Friday night for a little East-Village style independant film called "LOL", which is a semi-documentary story about how much technology is getting involved in our social and dating lives. It was actually quite entertaining and the great thing about these movies is that usually the directors/writers are there for you to answer questions from the hipster crowd. I realize now that the people that go to these events are not cubicle stiffs like me and Sean, they are on a completely different level. For example, the angry, butch lesbians sitting next to me (who, judging by their aroma, apparently think that wearing deodorant is something that is forced on woman by opressive MEN) took a quote from the movie and twisted it into a comment about how the movie didn't represent art, was clearly intended to showcase sexism and asked whether, and how, the director could be proud of making a movie like this, not to mention asking if the reason the movie was low-budget was because nobody wanted to invest in such a terrible, prejudice movie. Woh, easy there! I have no idea how she pulled that rabbit out of the hat, but it was fun to see the director hit right back in artistic terms without losing his cool. The questions I was thinking of were more like "uhhh, was this like a fictional or non-fictional story?". I kept my hand down during the Q&A.

When I got home, I got an email from Martina from Germany (our lovely Frankfurt tour guide) who said that she was put on a flight to Newark at the last minute (she's a token hot stewardess) and would be coming to town - well, Jersey - on Saturday afternoon. She's coming in September on a Wednesday night as well, but I wanted to show her the NYC nightlife weekend style, so I was pretty stoked she was gonna arrive when I had nothing going on. Like most girls, she's a big Sex and the City fan, so I booked a reservation for Duvet in anticipation of her arrival while Paul and I played tour guides for some friend or a friend's parents who were in town from England by taking them to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.

When Martina finally sent me a $0.25 text message (damn the international fees) saying she was shopping at a Jersey mall at about 7:30, I realized that we probably weren't going to make the reservation so I dropped that idea and headed downtown to meet her and her friends at the bus station fresh from Jersey. Apparently she's as clueless about buses as me, so I ended having to find a way across the river to meet up with her and her friends. In Jersey. Not exactly where I wanted to be on a Saturday night :-/ . In any case, I met up with her and convinved her that, despite being on her feet for eight hours serving bickering customers on a flying metal tube, she really had enough energy to get the hell out of Jersey and head to the city for some chilling, even if the rest of the flight crew was having a great time at the Applebee's bar or wherever they were. Oh, the things I do to return a favor!

Anyway, we finally caught an expensive ($30) taxi for the five minute ride across the Hudson river back into my friendly turf. We headed to the Coffee Shop lounge, which is really chill and tends to heat up late at night and is actually quite fun. Sean and his brother met up with us a while later before she crashed and burned, her eyes turning red with drowsiness after a single cerveza. She did have a point for going home, considering she had to work in the business class lounge on the eight hour flight home the next afternoon, so I relented and took her back to Jersey.

Sunday, Paul and Cathy rented a car and were going to take a road-trip up to Woodbury Commons for the annual steep-discount shopping trip. I took Martina and her other stewardess friend to breakfast in Hells Kitchen before dropping them off at Abercrombie for some pre-flight shopping and then high-tailed it up to catch up with Paul and Cathy before they left.

And I bought stuff. Lot's of stuff. Lot's of stuff that I didn't need. Jeans, tie, three work shirts, two work pants, cheap shorts, etc. etc. But, considering the prices, I couldn't afford not to buy it.

J. Riley, I bought peanut butter and jelly, I'll be eating that until the end of the year.

Time Out

OK, this is getting entirely ridiculous. It's been almost two months and I still don't have the day of the Final entirely written. And, during this time, things have been amazing. So, I will keep that post on hold for now and write to it when I feel like it, so keep your eyes open for it if you actually read my vacation blogs, which most people probably don't.

Anyway, so what's up with me? The last two months have been great:

1.) Paul and Cathy are back now, so the resumption of consumption is now in full order. Mostly expensive-ish dinners (not really, just normal dinners that I haven't had in a while) that we are enjoying while Paul is here, since he's going back to Cal Poly in a few weeks. It's great to have them around again.

2.) I spent one WONDERFUL WONDERFUL week in Mammouth Mountain, California with my family. For me, there are two distinctly different kinds of vacations. There are the kind where you kind of rush around and have an agenda to accomplish, after which you return home needing a vacation. Although I didn't feel like we were rushing it too much at all in Deutschland, the reality is that we drove a LOT and travelled a LOT. So much that I was pretty exhausted by the end of the week (hence the fact that someone else drove to Munich and Berlin). I came home from that trip with the most wonderful experience, but somewhat depressed (seriously) because the World Cup was over and the experience was THAT special. The first few days, I really didn't know what the purpose of life was without the World Cup. Sad, really.

