Day Two KIS

It is now the morning of January 26^th in Kaiserslautern Germany. The weather is clear, some sunshine in the sky, and the air is fresh with the cold of winter. Should be a good day for a walk in the woods. But not before a burger is eaten.

Rise and shine for the train station. Literally I rose and shone, somehow. I suppose since I actually slept I wasn’t in my normal ‘hate the world’ mindset. Good thing too, Caitlin slept right next to me. It would a shame for her to have her head bitten off before she started the day. I was slow, that hasn’t changed, but was able to groom myself for the anticipated activities. However, breakfast comes first audience and Germany knows how I like my eggs, on a burger.

-Break fast for Burgers-

Yes it sounds strange, yes it's almost uncouth for an American to put a good egg on a tasty burger, but who am I to say no to this combination? Seriously who am I? I love to put applesauce on my burgers, an egg is a bit more natural. These burgers were called Bollburgers and were...well they were...damn there is no equivalent to the strength of the word f**king in socially acceptable English. Well pictures are worth a 1,000 words or actually 847 (1,000 sounded better).

After that wondrous breakfast meal we did go to the train station. This was the meeting place for the eagerly awaited hike. The day's to-do list appeared minor but you will soon find out otherwise audience. The hike was the first on this agenda and by far the most mysterious item. Seeing as it was one of two tasks of the day it didn’t have to try hard to be mysterious.

Really I had no idea where we were going or what we would be hiking in/on. I suspected something of a cliff or mountain, my guess was closer to cliff. Everyone giggles at my interpretation of a mountain just as I do at their idea of a city. Being from the Great Plains of the States, anything bigger than Comiskey stadium is a mountain to me. Fortunately they did not tease me about my misinterpretation of German hills (such kind older people) and all went well in the forest.

-Dah Hike-

It was absolutely beautiful. Two of my favorites were there; an endless forest and a quilt of snow. I had finally found some glorious winter heaven. Le Havre apparently has decided that winter doesn’t exist; it is only a month long, temperatures hit their maximum low at 15 degrees Fahrenheit (-9.4 degrees Celsius, 263.7 Kelvin), and snow lasts for approximately a day and a half. Present day the mornings are mild and the grass is green, spring time in the air. That is not January weather! Germany knows where it’s at; snow, cold, ice, and frostbite. Who could ever ask for more? Me. Let’s bring on the freezing rain, black ice, and the deadly potholes!

The hike itself was pleasant and tame for a hike. Really it was a walk through the woods with fenced animal habitats and Rapunzel’s tower. Very relaxing and a great chance to socialize with other travelers. Most of the people were complaining about the cold, amateurs, but the adorable animals melted their hearts into a hot pile of love. No one can complain when feeding a dear or staring into the innocent eyes of an adult male bison. Such cute cuddly creatures without cares, complaints, or conflictions. Aw, the bison is sharpening its horns. So adorable!

Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun.

But not under the moon. Celestial cynic!

When she was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower, which lay in a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, but quite at the top was a little window.

I can already see five issues of hygiene. Fire the architect, literally kill it with fire.

When the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed herself beneath it and cried:

 ’Rapunzel, Rapunzel,

  Let down your hair to me.’

I highly doubt this technique worked during the toddler and preteen phase.

Brothers Grimm I do not doubt the magnificence of your stories but I just love sarcasm. Without it my blood runs thin from lack of wise-ass white blood cells, low counts of pert platelets, defect levels of raw red blood cells, and even insufficient ratios of pretentious plasma. Such vitals are necessary for a sarcastic life, thus I feel the boys of the Grimm will let the Rapunzel puns slide.

Ah Rapunzel’s tower. Obviously it was not THE tower but it was a sick (marvelous) setup. We reached the tower early afternoon with hungry stomachs and runny noses. Pleasantly there was a snack spread and some hot wine abrewin’ when we arrived. I was happy to have a toasty drink in my hands for I made the mistake of forgetting my actual gloves. I was left with my fingerless set which did cause some discomfort. Oh well, I could still feel the tips of my digits. No stress there.

After some tasty spiced wine, Caitlin led me and a few others up the tower. Now here is how to test for physical health; climb a spiral staircase and see who’s wheezing at the end. If you’re short on breath most likely you’ve hit the hill over thirty, or are suffering from the vice of sloth. Sometimes it’s both! I was not one of the panting participates, in fact I reached the top with a below target heart range. And they say wayward wandering throughout Le Havre isn’t a sport. It isn’t.

The view from the top was both shocking and pulchritudinous (bamn fancy words!). The forest appeared to never stop. This scenery of actual wilderness is very foreign to me. Where I’m from and where I’ve been, there is always an end to the trees. I felt young at the moment and it wasn’t just the actual adults panting from exercise. At twenty years I’ve travelled to many places and experienced many events, but it just takes one endless forest to remind me how much I haven’t done yet. Weird feeling, very uncanny. Time for an awkward transition.

