Thursday was a public holiday. I took Friday off and used the weekend to go to Uelzen, the city in Lower Saxony where the sister school of Friends' School is, and where I went to as part of an exchange in 2007.
I stayed all three nights with Thilo, the guy who hosted Aaron when we were there. Great guy, great big house!
I...
...went to Vatertag celebrations, and got drunk and met lots of new people,
...went to Thilo's late birthday party, and got more drunk and met lots of new people,
...played beach volleyball, foosball and eight ball,
...caught up with the current Friends' School trip, seeing my old German teacher and some of my friends who are now in year 11 or 12 and just beginning their own school exchange!
...had a great time.
It was such a spontaneous decision on Thursday morning - at 11am I decided to go, and at 12pm I was on the train!
Also on that Thursday morning, Jack and Steve sadly left Dresden. Ollie and Anna went up to Berlin and so I spent the weekend away from them, until I made it to Berlin on Sunday and Anna and I hitch-hiked back to Dresden together.
Also!
On CouchSurfing.org, the greatest website ever, I've been improving my profile and starting to become a real part of the community - not just someone saying "help, I'm new in Dresden" but a willing host, surfer and friend - I'm now stoked that someone I know vouched for me (and you can only get vouches from people who've got at least three themselves) and I also got two requests from people who want to stay with me next month!
my new and improved homepage:
www.couchsurfing.org/people/pn57/
Just thought I'd let you know...
Coming up next: Berlin Beach Camp!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Things that nobody should ever do (AKA things the four of us do on a regular basis) #154:
I don't know the exact origins of the three pizza challenge, but apparently it was coined by Jack while he and Ollie and/or Steve were contemplating a hitch-hiking race.
If you're sitting there wondering what this mysterious three pizza challenge is, you may be slightly disappointed to learn that it's exactly what it sounds like:
The three pizza challenge
If you're sitting there wondering what this mysterious three pizza challenge is, you may be slightly disappointed to learn that it's exactly what it sounds like:
The three pizza challenge
Eat three pizzas.
A few days ago the guys and I set a date for attempting this, and that date happened to be yesterday. Jack, Ollie and I each bought a box of frozen supermarket pizzas, the cheapest brand in there, three in a box for 2€. Steve looked at that box in the supermarket and decided to spend nearly three times that amount on buying three separate pizzas of a slightly less crap brand.
Oh and here comes half the fun of it - the apartments that Camilla, Erin and I live in don't have ovens, but the others figured we could manage using... microwaves. We brought my microwave down from my place to the girls' kitchen (Camilla is in Italy, Erin let us use her room cause my room is choc-full of junk) and set to work. We'd microwave two pizzas at a time, one in each microwave, and each eat half a pizza when they were "done". (By done, I mean shot with enough microwaves that the underside of the pizzas weren't cold anymore, thereby making them extremely hot and really quite soggy!)
We had to do this six times to microwave and eat all twelve pizzas.
After my first half-pizza, I felt like I could easily eat all six halves.
After the second, I felt snack-full.
After the third, I felt meal-full.
After the fourth, I felt being-greedy-and-eating-too-much full.
After the fifth, I was dreading the last one.
The sixth was a real challenge, with my mind having to keep telling my jaw to chew and swallow.
We didn't try and make it a race against each other, or against the clock, we just made it a group effort to manage the twelve between us and ended up each managing our three-pizza share.
Throughout the challenge, I kept saying this was the worst idea in the world, and when I'd finished, the way I felt just confirmed that. There was no real sense of triumph - nobody won anything, basically we just showed how good we are at being morbidly obese if we put our minds to it.
So that's my update for now.
Our plan tonight is to find some nice spot in the city, maybe beside the Elbe river, and sit and relax and drink beers.
Tomorrow, for our last night together, we are considering an all-you-can-eat pizza/pasta place that is basically Pizza Hut. I probably shouldn't put that there, having just described our feat of last night.
