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...
