"Why I'll Never Go To 'Schwartzlicht' Again" And Other Stories

On the off-chance that you are more bored than I this Monday night, here's a blog, comin' ATCHA!


Jessica Heads to Gay Paris; Searches For People Who Resemble Bomb Voyage

In Normal People Standard Time (NPST), Caitlin came to visit me two weeks ago; in a Lazy American Time Era (LATE), I'm right on time in blogging about it. I hopped on a train Saturday morning to emerge five hours later in a park outside our hotel where accordions were playing in the distance and baguettes were being tossed around like fireworks. "Ahhh, Mon cherie amore," I whispered into the breeze, "Bonjour."

Caitlin, the Cagney to my Lacey, arrived a little while later and we headed out for a gay ole' Parisian lunch of baguettes, escargot, and Perrier. Just then, a French man sauntered by our table and grazed his forefinger along Caitlin's knife while she was mid-sentence. Shocked and utterly speechless, she finally regained consciousness and cleaned her knife off while a distant chortle down the road echoed "Hee Hee Hee, Haw Haw Haw." It was the start of a wonderful trip.



We wandered around our hotel, casing the place for coffee and pastries (SUCCESS!)and explored Montmartre, before collapsing in exhaustion and anticipation for Versailles the next morning.



Oh yeah, WE WENT TO VERSAILLES THE NEXT MORNING. As I entered into Stage-4 Geek Out Mode, I may or may not have documented every inch of the palace, sharing pieced-together tidbits of history in the hopes of impressing my much wiser friend. She was momentarily fooled, and I twirled the ends of my sinister mustachio in delight. After smugging ourselves up with superior historical knowledge and experience, we went back to the hotel for an epic nap. Later, we had a life-changing dinner (really, what food isn't life-changing? Exactly, none.) and decided on a whim to climb up the Eiffel Tower at midnight. And climb we did.



Our last day was spent at the Louvre (pronounced "LOOV-RA") and later participating in a furious triathlon to get to the Notre Dame before getting our bus departed. Our time was 47 minutes flat; Parisians all around us fell at our feet. Then we took an 8 hour bus ride, made slightly better by consuming the chocolate eggs that we stole from the hotel. For the record, they were called "Googies."



Caitlin and Jessica Paint Bonn Red, Then Promply Paint It Back While Irritated Germans Supervise

The week went by in waves of rapid activity and monumental text messages, friendship bracelets and matching scars, episodes of Eerie Indiana watched and dignity lost. She came to my uninteresting excursions, and I regailed her with even less intersting stories; beer was then consumed, and our friendship continues into the present. I finally found someone to share my love of Blow Up (in this week's episode, I meet the only Canadian in Bonn who insists on yelling about religion over James Brown songs while I discreetly dance away and Caitlin suffers through another guy's tales from the gas station), and found that she also fears the Haribo bear that whispers menacingly in German.

Finally, Caitlin's last night arrived, and after having watched "Eerie Indiana Season 1" in its entirety, we finally put on some pants and went outside.

Let me explain Schwartzlicht. It is a small door sandwiched between a carpet store and an office depot which ultimately leads into the depths of Techno Hell. You wander further and further down the stairs, pass by the Lustful, avoid the gaze of the Gluttons, row across the river Styx, and eventually are released onto a dance floor with a DJ featuring the Gnashing of Teeth (Remix!). Alright it's not that bad; there is a boat! Hanging near the coat check! It's neat!

We were the ONLY (aside from the bartenders) people there, and that misguided twenty-something clinging to a failed dream (otherwise known as the DJ) still wouldn't play our requests. Eventually music started, drinks were poured, and a seemingly uneventful night came to a close as Caitlin and I headed toward the bus. After a quick stop at the Inner Ring where the blasphemers and sodomites gather at night (McDonalds), we entered into a new realm of joy: Bus Surfing.

Initially just Caitlin's off-handed comment, Bus Surfing took on a serious level of involvement (both physical and emotional) of everyone on the bus as they either cheered our feats of balance or desperately wished for us to fall down. After about 25 minutes of serious surfing (during which our skills were reaching professional levels), a violent jerk sent Caitlin sailing into the ticket-box. Incredulous, she said to me "I think he did that ON PURPOSE." And then, from behind the wheel, came the proud screech of "JA!"

At the next stop, we sat down defeated; the bus driver turned slowly to reveal a toothless and good-humored grin of victory. Until next time, my friend; next time.



Caitlin Goes Home, And Jessica Continues To Hate Schwartzlicht

Finals time has approached (hence my blogging) and in an attempt to squeeze the most out of our final moments in Bonn, our group decided to give the ol' Seventh Circle of Hell another shot. It was a terrible shot; I can only imagine the owners' conversation went as follows:
"She's coming back again?!"
"Yep, tonight. With more people."
"Didn't she LEARN?! What, she thinks she can just waltz on in here like its some cheap club in between a carpet store and an office depot?"
"We should teach her a real lesson this time."
"You're right. Turn on the fog machines."

Needless to say, I had my first official hangover the next day.

Join me next week, as I go undercover as EuroTrash during my last weekend in Bonn!

Edit: I ran a marathon on Sunday. OK, a half marathon. Slowly. OK, just shy of dead last. But I still got a medal, so SUCK IT, SERIOUS RUNNERS.

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.