Recovery is a Long Process

Today I slept a lot after class, and here's why.

"Jessica Meets the Bars: Undying Love is Proclaimed"

Yesterday, after a visit to the German Post-WWII exhibit (with a very cute student tour guide from the AIB), I had my first chocolate shake since being here and let me say, my friend, they should look into adding ice cream to that sucker. Once we were all done, Neils (or at least that's how I will be spelling it) asked us if we wanted to stick around or go back to the AIB. I made my voice clearly heard:

"My name is Jessica, and I would like to drink something. Preferably something with what you'd call 'alcohol' in it."

The student worker was AWESOME and agreed to meet us at the Aldstat (an area where there are a lot of bars and where many of the university students live) that night. I put my gameface on. We met up at an Australian bar, but moved to an Irish pub across the way when there were far too many territorial Germans for us wide-eyed Americans to fit in there. At the pub, all the girls crowded around the cute student worker like a circus act and he taught us a drinking game that was eerily similar to Bullshit, except with dice (pretty sneaky, Germans). We all took a shot of Spanish Fly (What's that? Why yes, it was delicious and worthy of its notoriety, I'm glad you asked) and it was on. Then we moved to another bar that had foosball table, and I failed miserably. My opponent blamed the alcohol; I blamed my limited motor skills. Then we were on our way to Blow Up, which was every bit as spectacular as it sounds.

En route, some of the girls stopped for McDonalds, which left me waiting out in the cold; I do not patronize McDonalds in America, and I don't believe that just because something has a European accent that it is any sexier**. We then walked on as they devoured what must have been a welcome taste of home and finally got to a bar that was packed with writhing humans uncomfortably dancing to "Sugarpie Honeybunch." A few more beers and many more Germans enjoying our company simply for being American later, all my trains had left (and we know how testy that bitch can be). As in most situations, my response was "SUCK IT, LOGIC. I know I have class tomorrow and don't need to drink any more, but I'm a grown-ass woman and I'll do what I want." So I danced to "Gimme Some Lovin" and proceeded to get Mr. Rogers-status drunk (Whatdya mean I gadda take off my sweater?)

Now, as a sober person I'm not exaclty adept at navigating the bus system, and as a drunk person, I imagine my attempts wouldn't be much more than me staring angrily at the schedule muttering "yeeaaah, eerryybody's a comedian." So I stayed with one of the girls and had to wake up this morning to get home, change, and grab my homework before getting back on the train to school (that's right, for about an hour, I was like 7 years old as I gathered my packet of German homework where I had to transcribe a conversation between Hans and Helga).

Needless to say, I didn't learn much German today. But at least my hair smelled like cigarette smoke all morning, so that was good. I gratefully accepted my friend's nutella-covered bread and had inappropriate fantasies about coffee until class was over, when we all got pizza.

So, to recap:
Many friendly Germans crowded around our group of rowdy and cheerful Americans until we trickled down to the last few of us (stereotype alert) swinging our steins in the air and singing about sausage. And after a night of no sleep, a lunch of 50cent pizza and coffee, I took a sizable nap and woke up in time for dinner.

Today my life ROCKED.

Tonight we hit the clubs, and the second installment of my epic journey continues.
Tschus!

**This opinion is subject to change quite frequently.