Fast-forward four weeks to California. This is the second kind of vacation. Though I had to fly seven hours (through Dallas, ugghhh) to get there, and then drive the whole next day to get to Mammouth (and then the reverse a week later), this was a VACATION. The kind that is relaxing, becoming one with nature, spending time with my baby niece, hiking, fishing, swimming in snow-melt lakes, mountain biking with my brother at 11,000 feet and getting exhausted, mountain biking down a ski mountain, going on long walks with my family all day to see some geological formations, spending evenings watching TV with everyone and then going to the hot tub to soothe the aching muscles, and tearing up my knee on pumice gravel after bailing on my mountainbike. Well, forget that last one. But the rest was legit and sober (except for Brie ;o). This is the kind of vacation that you need once a year (at LEAST) because you come home really refreshed and reinvigorated working for the man. It was a very special trip for me and I miss being in California again :o(
3.) The volunteer team that I lead is a mess, two months of problems with our "client". But I'll survive and we'll deal with them.

4.) My MOUTH! My teeth are straight and everything is lined up - for mega-surgery. I talked to the surgeon yesterday and of course since I just switched jobs last week from a company that is in chaos (I can't even find an HR person to resign to!) to a monolithic dinosaur of a company that took six months to hire me and will take a further three weeks just for me to get the benefit information. Hello? I have surgery to schedule, damn it. The surgeon is planning on a double-jaw snap: moving my top jaw back and my bottom jaw forward, moving my chin up ("Make it look like this", holding up a picture of David Beckham) so that I can close my lips naturally, and twisting my upper or lower jaw slightly so that my teeth "mid-line" lines up. Sounds like fun, right??? One week off of work and then rubber bands for about six weeks to keep my jaws from moving much while I recover. Sounds a lot better than three days in the hospital and a wired jaw, don't you think Sam ;o) ??

5.) Dating, while there is usually not much written about it (for a good reason!), is on hold indefinitely. I'm just tired of it. I hate dating, pretty much. Sorry ladies, I will not give you my number at this time.

6.) Since I'm on a bit of a health kick after Cali, I've been walking home from work lately a few times per week (it's about an hour's walk) and even ran home once. On Monday I walked home because I hurt my knee mountain biking and can't do low lunges in yoga class. It was casual, but I ended up getting on a bus because my feet were starting to get blisters from my work shoes. An hour later, I arrive home and, standing in front of my front door, I suddenly realized that I had left my keys at work. Let me tell you - there is nothing worse (well, except maybe two yogurts less than $.03 apart in price) than having to restart your long-ass commute that you dread every morning to work at 6:30 at night. Not a happy camper. Les Miserables.

7.) The English Premier League has started up again, so I can once again devote my social life to Liverpool!

J. Riley, I'm back in the saddle again.

Day 9 - Wir Fahren Nach Berlin!

As our week progressed, our time was becoming more and more occupied with traveling. Thursday we drove to Bamberg (2.5 hours), Friday we drove to Munich and back (5 hours), and now Saturday was upon us. We had tossed around the idea of going to Stuttgart (about 3 hours) to watch the Third/Fourth Place game between Portugal and host Germany, but clearly a better option was to go to Berlin (four hours away) for the final, which took place Sunday. Alex and Stefan took the initiative to find a place for us to sleep on Saturday night while the rest of us were driving to Munich, booking a couple of rooms at a legitimate youth hostel just outside of Berlin in Potsdam for $25 a night. I thought for sure we’d have a harder time finding a place to stay than we did, but I’m not complaining!

So, we were grudgingly up and at it at 9:30am on Saturday morning with a busy day in mind. All of the traveling (especially since I was always driving) was starting to really take it’s toll on me, so I was pissed that I had to take the shower first that morning. But I did get the extra five minutes of sleep the day before, so I really had no case to make with Stefan that morning ;o). We threw our clothes together in our suitcases and rushed down to get our free breakfast and I admired and watched the cute hotel worker clean the dining room while we were waiting for Alex and Verena to come by again so that we could go explore some more of Bamberg.

We all piled into the Benz after they arrived and headed to the outskirts of town to check out a mansion of palatial size that we had seen in some postcards the day before. It had the rows of trees leading up to it, the Married-With-Children style fountain in the bike, and a beautiful hilltop view over the surrounding lakes and fields. How nice of the Catholic Church to build an estate like this for the local Bishop!

It was several hundred years old and was now an artifact of the old era, so I decided to take a tour of the inside, which required a tour guide. After I purchased my ticket, everyone else said they didn’t want to see the inside, so they all stayed outside while Kelly (the Brazilian who speaks no German and little English) and I took the tour, which was in German that I hardly understood. Kelly evidently got bored quick and started wandering around the inside by herself and started taking pictures of the intricately designed ceilings in one of the rooms. After the group went into the room she was in, we found out that we head to wear some felt-bottom shoes to protect the floors and no flash photography was allowed, so Kelly was pretty embarrassed about that.

After the tour, we met back up with the others and got a nice, cold drink down at the café before heading back downtown for lunch before our departure. There was a street festival of some sort taking place, so we figured we’d get a nice outdoor table and enjoy the weather, but it was packed at the time and when we ran into Soenke, there was nowhere close to eat. We ended up at another place and got the next best thing to outdoor seating – a classy table in the non-smoking area of a sweltering, humid greenhouse, right next to some chain-smoking high schoolers. Yuck! The Olive Garden-esque plastic menus threw up a red-flag for me, but I figured it wouldn’t be too bad since there were no Olive Gardens in Germany. I couldn’t complain too much about the jaeger-schnitzel that I ordered, but the food was just kind of bland and boring, which reaffirmed the fact that my menu-presentation foodar was still working :o) .

