I'm Not Saying I'd Like to Build a Summer Home Here, but the Trees Are Actually Quite Lovely

Turns out the nap wasn't enough, but I did progress further on my mission of studying Germans in their native habitat: clubs. Won't you join me?

"Jessica Meets God: They Agree That Techno Is AWFUL."

After a wonderful dinner last night of fishsticks, mashed potatoes, and cucumber salad (oh don't even mess with fishsticks; they are, as the kids say, quite "bomb"), we headed out to downtown Bonn to begin our wacky adventures. Our group, starting out as just two of us...then four...then six...multiplied like amoebas in a time lapsed film strip, and we headed out to find a club with no cover charge.

Much like my last marriage, the attempt failed.

We got to a club with a small cover charge right as it opened and went down to the basement in order to stake a claim on a white leather couch and stare intently at the two other people who were in the club; two eighteen year old boys in knit caps and skinny jeans. As we shouted over the "house music" (which is a monotonous beat that goes on for an hour before an extra beeping gets thrown into the mix. Seriously.) and redeemed our free drink from the bar (after a passionate tryst with beer the night before, I cheated on it with a Fanta), we came to the realization of a major dividing factor between our group: techno.

A hefty percentage of our group adores techno, which means that those of us who so eloquently yell "this BLOWS" at clubs are subject to lengthy explanations about the difference between "house music," "trans" and "drums and bass"; let me save you the suspense, there is no difference. But seeing as how the club already had my money, I decided to dance with the girls and all the German boys with rock mullets and studded belts. Let me paint a picture for you:

It's a foggy room with flashing green, red, and purple lights, which switch on and off rhythmically with the beat. As the fog slowly dissipates, a writhing beast emerges on the scene that seems to move in a frantic but controlled way. As the lights expose the dance floor more fully, you see that it is not one monolithic creature, but rather an entire group of people swaying methodically with flailing arms to the same beat. Think the opening credits of Charlie Brown, where the members of the Peanuts Gang bounce and turn their heads in constant repetition because the illustrators didn't have time to give them more than one dance move. Add a bass so loud you think you have a heart murmur, enough hair gel and eye liner to supply the entire crowd at a KISS concert, and melodic sounds that bear an eerie resemblance to the blasters in Star Wars, and you have a techno club.

That is not to say I didn't have fun. I danced until I couldn't keep a straight face any longer (about 15-20 minutes of holding an agonizing "I'm taking this seriously" face) and my eyes stated to sting from the cigarette smoke and fog machines. I will give this to techno fans; they commit.

Around 2:00am, Andrew (my neighbor and part of our group) offered to leave with me, even though he could probably step and sway like Linus or PigPen all night. We walked to the bus and got home at around 3:30am.

Today Christy and I went to Cologne, a description of which I will save for after Monday when we go as a group. My only words will be that of the Cathedral, which was truly breathtaking (in a serious way, not in a Seinfeld way). We were mostly proud that we successfully navigated the train system and put another point on the scoreboard of humans vs. transportation systems.

Tonight looks like a welcome break for reading, homework, and obsessively checking facebook.
Ciao!