Bulgaria: Booze and Beaches

Hello all,

After the world cup, I took it easy for a while, owing to the fact that many of my friends had
gone home for the summer, and the fact I had very little cash. I had always planned to spend my last week in Europe somewhere outside of Germany, due to the fact that I only had my dorm until the end of July. After my lovey sister and brother in law had offered me a flight to England for my birthday present, I parlayed this into a trip to the cheaper, and far more unpredictable land of Bulgaria. Home to about half of my student building, I have learnt over the past year from immersion to curse like a sailor in bulgarian, and say a few slightly more civilised sentances as well. Now the only problem I had was that all the return tickets were ridiculously over priced, and in addition it seemed that there were no free places on any planes going back to Germany in the days before I fly back to Australia. On the verge of giving up and going to Milan for a week, I bit the bullet and got a 80euro one way ticket to the black sea coast.

After flying into the black sea city of Varna, I was met at the airport by my Bulgarian mate Jivko, along with his brother, who looked rather similar to Slash from the band guns n roses. We piled into his car and drove rather slowly down the road along the coastline to their hometown of Burgas. At first I was surprised at how slow we were going, until I saw the first of many oncoming cars making wild overtaking manouvres into blind turns, on a poorly lit, potholed single lane road. This 2 hour drive was itself probably the most scary part of my whole stay. Anyway, after arriving, we went straight to the boys' local for a few beers, which cost about 90 aus cents for a half litre. Naturally one folowed the other, and after Jivko's brother went home, we kicked on to a seedy little rock bar called 'Yes'. The place was intriguing. Apparently the building was almost destroyed by fire a few years ago, and the landlord refuses to fix the fire-damaged roof. As such, when it rains, water drips slowly from the ceiling, and only stops about 2 hours after the rain outside has stopped. The manager has attempted to fix this by stringing a tarp from the ceiling, which apparently diverts the water down the window panes, keeping the main area dry and the area between the seats and windows nicely moist. This naturally means that there are more mosquitos in the pub than outside most nights, creating a delightfully on edge environment, where one is contantly swatting and scratching in between drinks.

Aside from this minor inconvenience, the music is rather good, albiet with a typical eastern european emphasis on 70's and early 80's cock rock. The bar this evening was quite empty, and after a while the barman noticed that Jivko and I were talking in german, which caused him to put on some horrible german pop, and give me an enthusiastic thumbs up. After he came over to our table with a greeting of 'meine damen und herren!' I pointed out to him in english that I was actually Australian. He then looked at me in wiide-eyed disbelief, then followed up by bellowing at me 'THEN WHY ARE YOU SPEAKING IN THAT FUCKING LANGUAGE!!!!? I calmly informed him that I was only speaking german because Jivko cannot speak any english. He nodded at this, then went behind the counter and played 1 hour of ACDC hits, followed, bizzarely, by some Angry Anderson and the Angels. Seems australian pub rock travels far.

Anyway, most of our nights were spent at one of these two pubs, or on the foreshore, where a large number of people gather every night and drink alcohol from the 24 hour supermarket nearby. This can be very dangerous, as Mastika, a sort of Bulgarian ouzo, costs 4 Aud for a bottle, and is 57 percent alcohol. These foreshore parties naturally brought about much hilarity, and allowed me to showcase my knowledge of bulgarian obsceneties on many occasions. It also led to many long sleep ins and hangovers over my 9 day stay.

