mychai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I got drunk with a monk. Did your weekend rhyme? Well, we didn't stay in a castle on this trip, but we promised each other to go back and mark that off of the checklist of things to do. That's not to say we didn't have a good time over the weekend. Hell, we had a great time over the weekend. It started Thursday night, really, at karaoke night at the enlisted club. Since we had Friday off, Brooke and I decided to drink a bit more than we usually do. My usual intake on karaoke night is a few beers and maybe a Crown and Coke. Brooke usually doesn't go to karaoke night but instead has a half glass of wine in her room and spends the rest of the night hugging the toilet. She's a lightweight. Let's just say I drank enough on Thursday night to kill a small elephant. I sang "I'm a Believer," "I Feel Fine," (the Beetles) and "Summer Lovin'" with a girl named Amber with whom I sing that song every week. It's getting to a point to where we are making up our own words and making the song unbelievably dirty. I woke up on Friday morning with a terrible headache and a case of the shakyarms. I drank down a bunch of swigs of orange juice and took a few Advil and called Brooke to see what the plan was. She, too, was sounding less than sunshiney, but we decided on 1:30. I went and told Stephen the plans, because he was coming, too. He had one beer the night before. So, he was ready to go. We didn't have any real plans for the weekend except that we were going to go and try to find some monastery mentioned one time in Playboy for having one of the top ten beers in the whole world. Between here and there, though, we were just going to stop anytime we felt like stopping. As the bird flies, the monastery is only about two hours away, but it ended up taking us about eight or nine hours. Mostly because we accidentally started going down the autobahn the wrong way and got stuck in a two-hour traffic jam (called "stau" over here). I don't mind staus, really. For one thing, they are a dirty fact of life over here and are unavoidable. So, either be pissy for two hours or make the best of them and enjoy them. Secondly, you get to see and meet all kinds of neat people while in a stau. The people in front of us kept getting out of their car and playing with their kids. Some little boy would wave at us every time our car would pass him or he would pass our car. They are just fun. We finally got back in the right direction, and we passed a guy selling all kinds of yard ornaments. I had Brooke turn around, and I bought one. Brooke got gnome-envy, and bought her own. They even had dirty old man garden gnomes, and the one on the left looks to have some kind of STD. We finally got to the monastery� at 9:00 at night! I don't know how anybody finds this place because it is way out in the middle of nowhere. We started looking in the general area at around 6:30, drove up some dirt roads that lead to the middle of a very scary forest, the roads so narrow all we could do was reverse out. People probably go out for milk, take a wrong turn, and somehow end up at the monastery. Instead of trying to find their way back home, they just take a vow of silence and stay there for the rest of their days. We drove up to a town called Fulda, all the while Brooke got three speeding tickets. After searching for a hotel, we found one for 33� a night. I brought in the gnome � named Fleck � so he wouldn't have a bad night sleeping in the car. We placed him on the floor, but when we woke up, he had mysteriously moved. As we were leaving, Brooke decided she wanted one of the flower decorations, so she went out first and yelled up at us so we could throw her the flower. The picture is a bit misleading because the flower is almost as tall as she is. I just caught it in mid flight. We got to the car, and saw Brooke got a parking ticket, and headed back to the monastery, where Brooke got two more speeding tickets. Six f'n ickets in twelve hours! Impressive by anyone's standards. When we got to the monastery, it was packed! There were tour busses and motorcycle groups and a hundred cars. I couldn't believe that something so far off the beaten path could be so popular. But I guess if a religious place makes Playboy's Top Ten places to buy beer, word tends to get around. The three of us got a liter of beer each and a brat on a bun. The beer was quite cheap, too. You put 3� down on the mug as a deposit. If you want to keep the mug, you just take it home. After the deposit, the beer was 4� per liter. And boy howdy, was it good beer. The monastery is called Kreuzberg, so we called it Kreuzberg Beer. I don't know if that's the real name, but it was amazing beer. I can't say enough. It was so good we each bought a two-liter jug of the stuff to take home. After the monastery, we headed west towards the Rhein. I had so much fun a couple of weekends ago that I wanted to go back. We spent the whole evening in a town called R�hesbach. That picture was taken by a big monument that is about 225 meters above the town, overlooking a bit of the millions of acres of vineyards that follow the Rhein. We took one of those chair lift thingies up from R�hesbach to the top of the monument, and it took us just over a field of grape vines. It was a nice, quiet ride. The air was slightly cool but the sun kept you warm. We got hungry and ate dinner at a restaurant down in R�hesbach. I got a pork knuckle, mashed potatoes, and sauerkraut. Mmm! For dessert we got ice cream. Mmmm! Over dinner, we all decided that we should just drive back home because nothing at all is open on Sunday, and it would be a waste of money to stay on the Rhein when we couldn't do anything the next two days. Monday is also some kind of holiday over here as well, so we really couldn't do anything. So, we drove back, getting back here at around 11:30pm. I was exhausted, but it was a good exhaustion. As usual, Germany provided a wonderful experience. My German is getting a tad better and I can understand a little bit more now, which is good. So, yeah. That was my weekend. I stayed in all day Sunday and am about to go on a bike ride as soon as I get this thing uploaded. Have a good Memorial Day. Say thanks to a soldier.
1:08 p.m. - Monday, May. 31, 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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