And sadly, that's it for Steve and Jack's Dresden times - on Thursday they'll be flying to England. Steve is apparently returning to Australia in July, having run out of money. Jack and Ollie reckon they probably won't be travelling together for the rest of the year, although their paths may cross at times. Ollie will be staying around here for at least another month, he may travel around a bit but he'll be based in my apartment still.
Oh and one more thing - I had a meeting today to learn my fate as a result of my severe warning a while ago that caused me to delete two blog posts, and apparently I've made some nice changes and won't be getting fired anytime soon. Good to know!
Bye bye ya'll.
A few days ago the guys and I set a date for attempting this, and that date happened to be yesterday. Jack, Ollie and I each bought a box of frozen supermarket pizzas, the cheapest brand in there, three in a box for 2€. Steve looked at that box in the supermarket and decided to spend nearly three times that amount on buying three separate pizzas of a slightly less crap brand.
Oh and here comes half the fun of it - the apartments that Camilla, Erin and I live in don't have ovens, but the others figured we could manage using... microwaves. We brought my microwave down from my place to the girls' kitchen (Camilla is in Italy, Erin let us use her room cause my room is choc-full of junk) and set to work. We'd microwave two pizzas at a time, one in each microwave, and each eat half a pizza when they were "done". (By done, I mean shot with enough microwaves that the underside of the pizzas weren't cold anymore, thereby making them extremely hot and really quite soggy!)
We had to do this six times to microwave and eat all twelve pizzas.
After my first half-pizza, I felt like I could easily eat all six halves.
After the second, I felt snack-full.
After the third, I felt meal-full.
After the fourth, I felt being-greedy-and-eating-too-much full.
After the fifth, I was dreading the last one.
The sixth was a real challenge, with my mind having to keep telling my jaw to chew and swallow.
We didn't try and make it a race against each other, or against the clock, we just made it a group effort to manage the twelve between us and ended up each managing our three-pizza share.
Throughout the challenge, I kept saying this was the worst idea in the world, and when I'd finished, the way I felt just confirmed that. There was no real sense of triumph - nobody won anything, basically we just showed how good we are at being morbidly obese if we put our minds to it.
So that's my update for now.
Our plan tonight is to find some nice spot in the city, maybe beside the Elbe river, and sit and relax and drink beers.
Tomorrow, for our last night together, we are considering an all-you-can-eat pizza/pasta place that is basically Pizza Hut. I probably shouldn't put that there, having just described our feat of last night.
And sadly, that's it for Steve and Jack's Dresden times - on Thursday they'll be flying to England. Steve is apparently returning to Australia in July, having run out of money. Jack and Ollie reckon they probably won't be travelling together for the rest of the year, although their paths may cross at times. Ollie will be staying around here for at least another month, he may travel around a bit but he'll be based in my apartment still.
Oh and one more thing - I had a meeting today to learn my fate as a result of my severe warning a while ago that caused me to delete two blog posts, and apparently I've made some nice changes and won't be getting fired anytime soon. Good to know!
Bye bye ya'll.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Epicness!
So here’s the scenario.
Saturday evening. Ollie and I go to visit the girls’ apartment, and Jack, Anna and Francesca are already there with Camilla and Erin. Jack goes upstairs with the key and comes back, then Steve comes down. Ollie and I want to go upstairs to get something, and Jack has a horrible realisation: he had walked out of the apartment without the key. Steve hadn’t picked it up either. So yes, for the first time this year, and possibly for the first time in the Dresden gapper history, I was locked out of my apartment!
I felt pretty awful at first. Ollie and I tried ringing both neighbours’ bells to ask about climbing from their balcony to mine, but neither answered the door. I rang the lady who inspects our apartments but she told me the key she uses actually lives in the office of the principal and deputy principal. Since it was a Saturday evening, she couldn’t do anything about it and suggested we try sleeping in the girls’ flat.