During the days, we went to many different towns along the black sea coast, swimming at a few delightful beaches. I was very glad to finally swim in the ocean, as aside from my little foray into the baltic sea in october, I hadn't been near the sea for what seemed like ages. Dortmund is also unbearable in summer, as it is stinking hot, chokingly humid, and nowhere near a natual water course where one can swim. So the opportunity to lounge around on the beach for a few days and do little else appealed to me greatly. This we did, with the one exception being the day we drove into the countryside to visit Jivko's grandparents. This was quite interesting, having to stomach moonshine rakia (a bulgarian style grappa, which almost everyone seems to distill themselves) at 11am, before talking to the elderly couple over lunch. Naturally both of them could only speak bulgarian and the old man russian, so the whole conversation consisted of me thinking of something, saying it to jivko in german, which he would translate into bulgarian for the olds, and vice versa. Things got really interesting when lunch was brought out, with only myself and grandpa temporarily at the table. After staring at each other for a while with no means to communicate at all, the wizened old man suddenly started baahing like a sheep to me. This I found a little awkward and amusing at the same time, until I realised he was telling me we were eating lamb. Very nice. When the others came back he asked me about australian wool, which aparently sells well in Bulgaria, and I asked him about life under communism, which all the older two generations universally agreed was better than what it is today. There was very little corruption, as opposed to the rampant corruption in Bulgaria today, especially in the police force, and no poverty, as opposed to the now seemingly massive gap between the few rich and powerful and the poor. This was quite an interesting lunch, as was the 'toilet' facility outside. The less I say abut that the better.

On another note, as every day went by without me being able to get a flight back to Germany, my thoughts kept on coming back to the dreaded 44 hour bus ride through eastern europe. After pulling as many strings as possible at the airport, I had reached the point of no return. Either I got a plane on thursday or I had to get the bus, in order to get back to Germany in time for my flight home. At wits end, we eventually went into the airport and sat in front of the check in desk in full view of the LTU clerks. After the last person had checked in, we made our move, and asked the lady if anyone had happened to not check in. As it panned out, some chap in business class didn't show, and I was able to get a 2 hour flight in comfort back to düsseldorf for about 110 euro. Given that the bus itself costs 97 euro, I wasn't complaining. I got back in one piece, and am now giving my liver a little rest for a few days before getting on the plane in Cologne on tuesday evening. I should be arriving in Adelaide on thursday morning at the ungodly hour of 6am. Lovely.

Anyway, that was the last installment in my series of European adventures for now. I will certainly miss the Döner Kebabs when I'm back in Australia. The Gyros in Adelaide just doesn't compare.
Cheers,
Ed

Australia Bows out to Dodgy Penalty - Ed Flees to Budapest

Going into the round of 16 match with Italy, I was expecting Italy to get an early goal, then defend with 11 behind the ball until the end. The fact that no-one expected Australia to reach the knock out rounds meant that there was little tension and pressure, as everyone expected Italy to win comfortably. I went to Boomerang again with my Roncalli friends and watched Australia play quite well to keep Italy out, while never really threatening the Italian goal. However, early in the second half, an Italian player was rather harshly sent off, meaning that all of a sudden, Austraia were in the box seat. Unfortunately, we had a mountain of posession, but very few chances. At 0-0 and well into injury time, I actually started thinking that we could pull off an upset against a visibly tiring Italian team in extra time. Football has a way of punishing those thoughts, however, as in the 93rd minute, Grosso dribbled into the box, Neill went to ground to block his shot, only to see the Italian calmly change direction and walk into him, drawing contact and falling over theatrically. Naturally, the referee pointed to the spot, Totti scored with the last kick of the game, and Australia were out of the world cup in the most cruel and bitter way possible.

To say I was bitter and angry after this match was a bit of an understatement. However, instead of wallowing in my self pity, I caught up with my English mate Andy after his band practice, then got smashed and went to his favourite seedy bar Spirit. I ended up having a good night, but felt rather down and didn't do much else for the rest of the week. On the 30th, I met my mate Ralf at the Dortmund airport, and we flew to Budapest to stay with a friend of ours for a few days.

After getting recognised by a student of mine at Budapest airport (small world), we got a taxi into the city, where my mate Mark's apartment was. I always am amazed driving through old eastern European cities. The outer suburbs are universally dull, depressing, and blatantly soviet. However, as you get closer to the city centre, you start to notice amazingly beautiful old buildings, hundreds of years older than anything we have in Australia. The centre of Budapest was incredibly beautiful, with many grand old style buildings on both the Buda and Pest sides of the Danube. Our first afternoon was spent playing football on a large island in the middle of the Danube. Following this, we got ready for the Germany Argentina quarter final. Given that Mark and all his friends from Budapest uni are Germans, everyone was quite pumped up for the match. We went down to a live site with big screen, and watched the match with a surprising amount of expats. It seems that Hungarians really had no interest in the World Cup, as they didn't manage to even qualify. Anyway, with 80 cent beers and Germany winning in a penatly shootout, everyone was pretty keen to party afterwards.

