The first official took place last Thursday night, where we went out in the bitter cold with flashlights and tried to melt the snow into cool patterns by having sex in it. At first we were divided on what shape to make. Several people wanted to make a giant penis, but I thought that was immature and too self-referential, so I headed a contingent of people in favor of melting a giant unicorn. After much heated discussion and some rash words and harsher fists, we finally settled on a comprise: a well-endowed unicorn. Unfortunately, we had an extra guy, so rather than sharing, we decided to draw straws. Short straw had to choreograph. Jordie got the short straw and I felt bad for him (and also I didn't want to hook up with Kelly P) so I traded with him secretly. It started out well, but then some people got out of control and the would-be unicorn turned out looking more like a defecating buffalo. We were still proud of our overall success, and it being only 8 o'clock, we decided to head to a top-rated microbrewery to celebrate with food and beverages. The food was pretty standard but the beer was seasonal and different: they offered light, dark, lime, and fizzy flavors that you could mix sort of like Ben&Jerry's half-baked ice cream. I got a mix of dark and fizzy called a "Black 'n' Curly," but I got to have at least a sip of the entire PowerSet (you know, all the subsets of the set of beers), 15 in all. My favorite sip was the mix of Light, Dark, and Fizzy called the "White Chocolate Fudgesicle-in-my-Pantz Danz," although "El Gringo" (Lime, Dark, and Fizzy) was a close second, which had an amazing taste.
After the Brauhaus, we took the S-Bahn one stop over and chanced upon a bar called the Castle Woofenstein. Inside was a vast array of televisions, selling adorable puppies at fluctuating prices, kind of like the stock market, but more realistic. The 9 of us went in on a Brussels Griffon for EU$7.50, which seemed awesome at the time and but turned out to look like this in the morning:
Despite his hideous face, Chewbaca Nowakka (which is his temporary name until we find him a better) is actually really fun to take out on the town. He's really spunky, attracts a lot of attention, and is a great wingman. Two of us even managed to get girls at a club called Boobcookies to dance next to us on the dance floor. I'm pretty sure Chewy could see up their skirts, which will be a huge bonus once we set up the doggy-cam. All of the clubs here have really very clever names, here are some of them: Klub Sandwich, Bar None, Breakfast, and Dave Matthews Band Club.
During the days before school, so Sunday night, Monday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night, and Tuesday night, everyone has strictly enforced mandatory nap-time. The trains stop running and the club management brings out sleeping mats and blankets for everyone. Then they play music of hit artist David Hasselhoff, which seduces everyone into a swift, pleasant coma. So if you decide to go out during the week you basically have to commit to sleeping beside a dozen perfect strangers, all of whom could have been potential bedmates given different circumstances. On the other nights, so Friday and Saturday nights, the transport runs all night, but because of the HEMORRHOIDS, we've had two really long nights on Thursday so far, and will probably have many more. ;-)
On Saturday we went out again, which meant staying in and playing drinking games to Ducktales: Tale of the Lost Lamp. Hewie, Dewie, and Lewie are so awesome, you guys, it's so easy to drink when they do something awesome. Then we ended up at Club Sandwich, which, as you'd expect, has multiple levels with slices of bread in between--quite clever of them, really. One room was techno, another was hip hop, and another was ballroom dancing. Every now and then, one of the rooms would launch a club raid, which meant bringing a boombox into the middle room and challenging the other music genres to a dance-off. Team Techno started it up with Sandstorm and a hella tight synchronized raving display. But Hip HoppAz would have none of it and You Got Served! them back to the toolbox with a blitzkrieg of crunk steps. Finally it was time for team ballroom dance, who initiated the whole dance-off and therefore earned the privilege of going last, kind of like in war, when one side declares war and then gets to wait for the other side to attack them while they fortify their defensive positions. Anyway, they started off with a Lindy Hop to Hip Hop music, totally stealing the thunder of the Hip HoppAz, and then they Waltzed them right off the stage with a beautiful rendition featuring music from Disney's Swan Princess. It was in an old factory or warehouse, and the smoke didn't condense too much.