The fact that we had to suffer from second-hand smoke turned out to be a blessing because halfway through our meal, the heavens opened up and it started down pouring outside. What happened to the great weather that we’d had the whole week? Damn you Germany! Just when I thought that for once the weather would be kind to me, we get stuck downtown and have to walk home in the rain again! Well, it didn’t turn out to be too bad, really. The sun came out pretty soon after we left and started baking us again on our walk back to the hotel, which was fine by me.

The time had come for us to say goodbye to our wonderful escorts Alex and Verena and hit the road for our four-hour trip to Berlin. After three or four reorganizations of the trunk of our wagon, we finally fit our entire luggage and piled all five of us into the car. Despite the mental drain that I was suffering from the week, I was pumped to go and took the keys to get my driver’s seat. Besides the excitement of going to the final, it was also crucial not to get stuck in the back seat since space was tight with three 6’ tall people among the crowd.

As was the custom by this point, we decided to try to find the World Cup stadium in the former East Germany city of Leipzig, which we had to drive through about two hours into the trip. This time both the signs and the Navi let us down and we never did find it (it was a small one, from what I hear). But, despite insisting previously that he was disgusted by their food (except their breakfast), Roland quickly got a radar lock on McDonald’s and nominated their parking lot as a place to stop :o). It seems like every trip I take outside of the country ends up in a McDonald’s parking lot at one time or another, which is pretty sad. Trying to avoid any mutinous uprisings from the back seat, I conceded defeat and I pulled up so that everyone could stretch, use the bathrooms, eat their hamburgers, and drink their milkshakes. There were several people wearing German jerseys inside and I thought about asking them where the stadium was, but I decided on the lady with the euro-spiky silver hair behind the counter instead and she didn’t know where it was, so I gave up. We had to get to Berlin soon, anyway, since the Germany/Portugal game would be starting in a few hours and we wanted to watch it in Berlin.

I was exhausted at this point from driving and handed the keys over to the deputy driver Daniel and I squeezed into the back next to Stefan to get some shut-eye. I felt like I was on a plane, it was such a tight fit. With the Navi set, the iPod on, and my neck pillow inflated, I dozed off quickly while the others watched a movie on Stefan’s laptop. I woke up a few hours later as we were circling the block looking for our Youth Hostel. We found it quick enough and it even had a parking lot for us to park in! We checked in, unpacked, and then headed down the street to try to find somewhere to watch the Germany/Portugal game since it had started shortly after we arrived. Potsdam was a pretty sleep city at this time and the bar around the corner was full of people, so we headed across to the local Döner restaurant, which actually had a big screen TV setup and cold beers that they brought to our table. The game was pretty exciting for a normally lull toilet round and I was happy that Germany won so that they could leave the World Cup on a positive note and hold their heads up.

After walking down to the street in a vain attempt to find an interesting lounge or something, we headed back to the hostel to get our last poker game in – with real money. We were all dead tired and I got taken to town on a big hand that cleaned me out, making me the big loser on the night. Rather than cashing it in and heading up the ladder into my bunk, I stayed up for a while with the boyz and was designated dealer for a while until Roland got knocked out and got to take over designated dealer activities. I decided to hit the hay at the point because I knew that Sunday would be epic and Stefan and I had a loooong day/night watching the game and then making the six+-hour drive back to Frankfurt afterwards to catch our flights home.

They played poker into the wee hours of the night, but no liquid fuel was necessary.

Justinho, "Wir Fahren Nach Berlin" means "We're driving all the way to Berlin", which was a common chant for the German fans since that's where the final was going to take place. Until they lost.

Day 8 - And Then There Were Five

Friday was going to be a very busy day for us, so I was not pleased to hear my alarm screaming at me at 9:00am. In fact, I was so annoyed that I think I turned it off and went back to sleep without even realizing that I’d turned it out. A night of beers and rum & coke had taken it’s toll on me and when I got Alex’s phone call saying that it was almost 10:00 (when we were supposed to meet him) and could we wait until 10:30, I just about passed a kidney stone. My head throbbed, my eyes would hardly open, I had no appetite, etc. I told Stefan to take his shower first while I did all that I could not to move, even though I knew we’d be late for our free breakfast, which ended at 10:00.

To add misery to the pain, it was raining and cold outside – the first day that we’d had (or would have) with such terrible weather. Donning my rain gear, we rushed downstairs to get some free food before the kitchen closed. I hardly felt like eating anything, but I forced some bread and cheese down my throat because I knew it would help soak up last night’s suds.