After a few preliminaries, we caught a ridiculously over-crowded night bus down to the river, where many very cool nightclubs are located. In summer months, two of the better clubs are giant open air discotheques situated on either side of a bridge spanning the Danube. With cheap central European alcohol, and a great river side setting, we made a night of it, getting home about 8am. Saturday was more of a rest day. After a sleep in, we played Texas Hold 'em all afternoon while watching the other quarter finals on Hungarian TV. Afterwards we went out to another club, this time a dark underground affair with cheap drinks and badly performed Hungarian Karaoke. On the Sunday we went for a walk through the old town. Walking along the river, the sheer history and culture of the city blows you away. After taking in the sights for a few hours, we went home with some beers and played poker until the early hours.

The next day we got up early and went to the central markets. There we bought a huge amount of food and cooked up a massive dinner of steak and roast potatoes. Afterwards everyone wanted to have a quiet night, as the Germany Italy semi final was the next evening. The morning of the match we bought a sports bag full of cheap Hungarian beer and went to the island to lounge around in the sun for a few hours. At about 6 we got ready and went over to the fan site for the game. The atmosphere there was amazing. However, I couldn't help thinking about how crazy it must have been in Dortmund, as the semi was being played at the Westfalenstadion, literally 10 minutes walk from my dorm. After an entertaining game, deep into extra time and with penalties looming, Italy scored two quick goals in the last minute. The celebratory atmosphere was popped like a balloon. All my german friends were absolutley shocked and speechless for hours after the game. We walked home, then decided to go to a club and drown our sorrows.

After staying out quite late and getting an early taxi to the airport, Ralf and I were shocked to discover that Easyjet had cancelled our plane back to Dortmund for no apparent reason. Naturally this pissed us off no end, and as I had no money left, and Ralf had to be back in Germany for a business meeting the next morning, the rescheduled flight the next morning was out of the question. After freaking out for a little while, we got a bus to the other terminal and booked two tickets on a very expensive Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt on Ralf's credit card. Running like sleep deprived, hungover madmen through the airport and immigration, we boarded the flight with 2 minutes to spare. After landing in Frankfurt, we wrote a letter to Easyjet claiming the EU regulated 250-400 Euro compensation for such monumental cock-ups. It remains to be seen how quickly they respond. Knowing Easyjet, they will fight tooth and nail not to pay, then probably offer us a drink coupon. I may have to get my travel insurance company involved.

Anyway, after getting back to Dortmund, I watched the cheating Italians win a totally undeserved World Cup, with the highlight of the match being Zinedine Zidane's red mist induced headbutt in extra time, which sent an Italian flying to the ground writhing around in 'agony'. At least consolation can be brought from the fact that Australia went out of the tournament to the eventual world champions, who needed a dubious last minute penalty to overcome us.

Australia Makes Second Round

Well, after the late comeback against Japan I was quietly confident ahead of the match against Brazil. I went to Friedensplatz with some friends of mine and took in the atmosphere. There were heaps of Brazilian fans there, and also plenty of Germans with Brazilian shirts. While there were not that many Australians, there were thousands of swiss fans in town for the match against Togo, with many of them supporting the underdog against Brazil. Realistically, I was hoping we wouldn't get humiliated, but as the match wore on, and Australia kept Brazil scoreless, I began thinking more and more about getting an unlikely draw to send us through. The biggest cheer of the day came when Ronaldinho did about 3 stepovers in the box before treading on the ball and falling over. However, as soon as I started thinking we might get something out of the match, Brazil scored. As Australia pressed for an equaliser, Kewell hit the ball over the open goal from 5 metres out, and Viduka lobbed the ball onto the roof of the net. However, right at the end, we got sucker punched to leave it at 2-0. While I was a bit disappointed, Croatia's draw with Japan meant that we needed a draw in our last match to progress.