By the way, I had come downstairs without any shoes, or my bag, which includes my wallet, all my money, my tram ticket and a whole lot of other useful stuff. Ollie didn’t have any shoes either. We had been contemplating going out clubbing but decided to just drink and have fun at home. We were joined by Chloe, another Australian girl who lives in Dresden, to make it 9 people in total! After much drinking, six of us headed to the main station with the crazy idea of taking a train in the middle of the night to Berlin or somewhere, but there were no trains apart from S-Bahns so Chloe said we’d take trams to Kleinschachwitz where she lives and go swimming in a lake.
Were we up for it?
Hell yes we were.
On the tram, we spoke far too loudly and drunkenly and Steve and I ended up having a time-trial running all the way down to the end of the tram and back to our seat. We got off at the end of the line and walked a really long way before getting to this lake, and despite the alcohol in our systems, it started looking like less of a good idea! Nevertheless, Ollie instantly took off everything and jumped in. The rest of us left underwear on and got in cautiously, then I went under to try and get used to the freezing temperature and Ollie, Anna and I had a bit of a swim around.
We spotted a campfire further up the lake and once we’d all got out and got dry, we went to investigate. It was a big group of Germans celebrating an 18th birthday. They invited us to join them and so we warmed up by this fire and chatted to them. There was a guitar that I played a bit, doing some songs with Ollie, and we also had some food heated in the fire and some drinks. We had the best time ever. Basically, we spent the remainder of the night there – and I mean without sleeping! The sun came up extremely quickly at like 6, then at like 8 the people who were left started packing up. Camilla had already left and Chloe went back to her house in Kleinschachwitz so it was Ollie, Steve, Anna and I who walked a hugely long way, Steve and I barefoot and Ollie borrowing Camilla’s thongs, then caught a tram (without tickets, apart from Anna) back home. We were entirely tripping out on the fact that we hadn’t slept. Ollie and I just kept recalling what we’d done and laughing hysterically in the tram, Steve was kind of dozing off and Anna was sitting far away from us to save the apparent embarrassment of being with us!
Unfortunately, I didn’t get the key back on Sunday either, and was told that I’d have to organise for somebody to get the key out of the office when the kindergarten opened on Monday, and bring it to me in the girls’ flat. I couldn’t exactly go and do it myself because I had no tram ticket and no shoes, plus I’d been wearing the same clothes for the last two days and felt quite scummy.
So through the magic of alcohol, we turned a bad situation into the most fun we ever had. (imagine that as the happy-ever-after ending of a children's story book, read in a really soothing voice. Fun times!)
Saturday evening. Ollie and I go to visit the girls’ apartment, and Jack, Anna and Francesca are already there with Camilla and Erin. Jack goes upstairs with the key and comes back, then Steve comes down. Ollie and I want to go upstairs to get something, and Jack has a horrible realisation: he had walked out of the apartment without the key. Steve hadn’t picked it up either. So yes, for the first time this year, and possibly for the first time in the Dresden gapper history, I was locked out of my apartment!
I felt pretty awful at first. Ollie and I tried ringing both neighbours’ bells to ask about climbing from their balcony to mine, but neither answered the door. I rang the lady who inspects our apartments but she told me the key she uses actually lives in the office of the principal and deputy principal. Since it was a Saturday evening, she couldn’t do anything about it and suggested we try sleeping in the girls’ flat.
By the way, I had come downstairs without any shoes, or my bag, which includes my wallet, all my money, my tram ticket and a whole lot of other useful stuff. Ollie didn’t have any shoes either. We had been contemplating going out clubbing but decided to just drink and have fun at home. We were joined by Chloe, another Australian girl who lives in Dresden, to make it 9 people in total! After much drinking, six of us headed to the main station with the crazy idea of taking a train in the middle of the night to Berlin or somewhere, but there were no trains apart from S-Bahns so Chloe said we’d take trams to Kleinschachwitz where she lives and go swimming in a lake.
Were we up for it?
Hell yes we were.