Alex and Verena then met up with us and we headed out for our tour of Bamberg. We walked around the beautiful town again in the daylight getting wet and with me feeling like I wanted to jump off a bridge into the raging waters below. We headed through town and then up a hill to the magnificent four-point cathedral that was on top of the hill. Alex and Verena told us about the significance of this small town in history. At one point, it was the capitol of the Roman Catholic Empire in Europe and was also the single most important city outside of Rome for the Catholics. One of the popes was entombed in the cathedral and there were quite a few other famous religious relics inside, such as a famous statue of a teenage man on a horse. Nobody really knows anything about it, but it’s apparently stirred up a number of debates in Germany on what it signifies and who it is. There were a number of tour groups in the cathedral discussing the sculpture, which I found interesting.

After the cathedral, we headed over to a beautiful rose garden that overlooked the city. I was slowly (very slowly) emerging from my daze and livened up a bit by the time we started heading up to the monastery on the next hill over, the highest point in the city. The rain was slowing down a bit at this point as well and we decided to have something to drink inside the monastery café since it was warming up outside.

We continued the tour by heading down the hill and down to the river again to an area called Little Venice, which has several old fishing houses situated below the river line alongside the river. They had small fences that kept the water out of the house and we were amazed that these places hadn’t been flooded out a million times. I hope they have flood insurance in Germany!

It was then lunchtime, so we headed to the school cafeteria to have a super cheap lunch. Because students get a special fare at the school, we were instructed to tell the cashier that we were exchange students from England, Italy, and Portugal and that was why we didn’t have our student ID cards. It made sense to me, but it didn’t sink into Daniel apparently since he asked me later that day why they had to pretend to be Portuguese :o) . Luckily, the cashier just assumed that we were students and rang our $2 meals up like he did for the other students. I found it amusing that you could buy beer in the school cafeteria, but such is life in Germany!

After our tour was over, we slowly made our way back to the hotel, stopping at some stores on the way to buy some soccer gear and Stefan’s trinkets. The great thing about being at the World Cup is that by the semi-finals, most teams have been eliminated and soccer gear with their logo is instantly slashed 50% just to get rid of the inventory. So I scored on some nice items like a flashy red Czech Republic jersey and a sweet full England kit for my niece Ellie, including the jersey, logo’d shorts, and knee high socks (shin guards not included). I hadn’t seen such an awesome set anywhere in Germany, so I had to pick those up.

Nobody was feeling particular great from the greasy cafeteria meatballs, but we did have a major trip to make that afternoon to pick up the newest member of our traveling Footie Pack – Roland. Poor Roland lived a couple countries over in Slovakia and had not been able to join us earlier on the trip because of problems at the hotel he runs, despite his inclusion in all of our previous trips together. He was another vital element to a good trip, however, and I was anxious to pick him up. We had talked and planned back and forth for the past couple weeks, toiling with different stratagems on how he could meet up with us. Initially I had thought that he would drive out and meet us, hence the rental of the Golf wagon. It turned out to be a bonus because when he told me that he wasn’t driving, I went and upgraded our car to something bigger, which turned out to be crucial and convenient. In the end, we figured out that he could take a bus from nearby Vienna to Munich for like $50 since all of the cheap Euro flights were sold out or wouldn’t fly anyway near Bamberg. The day before I left, he’d finalized his tickets, but we couldn’t figure out where the Euroline bus actually dropped him off, which was a bit of a problem since Munich is not a small city. After spending a significant amount of time before I left googling “P&R Anlage Fröttmaning”, which is where the website said the drop off point was, I finally discovered the answer: Park and Ride! Munich was a toasty 2.5 hour drive from Bamberg, but I owed Vas that from the previous year’s trip to Eastern Europe, where he picked me up from Vienna and drove me everywhere.

So we decided that Stefan would stay in Bamberg with Alex and figure out where we could stay in Berlin the next night and also go with him to Hendrick’s birthday party/barbeque later in the evening. Daniel and Kelly wanted to go with me down to Munich, which was great because at this point I was hitting the post-hangover dazed and confused and tired stage and didn’t really feel like I was up for driving an expensive car at the speed-of-sound on the Autobahn for five+ hours. So I made the bold decision and let Daniel pry the keys out of my death-grip and have a trial run with the car. Up to this point, the most I’d let anyone else drive was to let him make the five minute drive into the town of Kahl to pick up supplies for the cabin. And since I knew that the last couple days of the trip would be a major endurance run to Berlin and back to Frankfurt (ten+ hours of driving), I figured I’d relax and let Daniel take over for a bit.

I ended up not sleeping the whole trip down to Munich (maybe I was nervous about Daniel driving after our experiences in Brazil ;o), but it was nice not to have to think for a few hours and relax a bit. On the way down, we stopped at the FanFest area in Nuremburg and thought we’d find the stadium as well, but it was nowhere to be found with out eyes. We did come across a coliseum that was used in the infamous Hitler Nuremburg rallies in the beginning of the dark Nazi era of German history. I would have liked to of checked out the coliseum and the other historical sites near the FanFest, but we were running late and had to find the stadium. And that’s when we perfected the Navi system in the car when we looked up sports stadiums and found it right there on our menu! This would’ve been nice to have in Frankfurt, that’s for sure. Sure enough, it led us right to the doors of the stadium, where we stopped for a few minutes and took pictures.