On the day of the match with Croatia, I was horrified to find out that every place in town would be showing the Brazil Japan game, even though it was a dead rubber. Luckily, the Australian Pub 'Boomerang' was showing the game, so I had some vodka with Jonathan and Louis to calm the nerves, before heading in to the pub with a motley crew of Bulgarians, Cameroonians, et al, hoping for a result. Unfortunately Croatia scored in the second minute from a free kick, and it looked very bad for Australia. Luckily, Croatia seemed to go into their shell after the early goal, and Australia pressed forward. Viduka was thrown to the ground in the box, with no penalty being given. Minutes later, a Croatian defender handled and the ref pointed to the spot. Moore stepped up and scored from the penalty, and we were back in the game. The second half began much like the first, after only a few minutes, Croatia scored again, this time from a horrible error by the keeper Kalac. This was followed by another blatant handball in the box by the Croatians, which was missed by the ref. Just as I thought we were going to be sent home, Kewell took a cross on his chest, and slotted home from close range. This triggered amazing scenes in Boomerang. The sight and sound of a pub full of drunken fans singing 'Harry, Harry Kewell' to the tune of Boney M's Daddy Cool was quite the highlight.

As if to prove that he was the worst match official ever, the ref then proceeded to give a Croatian player 3 yellow cards before sending him off, and blew the full time whistle as what would have been the Australian winner was rolling over he line. But it didn't matter, Australia was through to the second round for the first time, setting up a knockout tie with Italy. Needless to say, we got quite boistrous that night, knocking back a few celebratory beers and attracting a few strange looks in the U-Bahn on the way home with our singing.

World Cup Kicks Off

Hello all.
I thought I'd take time out of my football watching marathon to give you a run down of what's been happening lately in the land of the Currywurst. I finished my contract at my school on the 31st of May, a date which seemed to come aroud rather quickly in my mind. The week before the year 13's had their 'Chaostag', basically an organised muck up day, where they have a massive party in the Gym and drink from 10am till the wee hours of the morning. This had a mexican theme, and they forced various teachers to perform a chilli eat-off, a pinata bash-off, and a tango dance-off. Naturally they chose the the most stuffy old geezers for the dance off, with hilarious results. The latter part of the day the teachers went away, and the kids boozed on till midnight, with the school's permission. A bit different from my muck up day...

Anyway, at the time the Sedz and his girlfriend Lucy came to stay with me for a week or so, before heading to Greece for the summer. After a week of bulgarian drunkenness in Roncalli house, they decided to get engaged.... I guess if you can stay in this Bulgarian/German rat's nest together for a week with no problems you'll be fine anywhere. My congrats go out to the couple.

My last day at school was quite nice. One of my year 8 classes threw a little cocktail sausage and apple soda party, and wrote some nice messages on the blackboard for me. I thought the picture of the broken heart with 'Eddie' on one side and '8d' on the other was a bit melodramatic though... In the staff room I was given a send off by the headmistress, before I realised I would be expected to get up and give a little speech myself. Naturally I hadn't prepared anything, so I stood up and prattled on in German for a few minutes about nothing in particular, basically saying that after marking a heap of year 12 english exams, I had newfound sympathy for teachers and perhaps understand why they go a little crazy sometimes.

The world Cup kicked off last week, and the crappy German weather changed around amazingly. All of a sudden it was 35 degrees and humid as all hell, naturally neccessitating the drinking of frosty refreshments from the afternoon till the wee hours. I watched the opening game in the city square, with about 50 000 other people in a party atmosphere. Thankfully Germany won, so the rioting and general mayhem was kept to a minimum. Because Sweden was playing Trinidad and Tobago in Dortmund over the opening weekend, the city was overrun by Swedes, with one of the funnier moments coming when a few walked past a group of German fans. Instead of violence, bigoted chants or anything nasty, the Germans belted out IKEA woooaaaoh IKEA wooooaaaoh to the tune of that Dean Martin classic. Hilarious. The next day their team
drew nill nill with Trinidad and tobago, the biggest shock of the world cup so far.