On the tram, we spoke far too loudly and drunkenly and Steve and I ended up having a time-trial running all the way down to the end of the tram and back to our seat. We got off at the end of the line and walked a really long way before getting to this lake, and despite the alcohol in our systems, it started looking like less of a good idea! Nevertheless, Ollie instantly took off everything and jumped in. The rest of us left underwear on and got in cautiously, then I went under to try and get used to the freezing temperature and Ollie, Anna and I had a bit of a swim around.
We spotted a campfire further up the lake and once we’d all got out and got dry, we went to investigate. It was a big group of Germans celebrating an 18th birthday. They invited us to join them and so we warmed up by this fire and chatted to them. There was a guitar that I played a bit, doing some songs with Ollie, and we also had some food heated in the fire and some drinks. We had the best time ever. Basically, we spent the remainder of the night there – and I mean without sleeping! The sun came up extremely quickly at like 6, then at like 8 the people who were left started packing up. Camilla had already left and Chloe went back to her house in Kleinschachwitz so it was Ollie, Steve, Anna and I who walked a hugely long way, Steve and I barefoot and Ollie borrowing Camilla’s thongs, then caught a tram (without tickets, apart from Anna) back home. We were entirely tripping out on the fact that we hadn’t slept. Ollie and I just kept recalling what we’d done and laughing hysterically in the tram, Steve was kind of dozing off and Anna was sitting far away from us to save the apparent embarrassment of being with us!
Unfortunately, I didn’t get the key back on Sunday either, and was told that I’d have to organise for somebody to get the key out of the office when the kindergarten opened on Monday, and bring it to me in the girls’ flat. I couldn’t exactly go and do it myself because I had no tram ticket and no shoes, plus I’d been wearing the same clothes for the last two days and felt quite scummy.
So through the magic of alcohol, we turned a bad situation into the most fun we ever had. (imagine that as the happy-ever-after ending of a children's story book, read in a really soothing voice. Fun times!)
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Amerykański rekord trzykrotnie pobity!!!
That's the subject of an e-mail I was just sent, confirming the world record we set on Friday, 1st May, detailed in my last blog post.
The only way the people have my e-mail is cause I wrote it on my registration form, so some dedicated group of people have gone through EVERY form and typed the e-mail addresses into a computer!
The official number is: 6,346 guitarists!
This smashes the previous record of 2,052, set in the USA.
Well that's it for now.
One more thing: Anybody listened to the new Evermore album and noticed similarities to Muse's most recent album Black Holes and Revelations? Some of the first song, "Plugged In", sounds like Muse's "Supermassive Black Hole", the song "Chemical Miracle" has chord progressions resembling those in Muse's "Take a Bow", and this record contains several synthesiser ostinato sections, such as in "Between the Lines", which is just what Muse have in many of their songs, am I right? The stuff that the extra member plays when they do it live?
The only way the people have my e-mail is cause I wrote it on my registration form, so some dedicated group of people have gone through EVERY form and typed the e-mail addresses into a computer!
The official number is: 6,346 guitarists!
This smashes the previous record of 2,052, set in the USA.
Well that's it for now.
One more thing: Anybody listened to the new Evermore album and noticed similarities to Muse's most recent album Black Holes and Revelations? Some of the first song, "Plugged In", sounds like Muse's "Supermassive Black Hole", the song "Chemical Miracle" has chord progressions resembling those in Muse's "Take a Bow", and this record contains several synthesiser ostinato sections, such as in "Between the Lines", which is just what Muse have in many of their songs, am I right? The stuff that the extra member plays when they do it live?
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Update update update update!
Firstly, just so you know:
ANNA is my friend from England who I've known for just over a week. We met at a CouchSurfing barbecue. She is my age, and living in Dresden at the moment being a language assistant in a primary school.
FRANZISKA is my friend from Dresden who I've known for a couple of months now. We met at a CouchSurfing pub get-together. She's 23 and studying at university here.