Back on the road, I was starting to feel better and was talking to Daniel about the previous night of liquid gluttony and over-indulgence. He starting telling me how I was really lit up and could hardly walk when we went out to find pizza. I had no idea what he was talking about. Pizza? We didn’t go out for pizza, did we? He was trying to describe all the things that led up to that I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. I was totally laughing because I’ve never really blacked out from booze before in my life (except for some pieces in SLO last time I was there). Then he said something about us smelling the fresh bread at 3:00am while we were playing poker and the hamster in my brain finally kicked in gear and it started coming back to me. Apparently we had gone out to get pizza at this sketchy place around the corner. Daniel had gotten his piece and it had a nice long, black hair snaking around the greasy cheese on his slice. He tried to tell the guy that there was a hair and the guy just kept telling him that it was fine. They went back and forth a few times and then I blurted out the German word for hair and pointed and the guy finally figured it out and gave him a new one. It was pretty funny though that I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about and Kelly was laughing her ass off (while eating her golden puffs) in the back seat when Daniel explained what we were talking about.

As my extensive googling indicated, the Park and Ride facility that Roland was arriving at was directly next to the amazing new Munich soccer stadium, the Allianz Arena. We oooohed and ahhhhed over the stadium as we flew by and noticed that the traffic heading out of Munich (going the opposite direction) on Friday at rush hour was horrific. We kept that in mind as we pulled into the Park and Ride to find that the place was chalk full of probably 20 tour buses and hundreds of people all over the place. We were pretty sure that we wouldn’t be able to find Roland after all of the trips that we’d taken and all the time that we’d waited for him to show up, but this time wasn’t too bad. His bus was a few minutes late but after searching up and down through the tourists for him, we ran into each other and were stoked to have the final piece of our puzzle in our hands.

The first order of business was to check out the Allianz Arena stadium, which we could walk to. Unfortunately, we could only get to a stone’s throw distance as they had it all fenced off because they were making the necessary adjustments inside to get it ready for the start of the soccer season, which was just a few weeks away.

With the traffic going the other way in mind, we decided that we should just go into Munich for dinner and then head back to Bamberg for the party. We had no idea where to go in Munich, so we just punched in “Old Town” into the Navi and did whatever it told us to do. We came across a business / university area on a main road outside of old town and decided to explore the area for some local, suitable, and traditional Bavarian cooking. We got a nice parking spot and headed down a street that looked like it might have something. We found a nice little restaurant that had some blue color workers drinking beer and eating at, which was an instant thumbs up sign for me. Kelly still wasn’t feeling well and wanted something lighter on her stomach so Daniel took her down the street where they eventually found an Italian place to eat at. It can definitely take a while to adjust to completely different foods in new countries like this. Roland and I hung out at the Bavarian place and ate a nice, humongous German meal with sausages, potato salad, and beer – well, for Roland anyway. I just drank a monster Coke/Fanta mix (I think they call it a Spezi), which was my favorite Euro liquid sugar drink.
With out bellies full, we had a party to catch back in Bamberg, so the four of us met up again and Daniel drove back again. On the way out of town, we noticed an amusing demonstration of German engineering and planning on the sidewalk next to the street in front of the university. Being a school, there were of course a ton of bike riders and the bike riders themselves had little streetlights. It was kinda funny….

The ride home was quick for me because I passed out shortly after we got out of Munich and woke up when we were back in Bamberg. When we got back to the hotel, I had no key for my room so I hung out with Roland while Daniel and Kelly cleaned up for the party and Roland took his shower. I got ahold of Alex on the room phone and he tried to explain how to get to where he was but I was definitely not up for the challenge, so we decided we would take a taxi (since the taxis were all right outside of our hotel) down to the party and then call him and he’d meet us outside. Except that Roland, the only one with a Euro phone, had a phone with no battery left.

So we hit the taxi stand and jumped into an elusive full-size van taxi and headed to the party. We got to the party and there were thousands of people in the courtyard, which was several acres in size. Luckily they let us buy tickets without a student pass (maybe you didn’t need one, I have no idea). Well, we figured we might as well start walking around and see if we can actually find them at some point in the evening. And we did! We headed off to the right and within a minute we ran right into the group. Alex and Stefan were already enjoying their moment after Hendrick’s raging birthday party (during which apparently Stefan almost got stabbed by a guy). Beer and socializing were not a high priority on my list for the evening unfortunately, after the previous night. It was unfortunate because all of my German and international buddies were there, the beer was being served in giant one liter masses (pronounced “moss”) and it was dirt cheap as well. After some arm wrenching, Alex persuaded me to get one with Daniel and Roland and we all got the night started proper. We learned the proper German mass toast, which is when you really smack the mugs together. The things weigh like ten pounds each, so there’s no way you’re going to break them. There were some live bands that we checked out at the end of the night and of course we found the live Spanish band right as they were performing their last song, which was disappointed for our residence Latin dancer Kelly, who hung in there with us even though she wasn’t feeling well still.

