Well, I'm sitting at my computer after quite an interesting weekend. Thursday night started out with a few cheap cocktails at Collins Bar with my housemate Louis and a few of his visiting French mates. We were joined by a couple of other friends, and after a few long island iced teas, our once civilised group quickly descended into a drunken rabble. Once happy hour ended, we stumbled through the streets to the student club Keller. After a few hours of flailing limbs and sweating that can be loosely described as 'dancing', we found ourselves at the City Grill, devouring yet another Döner Kabab. As far as the City Grill goes, they put out quite respectable Kebabs, with the added bonus of a loyalty coupon not unlike the ones seen at Subway restaurants. The only problem is that one is usually so drunk that keeping hold of these coupons until the next visit is quite a challenge.
Anyway, after Thursday's fun I decided to go to Düsseldorf on Friday night for a friend's 21st birthday. My mate Sam came around, and after watching the African Cup final, we downed a bottle of cheap vodka before getting the train to Düsseldorf. For some reason we were quite drunk and didn't even make it to the club where Laura was going, so we wandered around the Altstadt, going to a few different places, including the quite groovy 'Stone'. At some stage I lost Sam, and called him to find out that he was eating at a Chinese restaurant with some randoms he'd met at the bar. After finally catching up with him again, and refuelling with a few 1Euro burgers from McDonalds, we kicked on to another club, where I have a vague recollection of throwing myself around the dancefloor to Blur's Parklife. I love that song. So after a few more bevvies in this place, we packed it in and got a train back to Dortmund. After both falling asleep, I woke up just before Dortmund, nudged Sam and got him up. He yawned, put his jacket on and we got off. Only on the platform when the train left the station did I realise that Sam actually hadn't gotten off at all. Since I had no credit left on my phone, I figured he's a big boy and he'd make it home alright. About an hour after I stumbled into bed, I got a text from Sam saying 'where are you? where am I? I'm so confused' Ha ha ha. Apparently he woke up in Hamm, which is quite a long way from Dortmund, and finally got home at 8 in the morning. The leading photo here gives a nice impression of what Düsseldorf looked like to me in the early hours of Saturday morning.
After the general messiness of Friday evening, I wasn't too keen on going out Saturday night, but Katja, a German friend of mine, is going to Australia for 7 weeks tomorrow and I wanted to catch up for a few drinks. We met at Louisiana bar for a few cocktails, then headed to Bakuda, one of my favourite clubs in Dortmund. There was some indy band from the USA playing there, and we caught the last few songs, before the DJ started playing a few nice indy hits. After a few beers I struck up a conversation with one of the guys from the band, and asked him what he thought of Germany. Basically he said it was great, before giving me an in depth report of all of the 'young' and 'easy' german girls who had been throwing themselves at him and his bandmates during their recent tour. An interesting chap, makes me want to form a indie band and tour obscure central European cities. Anyway, after a few hours at Bakuda, we headed off to the Anadoulu Grill for a Döner. Now Anadoulu is one of my favourite Kebab places in Dortmund. Not only are the Kebabs quite reasonably priced at E2.50, but it is also centrally located, right next to the Reinoldikirche subway station. The cheery Turkish chap behind the counter's eyes lit up when he saw me approach. 'Hey!!! Australia!' You know you eat too many Kebabs when you don't even have to tell the guys behind the counter what you want. The other day I was offered a job at the Kaiser Grill during the world cup. That would be an interesting thing to add to my C.V. : 2 months as a 'Döner Man'. Ha.. unlikely.
Anyway, that's my latest ramble. I hope it gave you a nice idea of my most recent adventures in the Ruhr valley. Now I go back to teaching German kids such exciting things as the conditional tense for a week before next weekend's fun begins.