Ok.
On Friday May 1st, a festival called "Thanks Jimi" (as in Hendrix) happened in Wrocław, Poland. Our Dresden CouchSurfing city ambassador Stefan organised a bit of a trip for anybody interested in going. It ended up being Anna, Franziska, Stefan, his friend Galka from Russia, and me. Franziska got there on Thursday evening using mitfahrgelegenheit.de. The other four of us had a hitch-hiking race, set up by Stefan - he and Galka vs. Anna and me. We began the race at Bahnhof Neustadt at 5pm on Thursday and the winning team would be the first to arrive at the main entrance of Wrocław's main station. Anna and I headed up the road to a Shell petrol station and asked 3 drivers if they were headed east before we got a yes, and the man took us about halfway to the border to another petrol station. Again, after asking just 2 cars, we found a Polish couple heading all the way to Wrocław, who kindly took us with them. Even though there was a traffic jam before Wrocław on the highway, and they let us out near the highway so we had to get a bus in there, we took like 4.5 hours in total to arrive and beat Stefan and Galka by like an hour. It was quite nice, since both of us were first-time hitch-hikers and Stefan had done it before.
Anna and I spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday night at the apartment of a girl called Nathalia, who we found using CouchSurfing. She was great, really nice and really helpful. And it was free!
On Friday, the festival took place. The main attraction, the reason we went, was a Guinness world record attempt that they do at the festival every year - most guitarists playing at the same time. I had brought my guitar with me, unfortunately I was the only one of the five of us who had one, but nonetheless, I took part in playing of Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple and then Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix, in an absolutely packed market square. The old record stood somewhere near 2,000, and after we played, it was announced that this year, over 6,000 guitarists took part. Naturally, the crowd cheered. So now I can say that I (jointly) hold a real official Guinness World Record! Stefan and Galka hitched back to Dresden later that day. In the evening, there was a Wrocław CouchSurfing gathering, and in total there were like 30 CouchSurfers in a bar, drinking and talking, including another Australian, and what's more, he was from Tasmania! Pretty astounding really. Nathalia, Anna and I went there, and got KFC afterwards.
On Saturday, Franziska, Anna and I cruised around Wrocław, looking north of the city centre at all the islands and bridges that lead to the nickname "the Venice of Poland". It was quite a nice sunny day and I enjoyed it very much. Later, we hung in a cafe with Franziska's CouchSurfing host.
On Sunday, Anna and I began the task of hitch-hiking back to Dresden. We cheated a little, because the buses to the highway didn't run since it was Sunday, so we got a taxi there. But our priority was to get home, not to be able to say we hitched 100% of the way. We took three trips back, each about a third of the journey, with our longest wait being about an hour and a half in a small-ish petrol station outside Legnica. But we eventually found someone there to take us to the German border, and another person to take us to Dresden. We were stoked!
I was especially happy - I had pulled off a long weekend trip to Poland for less than 20 euros - well, that's how much I converted to Polish money, and I still have a little left! So that's getting there and back, sleeping 3 nights, 2 cafe lunches, KFC, plus a merchandise t-shirt at the world record attempt on Friday that would cost 20 euros alone in Germany or even Australia.
Now:
Steve, Jack and Ollie from Hobart/Friends' are staying with me!
Dresden is their latest stop on their mad trip round Europe, taking all the free accommodation they can get. Steve and Jack are staying about 20 days, and Ollie will stay longer. It's absolutely hilarious - it's the four of us big guys living together in my 1-person apartment! We had to put my furniture out on the balcony to fit our mattresses on the floor, and using the bathroom and kitchen is... you can imagine! I'll post an update later to say how we're going and stuff.
For now, I have to get off the computer, cause I overstayed my time limit writing this thing!
Peace!
Patrick
ANNA is my friend from England who I've known for just over a week. We met at a CouchSurfing barbecue. She is my age, and living in Dresden at the moment being a language assistant in a primary school.