However the fun had just begun as far as I was concerned. Monday afternoon the Aussies had their first game against Japan, and I went into the city with Ralf (the only other Aussie I know within 500km) and some mates from Roncalli house. After a dubious early goal from the Japanese, we suffered through 80 minutes of agony, watching the socceroos creep all over the
opposition like a french rash, but with no success, until the Jedi master Hiddink threw the dice and came up with 3 goals in the last five minutes. This sparked unprecenented scenes of jubilation on my part. I even hugged a Frenchman. The Bulgarians were with were also pretty happy, as they had bet on the Aussies in an accumulator bet and cashed in at the bookies.

I had to cut my celebrations short, as the next day a Croatian mate of mine was driving to Berlin to go to the Brazil Croatia game, and he and his brother were taking Ralf and me along for the ride. So we got up nice and early and got into Berlin at about lunch time. Now I thought Dortmund was going nuts for the world cup. Berlin was absolutely packed with all sorts of football fans. We wandered around for a while, soaking up the atmosphere until the Croats had to go to the Stadium. Ralf and I then went into the city centre, where we were told that they already had 200 000 people in front of the Brandenburg Gate watching the match on big screen, and they weren't letting anyone else in. We found a beer garden not too far away though, and sat down with about 200 Swedes to watch the match. Seriously, the Swedes are massive football fans, like to follow their team around, and are always friendly and up for a chat. I think the fact that alcohol is about 20% of the price it is in Sweden may also have some impact on their
numbers swarming Germany this summer. Anyway after finally getting into the fan area on the street that holds the Love Parade, we partied with a shitload of other fans from all over the world, until meeting up with the boys, who drove us home at 2am.

Getting home yesterday at 730am I was naturally a bit tired and emotional, and slept all day. Unfortunately there was no rest to be had, as that evening Germany was playing Poland in Dortmund, and the city was going mental. Basically about a third of the population of the Ruhr valley is polish, so the match was sort of like the Australia Greece match in Melbourne a few weeks back, but with a little more at stake, and a little more history adding to the antagonism. There were so many people in the city it was crazy. We couldn't get into either the main square or the viewing area next to the stadium, so we went home in disgust and watched the second
half on TV. After Germany scored a last minute winner you could hear the whole city going mental for about an hour. The commentator on telly said that over 300 people in the city centre had been arrested before the game had even finished. Naturally the riot police were kept busy well into the night dealing with the aftermath.

Well, that was a rather long winded account of my adventures over the past 3 or 4 weeks. I have now lost my voice and think I will sleep for a few days until the Aussies play Brazil on Sunday night.
Wish you all the best.
Ed

Seedy Easter Holidays

Well, my Easter holidays are now over, and I have to say I am rather relieved. These holidays were more like a 2 week bender, with very little quiet time for R&R. The first weekend of the holidays was spent in Amsterdam, the fine city 3 hours west of here. I got on a ICE train with my english mates Sam and Pete, while a Syrian friend of mine Adnan decided to travel by regional trains to avoid border guards, due to the fact that his passport had expired, and he didn't feel like getting locked up as a suspicious Arab with no papers in Europe. Anyway, we arrived in Amsterdam on the Friday afternoon with absolutely no idea where we would be staying. We looked around for a few places, but absolutely everything was booked for the whole weekend. I guess we could have been a little better organised and actually booked something in advance, but that would have been boring, right?

After almost giving up hope and preparing to pull an all-nighter, we went to the hostel we stayed at in October, which predictably, was also full. However, as we were standing around outside debating what we should do, a bloke came out of the Kebab shop under the hostel and told us that a booking hadn't arrived yet, and if they didn't come by 10pm, we could have the room. Naturally we were pretty happy with this development when they didn't show and we got a place to sleep.