We stayed by the tower for about an hour or so before we had to leave. The sun would set soon and a forest in the dark is deadly. I remember camping for a few days with my cousin Kyle and brother Peter during a Canada road trip when I was about sixteen. It was a lot of fun, besides us being booted from a pizza parlor, especially when we saw the Northern Lights. My cousin lives in Saskatoon and often goes camping with his girlfriend throughout the year. He has seen the Lights several times (very nonchalant) but Pete and I had never seen them before. We had to take Kyle’s jeep in order to go to the camp’s lake so that we could see the night sky and the Northern Lights. Well if it weren’t for those headlamps we would’ve been screwed. The woods are dark, and I mean pitch black can’t-see-your-own-hands dark. Personally audience I didn’t want to be stranded in a forest while visiting Germany during winter at night. The walk back was much faster.

I did earn a nickname on the hike and I’m somewhat proud of it. Due to being from Chicago and having my entire father’s side of the family living across Canada, I am experienced with winter. My talents are being able to sustain extreme lows in temperature, driving through blizzards, and walking on snow. So many people in the group fell upon themselves while walking back to town. I was not one of them. In fact I became known as “mountain goat” for my casual saunter and lack of gravity issues. What can I say? I’ve been dealing with the stuff before I knew my own name.

Since I was adept at walking on snow I was with the fast group of kids at the front of the line. Caitlin was not among us. Thus when we did reach town she wasn’t there to take me home. Huh, bit of an issue. Luckily for me (good luck has been happening) Kate, Caitlin’s Kate remember, offered some hospitality at her apartment. I agreed and joined her large troupe of people. Ever seen burning man pow-wows? Take away the giant pile of sticks and copious amounts of pot and you have the parley at Kate’s place.

*I will summarize this section and the following due to the sheer length of this blog. Do not fret my dear audience the proper details will be included. This means all my patched up Frankenstein vocabulary and alliteration/assonance annoyances.*

-Pow-wow Parley-

Couch surfers are mellow people who dig spending their down-time chillin’. They also wield the acoustic guitar and lyric booklets. Normally I would cringe at the idea of campfire songs due to their typical religious themes (Open the Eyes of my Heart Lord needs to be benched permanently) or just plain obnoxious tunes (Peanut Butter Reese’s Cup). Why can’t we share more historical song with kids such as the “Chicago Fire Song” (Five nights ago when we were all in bed...) “Ten Little Indians” (Ten little Indians going out to dine one choke his little self and then there were nine) or my personal favorite “North Atlantic Squadron” (Away away with fife and drum here we come full of rum)? I must say my favorite song lyric of all time has to be “The cabin boy the cabin boy the dirty little nipper. He stuffed his ass with broken glass and circumcised the skipper.” Classic tunes for children.

No, at this gathering with a guitar only decent songs were sung. Tenacious D was among them as well as some Beatles and Billy Joel. Come now audience you can’t have a proper gathering without belting out Piano Man. Needless to say I enjoyed “singing” and laughing with everyone.

-Dinner Time-

Who here loves chicken? Well no matter your poultry preferences I crave the stuff. Turkey is better in deli style, but fried chicken is somehow magical and mouthwatering. The Germans know how to prepare their chicken. Also their generic ketchup doesn’t taste as though it’s spiked with Sweet-N-Low (cough cough  France).

A huge group of us, most of the pow-wowers plus Caitlin and Mike, went to a restaurant called “Just Chicken”. It’s like the German Chick-Filet except it’s better quality chicken and there isn’t a homosexuality discrimination lawsuit against them. Oh America.

The plus to eating at place such as this is there’s a ton of room. The downside? Well there isn’t any. I love to just sit and devour a meal on a long table with fries and coleslaw galore. Oh so much delicious food. I was a tad disappointed when my stomach matched its limit. Not its maximum capacity, that would be four whoopers in an hour (I don’t recommend that, ever), just its full level without drowsiness. There was a loft party to go to, no way I would eat myself into a food coma no matter how delicious. Unless it were ribs or BWWs. One word, salivate.

-Let the Animals Party-

I love me a good social event as long as I don’t have to perform in front of people. This party was a smooth “no spotlight” gig. The open bar helped too.

My number one alcohol weakness will always be jagermeister. The gods were indeed cruel when they invented the savory elixir. I simply cannot help but partake if it should be offered to me. I held my cool though; I am not irresponsible with myself, well not in this situation. From the logical viewpoint I was attending a party with a group of older people whom I had just met that also included an open bar in a town in which I’ve never been in a country where I don’t speak the language. Hammered isn’t a good option.

No, I kept a good buzz and even sobered by the end of the night/morning. I did enjoy myself greatly, talking with person to person. I even ended up with Andrew’s hat on my head at some point, not sure why. I believe Caitlin put it on me, but again no clue as to the motives. Great party though, no one vomited on anybody. That’s a plus in my book. Remember this audience, college kids (Americans) have low standards for social cleanliness.

-Finished-

That is where the night ends. Well it actually ended when Caitlin and I went home via taxi but that involved just going to sleep. Not exactly substantially interesting. The Sunday which followed was interesting however, also funny. You will just have to wait for me to write it audience. I promise that this one won’t be a week late, just six days.