FRANZISKA is my friend from Dresden who I've known for a couple of months now. We met at a CouchSurfing pub get-together. She's 23 and studying at university here.
Ok.
On Friday May 1st, a festival called "Thanks Jimi" (as in Hendrix) happened in Wrocław, Poland. Our Dresden CouchSurfing city ambassador Stefan organised a bit of a trip for anybody interested in going. It ended up being Anna, Franziska, Stefan, his friend Galka from Russia, and me. Franziska got there on Thursday evening using mitfahrgelegenheit.de. The other four of us had a hitch-hiking race, set up by Stefan - he and Galka vs. Anna and me. We began the race at Bahnhof Neustadt at 5pm on Thursday and the winning team would be the first to arrive at the main entrance of Wrocław's main station. Anna and I headed up the road to a Shell petrol station and asked 3 drivers if they were headed east before we got a yes, and the man took us about halfway to the border to another petrol station. Again, after asking just 2 cars, we found a Polish couple heading all the way to Wrocław, who kindly took us with them. Even though there was a traffic jam before Wrocław on the highway, and they let us out near the highway so we had to get a bus in there, we took like 4.5 hours in total to arrive and beat Stefan and Galka by like an hour. It was quite nice, since both of us were first-time hitch-hikers and Stefan had done it before.
Anna and I spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday night at the apartment of a girl called Nathalia, who we found using CouchSurfing. She was great, really nice and really helpful. And it was free!
On Friday, the festival took place. The main attraction, the reason we went, was a Guinness world record attempt that they do at the festival every year - most guitarists playing at the same time. I had brought my guitar with me, unfortunately I was the only one of the five of us who had one, but nonetheless, I took part in playing of Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple and then Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix, in an absolutely packed market square. The old record stood somewhere near 2,000, and after we played, it was announced that this year, over 6,000 guitarists took part. Naturally, the crowd cheered. So now I can say that I (jointly) hold a real official Guinness World Record! Stefan and Galka hitched back to Dresden later that day. In the evening, there was a Wrocław CouchSurfing gathering, and in total there were like 30 CouchSurfers in a bar, drinking and talking, including another Australian, and what's more, he was from Tasmania! Pretty astounding really. Nathalia, Anna and I went there, and got KFC afterwards.
On Saturday, Franziska, Anna and I cruised around Wrocław, looking north of the city centre at all the islands and bridges that lead to the nickname "the Venice of Poland". It was quite a nice sunny day and I enjoyed it very much. Later, we hung in a cafe with Franziska's CouchSurfing host.
On Sunday, Anna and I began the task of hitch-hiking back to Dresden. We cheated a little, because the buses to the highway didn't run since it was Sunday, so we got a taxi there. But our priority was to get home, not to be able to say we hitched 100% of the way. We took three trips back, each about a third of the journey, with our longest wait being about an hour and a half in a small-ish petrol station outside Legnica. But we eventually found someone there to take us to the German border, and another person to take us to Dresden. We were stoked!
I was especially happy - I had pulled off a long weekend trip to Poland for less than 20 euros - well, that's how much I converted to Polish money, and I still have a little left! So that's getting there and back, sleeping 3 nights, 2 cafe lunches, KFC, plus a merchandise t-shirt at the world record attempt on Friday that would cost 20 euros alone in Germany or even Australia.
Now:
Steve, Jack and Ollie from Hobart/Friends' are staying with me!
Dresden is their latest stop on their mad trip round Europe, taking all the free accommodation they can get. Steve and Jack are staying about 20 days, and Ollie will stay longer. It's absolutely hilarious - it's the four of us big guys living together in my 1-person apartment! We had to put my furniture out on the balcony to fit our mattresses on the floor, and using the bathroom and kitchen is... you can imagine! I'll post an update later to say how we're going and stuff.
For now, I have to get off the computer, cause I overstayed my time limit writing this thing!
Peace!
Patrick
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