The European Club scene is very weird, at least compared to what I imagine we are used to as Americans (I've not actually been clubbing in the US). So many people smoke and drink and hit on each other, so everything is smoky and just kind of grungy because of it. Not like in American clubs, which are always fun and trendy like in the movies. People also dance very strangely. They somehow manage to move their limbs and torsos on pace with the music, as if they have reached some sort of audiobiological synchrony. Girls don't like to dance with creepy guys, which led to some very funny experiences for me, as my hair is pretty long and I think I look like a male model. One guy in particular in the program had trouble adjusting to this the first couple times we went out. So both at club Boobcookies and at Soda, he asked me if I thought I looked like a male model with my luscious long locks, to which I replied: "Absolutely I do." Then we went to the dance floor, where I kept a safe distance from the German girls, who were all giving me come hither looks. It was hilarious, just because all the girls wanted me and I was so out of their league. Good times.
On Saturday morning, a friend in the program found out that Oasis was playing in Berlin on Sunday, and even though we found tickets for only 40 Euro, Oasis only has one good song, Wonderwall, which isn't even that good after you've heard it a couple times. Then we found out the opening act was Corky and the Juicepigs, who also have only one good song, Gay Eskimo, but it's just so freakin' hilarious, that we decided to go. The concert was played in a giant stadium and after the Juicepigs, Oasis arrived on helicopters, one for each band member. We thought they were going to make an awesome landing, but instead they stayed in their helicopters and played from the air. They're one of those bands that really stand behind the acoustic guitar and don't use any amps, so it was pretty hard to hear them through the raging vortex of helicopter rotors, but I could tell from a distance that they were playing mediocre. Their last song was I Am the Walrus by the Beatles, but midway through the performance, Yoko Ono showed up and begged them to stop because if John Lennon could hear them, he'd be rolling in his grave. Then she left a small, worthless orange tree that symbolizes peace.
The week after was pretty monumental because it marks the longest I've gone without skipping class since I arrived at Stanford: one week. I'll have a more detailed blog about what happens in classes real soon (a small hint: it has to do with learning useful knowledge that will help us be successful in the future). Anyway, last night we had pretty epic HEMORRHOIDS. We decided to play the S-Bahn ring rainbow game. There are 2 lines of the S-Bahn which make complete circles around the city; there are 28 stops in a full circle, and with roughly 2 minutes in between each stop, there were a lot of colors to collect. The goal of the rainbow game is to collect as many colors of lipstick rings around your ring pole as possible. I told my host dad that we were doing this, so before I went out he made me drink a spoonful of olive oil, which he said would help me keep my flag pole firm so I could last for the whole 28 stops. It was BYOL, so the girls went out beforehand to make sure they all had different colors. Then we went around once, dropping a girl off at each stop. There were only 15 girls, so the other stops were challenge stops, which earned you major bonus points if you got a lipstick ring. There were 4 booths of 4 next to each in a little section, so us guys squeezed in there, hung out and drank.
By the time we had made it all the way around the first time, we were bored, so we decided to ditch on the game and head back to club Boobcookies. None of us were female, though, so the Cookies refused to let us in for some reason, claiming it was because we had too many guys apparently. Pshya, whatever. At that point in time, we felt a little guilty about leaving the girls hanging, so we headed back to the S-bahn and finally started the game. The girls were all a little angry though, that we took so long, so in the post-game wrap up, everyone's scores were really low. By the time it got to me, the winning count was only 4 colors, only one of which actually came from one of our girls. Apparently, he'd cleaned up in the bonus rounds, though to tell the truth, one of the rings looked drawn on. He was so proud, so I didn't have the heart to tell him that I went 16-3 with an overkill and fifteen head shots. Herr Papa was right about that olive oil...
i can't read anything this long
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