Before we headed home, we had to eat some snacks. Stefan knew where the sausage stand was and kept taking someone there and then coming back with another new sausage and bread roll. He did it at least three times before we all eventually went over there. Then we got some awesome cheap crepes, which always hit the spot.

It was finally time to head back to the hotel and get the poker game going, so we all piled into a taxi and got a ride back. We played poker into the wee hours of the morning with Roland taking us to town. Daniel was the only one with rum and cokes by his side the whole time.

Day 7 - And On The Seventh Day There Was Rest

We had a lot to accomplish on Thursday. We had to pack up all of gear, bring in all of the lawn furniture, cook some food to eat, and scrub the floors and rooms to make it as clean as it was when we arrived. So we got up at the crack of dawn (10:00am) to get things going. We nibbled on breakfast and began to plan our massive feast that would involved all of the fruits and vegetables that wouldn’t last and all of the meat that was at least questionably editable still. We had a LOT to eat. About four pork chops, two or three coils and one full package of sausages, menudo, a pound or two of pasta, two or three sauce packets, grapes, onions, garlic, strawberries, etc.

Stefan assured as that “we” would be able to polish off the food, especially since we’d be barbequing and he was the self-described “BBQ Master”. I left the barbeque work to the master himself and Daniel while Kelly and I did domestic duties and made the pasta, sauce, and cleaned up around the inside.

Ten minutes later, I went out to check on the boys and the BBQ Master was still having trouble getting the coals hot. It took a few bottles of lighter fluid for the fire to finally get going, but eventually it got up to a maintainable temperature for the BBQ Master to work with.

While the food was cooking, everyone pitched in to mop, sweep, vacuum, and scrub the house down. We actually had our timing down pretty well as the last thing to do in the house was eat all of this food and then do the dishes from the meal. And boy, did we ever eat. Stefan of course put on a food clinic on how to eat half of your own body weight and make sure that it shows. Daniel and I egged him on by saying that there was no way that he would be able to eat all of the food that was left and he kept insisting that it could be done. But, alas, the pound of pasta did him in and that cavernous belly of his couldn’t finish the job. It was a noble effort, but the last thing that we needed on our road trip for the day was 30 pounds of food all over the floor of the car ;o) .

With our bellies full of food and our MB C200 Kompressor full of luggage, we headed to the town of Kahl to do our semi-weekly garbage drop in the Aldi parking lot’s trashcan and buy some more rum for our evening poker sessions. I gave Alex a call from the liquor store phone and let him know that we were off to his scenic city of Bamberg, where he studies and resides. It was going to be about a two and a half hour trip to Bamberg, so everyone got comfortable and I used my pork and sausage stuffed lead-foot as much as I could with our packed Benz. It was a pretty uneventful, sluggish trip except for the fact that we got to see a 911 flying down the Autobahn and pass us.

We got to town at around 7:00 and then had to try to find our cheap hotel that was booked thanks to some of Alex’s buddies who I’d met and hung out with in New York the previous year. The navigation system got to the right neck of the woods, but we still couldn’t find the place. Being a college town, there were some cute girls walking around that I could query with my sexy American-accented German. They didn’t think they knew where the hotel was, but they quickly pointed the opposite direction than the way they were going :o/. Sure enough, we found it after a few more minutes of walking and we headed up to check in while Daniel fetched the car from the parking lot.

After unpacking, the Jagermeister soccer ball was unleashed in the hallway for a quick football session much to the chagrin of our neighbors, I’m sure. We had a few minutes to rest up while Stefan “dropped bombs like Nagasaki” (no doubt to make room for the lunch that was digesting) in our community water-closet and I got on the horn with Alex to coordinate the evening’s activities.

After lounging, showering, and cleaning up, Alex and Verena came by to pick us up and take us out to find a classic German dinner. I had been to Bamberg a few years back when I was in Germany for Christmas and New Year’s Eve and I had already forgotten just how beautiful the old town was. I guess things seem slightly more attractive when you can wear shorts and a jersey outside than when you’re bundled up with a wool coat, hats, and scarves sipping glueh-wein and trying to stay somewhat warm.

About halfway to the restaurant, Daniel said that he and Kelly were already in love with the town. Kelly had dreamed about seeing a town like this with the old buildings, beautiful colors and architecture, narrow cobblestoned streets, and flowers blooming in windowsills. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t remember this city this beautiful, it was like visiting a completely new city to me as well.

We ended up at a small restaurant with bench seating outside where we could have some beers and eat a traditional “Frankish” meal. This particular region of Bavaria was known as Franken and is famous for the number of breweries in the area. There are several hundred in the region and the city itself, which has about 40,000 residents, has about 10 on it’s own. The breweries typically brew lighter “heller” beer as well as it’s specialty: Rauchbier, which literally means “smoke beer”. I am not sure how it’s brewed but it is quite dark and has a very distinctive taste like smoked bacon. It is definitely not something that everyone likes but I had to order it just because I was back in Bamberg.