After dumping all our stuff we went to an Aussie bar and proceeded to knock back a few Coopers Sparkling Ales, a beer that I hadn't drunk in almost a year. These went down a treat, and after Pete's brother and a couple of his friends arrived in town and met us, we went to the Doors Cafe, a cool Jim Morrision themed Bar/Coffee Shop. We then settled in for the night enjoying ourselves immensely. Floating home at about 4 in the morning, I had a good night's sleep before a rather blurry day spent in various establishments around the city, culminating in a brit rock club in the wee hours of the morning, followed by a pint of Guinness on the way home.

The Sunday was very similar to the previous day, but we spent a few hours drinking in the park before Sam and I went to a fruit and veg shop and purchased some foodstuffs from mexico that the guy behind the counter assured us were quality. After having a sample, we went back to the Doors and chilled out there for a few hours staring at a large portrait of Jim Morrision in wonder, before the fun started. At this stage the others came and met us, just before the Doors closed at 1am. At this stage we had no idea what to do. As far as we knew, everything in the city was closed (Being a Sunday) except for a place called San Francisco. After a rather panic filled and complex argument about what to do, we eventually got a few cabs to said place. Now I don't know what I was expecting here, but it sort of reminded me of the bar in Star Wars on the rogue trading planet. Full of the dregs from all walks of life, including a a guy who looked like Blade, and assorted other scary individuals. The other thing that struck me as strange was the fact that every third song would either be 'I like to move it' or 'Ring of Fire'. This started to cause us great distress after while. After flipping out at the table for what was probably about 3 hours, we stumbled outside at closing time, to be greeted by a street covered in vomit and what we were hoping was dog shit. After wandering home I had a rather weird night's sleep, before we had to get up at 10am to vacate the hostel.

We wandered around town a little dazed for a while, before finding a coffee shop called 'Lost' where you could sit around on beanbags all day, relaxing. This is what we did, until we got our train home at about 7pm.

After taking a few days to recover back in Dortmund, and having a couple of regulation nights out on the piss the following weekend, the weather started getting warmer, and I was invited to a barbeque of a friend of a friend. What made this different was the fact that it was in a 'Strebergarten', in a ghetto-like block of tiny gardens on the outskirts of town, where flat-dwelling Germans buy blocks so they can grow vegies and such and such. Usually you only see these tiny gardens with their tiny houses out of train windows, so this was my first time in one. It actually was pretty cool, as you can make as much noise as you like because no one lives in the area, and the gardens are usually immaculately maintained. So after a rather pleasant bbq, with equally pleasant beer and vodka, we went into the city to Bakuda, before getting a train home very early in the morning. The next day I forced myself up early and went with a mate of mine to Westfalenstadion for the match between BVB and Nürnberg. Naturally we got stuck into the bratwurst and beers, and thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere with 70 000 other fans at Dortmund's second last home game of the year. Afterwards we went to Westpark for another barbeque, followed by another night at the seedy metal club 'Spirit'. After stumbling home at 7am, I passed out and woke up almost 20 hours later. I think my body was trying to tell me something. Anyway, after one day's rest, I went back to school, not feeling refreshed in the slightest after a rather seedy two week holiday.

St. Patrick's Day, Benders, and Ugly Duckling

Things here in Dortmund have developed into a rather predictable routine. Generally, after working at my school during the week, I head out on the weekend and try to see the inside of as many different pubs and clubs in the Ruhr Valley as possible. What a noble ambition. Anyway, one of these nights was St. Patrick's Day, the celebration of all things Irish (ie drinking). St. Patrick's Day was a good laugh. The day before I had drunk rather a lot of Vodka at a Uni party, so I didn't feel in the best shape when I started the day with a theatre workshop which I had previously agreed to take part in without thoroughly understanding what would be involved. Basically I thought I had agreed to watch a play, but found out later that I had actually agreed to take part in a 3 hour workshop with one of my year 10 classes, followed up by watching a play in the State Theatre. I guess that serves me right for nodding and smiling when I don't understand someone in German... So basically, after this rather long afternoon and evening, I got a train to Düsseldorf, where there are perhaps 10 different Irish Pubs in the Alststadt alone. I then proceded to knock back as much Guinness as possible with a few Irish and English friends, before getting a train home in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Now while out on St. Patrick's day the ladies came up with the wonderful idea of going out Saturday evening at 3001, a rather trendy house club in Düsseldorf. This sounded good to me, so on saturday evening, after rather a lot of very cheap rum, I got a train with my housemates Louis and Jonathan to Düsseldorf, and we proceded to move through the gears. Now I'm not sure where this night went wrong, but I remember having quite alot of fun at this club until rather late, then I decided to get a train home. Once at the Hauptahnhof, I realised that I had lost my digital camera, and so grumpily got on my train. The next memory I have is waking up in a weird town at 8am with no idea where I was. I found out that I was in Hamm, about 100km north of Dortmund, the same city that my mate Sam woke up in a few weeks earlier! As you can probably imagine, it was a pretty dishelved and annoyed man who stumbled into bed at 930 in the morning after that night.