Other than Alex and Verena, I knew quite a few other folks in Bamberg as well. NYC is a very popular place for people to go work at internships and so I got to know several of Alex’s friends there. In the summer of 2004, I met Hendrick, who I hung out with every once in a while and who I then ran into in Budapest, Hungary while on vacation in East Europe in the summer of 2005. In the summer of 2005, I met two more of his friends, Niko and Soenke. Niko was the one that helped us reserve the hotel room while Alex was studying and working in Spain. These guys are all several years younger than me and wore me out pretty well during their time in my city, so I looked forward to returning the favor in Bamberg :o) .

After dinner, we went to an outdoor beer garden that was situated on the top of a hill overlooking the city, which included an illuminated hilltop cathedral and monastery as well as the old town itself. Unfortunately it was way past dark by this point so we couldn’t see much in the overcast sky.

We met up with Hendrick, Niko, and their significant others as well as the GQ boy Soenke. We all sat up there rehashing our memories and drinking some local “Spezi” heller beer. Apparently this beer garden is only seasonal and wasn’t open the last time I was there, not that I would’ve wanted to sit outside and drink ice-cold beers in the middle of winter!

The garden closed at midnight unfortunately, so we said our goodbyes and promised to meet again the following night, which was when their university was going to have a huge party downtown that we would attend. The four of us (plus Niko and his Norwegian girlfriend) then crammed into Niko’s convertible Audi at the top of the hill and headed back to the hotel, with Niko narrowly avoiding a ticket from some cops at the bottom of the hill just after he dropped us off. Leave it to Niko to sweet-talk the cops ;o).

Back at Ground Zero (our hotel), we got our poker game going and nourished our buzzed bodies with some rum and cokes again. To make this game more interesting, we finally broke out the real money (like $5/Euros, nothing too extreme) and it was game on. Stangely enough, my memory from that night is quite hazy but I do believe that I took everyone to town and won all three games, bringing in a hefty 200% profit on my $5 while at the same time seriously agitating Stefan to the point of a conflict that Daniel settled down. To this day, I have no idea what I said that pissed him off, but it must have been good ;o) .




Justinho

Day 6 - Italia! Italia!

After Tuesday's escapades until the wee hours into the night, we decided that Wednesday would be our catchup day for sleep. There was one more semi-final game Wednesday evening at about 9:00 - France vs. Portugal - and most of us didn't have much riding on that game. In fact, I had nothing riding on that game or any of the procedding games now that all of my teams had been knocked out of the tournament. Typically I like rooting for teams who's country I've visited, which would make Portugal a logical team to root for. But, I just couldn't. Not after seeing them play such a dirty game against the Netherlands and seeing them win the game against England with their diving and cheating all of the time. And France? It's France. How could I like them all that much? They had some players that I am a fan of like Thierry Henry and of course Zizou (Zinedine Zidane) but I wouldn't classify myself as a fan of theirs once their Liverpool representative Djibril Cisse got knocked out of the tournament after breaking a leg in their last warm-up game before the World Cup. Daniel and Kelly of course were going for Portugal because of their Brazillian roots and Stefan didn't give a damn because Italy was in the finals.

In any case, we got caught up on our sleep by snoozing until about 2:00pm. There wasn't much on our plate for the day except the game that night, which we decided we would watch down at the Frankfurt FanFest, which was basically a huge area that they had setup for fans to watch games. Every host city (where the games were being played) had a FanFest and Frankfurt's was one of the best because they had a ginormous screen setup in the middle of the Main River with bleacher seating on either side.

But we still had some shopping to do! After snacking on some breakfast (I guess it could be called brunch), we loaded up the wagon and headed back to downtown Frankfurt. By the time we got down there, it was probably 4:00, so we had a little bit of time to roam around Konstablerwache and head back to some of the stores where we wanted to re-shop. I got a couple of cool retro soccer polo shirts and was disappointed when I went back to the Adidas store to find that they were all of that awesome Deutschland soccer jacket that I had wanted to snap up the day before. As I noted yesterday, I was able to find the jacket in NYC, so that crisis was averted.

In Stefan's endless search for the Holy Grail of soccer trinket shops (one that actually carried some Italian gear), we eventually headed down to the infamous Roemer square of Frankfurt, stopping at shops along the way so that Stefan could continue his mission of raising the German economy's Gross Domestic Product by at least 1%. Frustrated, he spotted a church towering overhead and took a quick trip over to light a candle for his Grandmother who passed away two years ago and, undoubtedly, a candle for Italia to win the World Cup.

Kelly, Daniel, and I continued wandering aimlessly around the Roemer waiting for his imminent return, which never really came. After waltzing around for about an hour, we headed in the direction of the church in hopes of finding him, stopping at some shops along the way to pick up some hydration and, of course, a beer. As the credit-card depositer on our rental car, I really didn't have the opportunity to enjoy the bierschens at night since I was the desingnated driver (or designated payer for accidents, depending on how you look at it :). Since it was early and we had several hours left before the game, I picked up an ice-cold Warsteiner at a store to sip on. There's something special about being able to walk around outside with a beer in your hand without being hassled by cops or worrying about covering it up with a paper-bag. As we headed to the FanFest area in a last-ditch attempt to find Stefan, I made a comment to Daniel about this feeling of freedom. It was nice not to have to worry about someone saying "you can't bring that beer in here" and smiled smuggly to myself.