After losing my camera I laid low for a few weeks, as had a mild case of bird flu, and also was a bit short on cash. However, one night I met up with a mate who used to work at my school, and we went out for a few quiet beers. Naturally this quickly descended into drunken revelry when the barstaff at Rock Cafe started giving us free shooters. Now the Rock Cafe is well known as a bit of a Bikie hang out, and after a few more shooters, I started up a conversation with a leathery old school biker type at the bar. We chatted about the Bikie scene in Adelaide, in particular how the various clubs control the security at most of the nightclubs in the city. He seemed pretty interested in this, then he started talking English, which made me crack up laughing. This guy, who was a very wild, dishelved old school bikie, with a long goatee beard and tattoos, spoke English with the most posh, upper class accent I've ever heard from a German. Sure it was limited, but every word he did utter sounded like it was taught to him by the Queen herself. I think I composed myself enough not to cause offence, and within an hour or so had organised to teach English to the Bikies' waitress girlfriends before the world cup. (I wonder if they'll call...) After this moment my memories get a bit blurred, but I do remember going along to the other bikie venue in Dortmund, the metal club 'Spirit'. I then recall drinking coronas in a mexican bar and going somewhere else before stumbling home at 7 in the morning. I woke up late in the afternoon on my bed, fully clothed, hungover, with a rather large dominican cigar in my jacket pocket. What an interesting evening.

At the begining of April the Hip-Hop group Ugly Duckling played a gig in Dortmund. These guys are one of my favorite groups, and I've already seen them twice in Adelaide. This time, however, they were playing in a really intimate room in a club literally across the road from my apartment. Basically, we organised a few people to come to our student house, and had a few drinks before walking over to the club. The concert itself was amazing, we were so close to the stage, and the relatively small crowd of about 200 people were really receptive and enthusiastic. After the show, the guys from Ugly Duckling and Giant Panda were standing around selling merchandise at the bar, and we started chatting with the DJ Young Einstein. It's really cool seeing foreign bands in Germany, as it's so much easier to chat to them, and they're usually happy to be able to speak English with someone. I talked to Einstein about the Australian and German Hip-Hop scenes, as well as how popular they were in the US compared to overseas. Basically he said that the UK is where they get their biggest crowds, followed by Japan, Australia and the US. He seemed pretty laid back and friendly, even telling us that their famous gold chain only cost them 100 pounds in the UK a few years back. It also sounds very tacky and plastic when he 'jingles' it... Anyway, after the concert, I stumbled over the road to bed, as I had to work the next morning. Needless to say, I looked and sounded a little under the weather during my classes that day. However, I had the next weekend in Amsterdam to look forward to...

Karneval Time

Hello there,
I was just sitting in my dorm doing nothing in particular, so decided to regale you all with another wordy, incoherent rant about my current adventures here in Germany. Basically, since I last wrote a month or so ago, there have not been many noteworthy events to speak of, in fact, little at all. That was until Karnival time hit the Rheinland, and everything got a little weird.

For those who don't know, every year in the week leading up to Ash Wednesday, the normally respectable and sensible citizens of the Rheinland go absolutely batty for 7 days, and everything grinds to a screeching, drunken stop. While Dortmund itself is not reknown for its embracing of the Karneval spirit, the nearby cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf go all out every year to out do each other in the drunken, debauched, costumed party stakes. So naturally, given that I had a long weekend with not many other plans, I decided to get into the spirit of things.

After spending Friday night in Bochum for a friend's farewell party, and Saturday in my cellar for yet another Bulgarian party (seriously, my building has twice as many Bulgarians as Germans), I caught the train to Düsseldorf for what I thought would be a few quiet beers before the main event of Rosenmontag the next day in Cologne. Now the Old Town of Düsseldorf is usually a delighfully well maintained, beautiful place to go for a tipple, but last Sunday the cobble stone streets were absolutely packed with crazily dressed, incredibly drunk, jovial sounding people drinking themselves into oblivion blissfully unaware of (or choosing to ignore) the piles upon piles of broken glass, wild punch ups and general anarchy. Naturally this sort of behaviour greatly interests me, and I found myself sticking around the city for more than a few hours to observe the locals in action. I ended up getting a train back to Dortmund at a rather late hour, having to explain (once again) to a bunch of disbelieving drunken Germans at the platform that I actually didn't come from Holland, I just sound like a Dutchman when I speak German. Seriously, the first time this happened I thought it was quite funny, but nowadays not a single weekend goes by without someone asking what I, as a 'Sheißholländer' am doing in Germany. I guess there aren't many Aussies in Germany, so when they hear my accent, they recognise that it's not British, it's not American, so it must be..... DUTCH! Very weird, and a little disconcerting at the same time.

Anyway, I woke up bright and early on Monday morning, and put on my 'costume', which consisted of a huge black novelty wig, a rather large, yellow, gaudy ring, a giant metal bat on a necklace around my neck, and a borrowed leather jacket, I wandered down to the budget supermarket with some english mates of mine to stock up on supplies (read a 5euro bottle of vodka and some cans of imitation red bull), before getting a tube to the Hauptbahnhof for our train to Cologne. As the 90 minute trip through the Ruhr Valley progressed, more and more drunken Germans piled into the train (it was still 11 am mind you), and by half way, the train was resembling one of those trains you see on the telly in India, but with more alcohol and slightly more Elvis impersonators. When we finallly arrived in Cologne, we found a nice spot by the side of the parade and watched a few floats pass us by. It sort of reminded me of a twisted parody of the Christmas Pageant in Adelaide, with quite normal looking floats being followed by quite scary ones, all of which also involved a lot of assorted chocolate being thrown into the audience to the back up music of cheesy german disco hits. (think: heeey baby.....ooh..... ahh.. I wanna know.....) You know the song. There are many more even more irritating songs just like it over here. Well, after an hour or so of this, we wandered down a side street and started chatting with many different characters, all well inebriated and dressed in Darth Vader, Storm Trooper (the star wars kind, not the other somewhat 'tainted' ones from 60 years ago...), Gladiator and all sorts of other costumes. We ended up talking to some drunken schoolkids dressed as scottish Braveheart warriors and the Grim Reaper, as well many assorted other people, some more memorable than others. Anyway, after a few hours drinking in the sub zero temperatures, my memories of monday evening have dimmed slightly, although I do remember flailing my arms wildly in what could loosely be described as 'dancing' with some japanese tourist in a wedding dress, before going to McDonalds, where all of the people behind the counter were the guys who usually work on the grill in the back of shop. Now not only was that a bit different, but all of these blokey blokes were all dressed immaculaltely in drag, and seeming to be enjoying the whole experience. I somehow don't think you'll ever see that at the West Tce Maccas anytime soon.

Anyway, since I actually had to be at school the next morning teaching some German kids the wonders of adverbs and the conditional tense, I got a train home at about 9, getting home at about 11, before falling into a deep sleep having nightmares of an army of punks whose heads were bigger than their bodies. I can only guess that after this week of drunken hilarity and spontaneous fun and openness, the Germans will pack all their enthusiasm and Lebenslust into storage for another year. What a funny folk they are.