Finally, we ran into Stefan somewhere near the entrance to the FanFest. Somehow we must have just missed each other in the Roemer square, he was standing near the poor soul wearing the giant Ronaldinho mascot costume trying to sell some natural soccer balls and what not. Whatever, we were finally reunited (unfortunately ;o) and could head into the FanZone and get the party started. We headed through the gates and what do I hear? “I’m sorry, you can’t bring that beer in here”. My jaw almost hit the floor when I heard that. Are you serious? Figures, Anheiser-Busch has exclusive beer rights for anything related to the World Cup, including the FanFest areas. Daniel was naturally laughing at me for opening my stupid mouth a few minutes prior and jinxing my comfort zone….

And then we were in the FanFest. There was an hour and a half or so before the game still remaining, so we picked some seats in the bleachers so we could enjoy the game in style and then wandered around the park seeing what was going on. There was a grassy park area with kids and adults wearing France, Germany, or Portugal jerseys juggling a ball together (some of these kids are insanely good considering they’re like 8 years old). There were refreshment tents selling ridiculously expensive beers and sausages that we indulged in, there was a radio station and stage having contest for the best-dressed fan (or, in one girl’s case, showing the most skin of a very fit body). There was music blasting through the speakers, there were Internet kiosks where you could take your picture and send it to an email address, and there were a couple thousand people to watch. At one point while we were all sitting in the bleachers, Daniel and Kelly spotted two comedians who were famous in Brazil. They were dressed in overalls, Mario/Luigi-style moustaches, and Portugal shirts and were walking around with their cameraman making fun of people, which is apparently what they are famous for in Brazil. It was kind of funny to see them dressed like that, essentially making fun of the Portuguese being farmers and backwoods-style people. Daniel and Kelly of course went down to get pictures with them…

While we were sitting in our seats waiting for the game to start, the beers were flowing between Daniel and Stefan like water in a spring. They were determined to get drunk for the game so that Stefan could be at his obnoxious best and Daniel…just because! By the end of the game (which was a pretty boring, to be honest), they had downed five gigantic brewskies each and were ready to celebrate. Daniel, coming from Italian heritage, threw down the gauntlet and said that he would be going for Italy if Portugal lost, which they did. And so the heckling began – Stefan and Daniel stood on their benches after the game screaming at the top of their lungs “Italia…Italia…Italia,” etc. for about thirty minutes as the French and Italian fans streamed out of the FanFest to start celebrating the game. The mood was so festive, some of the Portuguese fans would sing along to them and the French would start singing their songs back at them, it was great. Once most of the fans had left, and Stefan and Daniel’s voices were hoarse, we headed out ourselves to find the parties.

Somehow we met some Portugal fans who were actually Brazilians (and one Filipino) and we hung out with them for a while. They all lived in Frankfurt, working for the tourism service or in other civil positions and were just good, fun people to hang with. We joked and talked to them for about an hour, found shelter from the quick and heavy rain, exchanged contact information, and ended up going our separate ways (the poor people had to actually work the next day!).

Rather than going to downtown Frankfurt, our friends advised us to head across the river into the Sachsenhausen district of Frankfurt. I wish we’d found out about this before because apparently this is where the party was going on all night in the bars, clubs, and restaurants! But, we didn’t even get that far because on the opposite side of the river, there was a discotheque-type area setup for people to dance and party at, which we did. We heard our trips theme songs and of course tons of the Spanish/Latin music that is all of the craze around the world right now. Daniel and Stefan continued their screaming and singing “Italia, Italia” into the faces of some French fans, who did the same back in French and sometimes sang along while flapping their France flags around and sporting huge smiles on their faces.

After munching on some late-night Mediterranean food, we ran into some Americans who were celebrating there as well. They were consultants from the states on assignment for Accenture and were just living it up in Germany while the World Cup was on. Though they weren’t big soccer fans, they were stoked about the World Cup (and who wouldn’t be with an expense account ;o) and were having a grand old time. After chatting with them for a while, we exchanged contact information and then decided to call it an “early” evening and head back to the car before the rain came back.

Once we finally got home and Stefan and Daniel started to sober up, we cooked up some pasta to eat with packets of sauce that we had bought on our initial grocery trip. We had eaten so little of the food that we bought because we were only really there in the mornings and late at night. We decided that the next day we had to use up as much food as possible, since we were leaving for another town and were probably not going to be coming back. We had more or less come to the conclusion that one way or another, we were going to end up six hours away in Berlin for the final, come hell or highwater. We had no idea how we’d get there, how we’d get home in time for our flights, where we would stay, when we would travel, etc., but we were bound and determined.

We played Poker until the wee hours of the night.

Justinho

Videos:
The street "disco" after France vs. Portugal
The street "disco" stage after France vs. Portugal
France vs. Portugal game celebrations