6 October 2003 ---JOURNAL ENTRY TWENTY-SIX---
Well, there's a lot to tell and not much time and I'm sick so I'll get to the point...The last five days, I had my first three visitors from America come to good ole' Freiburg (parents don't count, though it was appreciated!). They should be above this text, happy as pigs in shit one might say. Not to sound like an Army commerical but we accomplished more in five days than most people do in a week or some other such blah blah blah.
They got here Wednesday night from Munich, all looking real chill and a bit exhausted from Okotoberfest, but no doubt that they loved it. We just hung out the first night, ordered some pizza, drank some beers and caught up on the last eight months. The next morning, all of us up around 9am, we shuffled off to the Munster, went to the top, had a sausage and then went into what I call cafe corner and tried out all the weizen beers, including bananaweizen, kirschweizen and colaweizen, good times! We then got them some train tickets for the night train to Amsterdam Sunday night and spent the afternoon wandering around.!
Then we went to Walfisch for dinner and this is things got interesting. We found out that they had a "stiefelbeer" there, which basically means a glass cowboy boot that they will fill with 4 pints for 10,80euro! They insisted that this must be theirs and Russ was first. KC was shortly after but the night was too developed for Chris to start a boot after 3 hours of drinking and eating. The foosball game was well-used, as was the pinball machine and somehow, without much effort, we had an amazing time, even having drinks with the owner of the place, which was totally cool.
The next day we went to Basel and checked it out. First we had a nice train ride down there, and we took in a museum and spent a few hours chilling by the Rhein River, drinking a beer or two. The museum was great, and it felt good to something for the aesthestic part of the soul and not just beergardens though those are nice as well. The night we dined in Walfisch again and stayed too late. The next day was cold and rainy and we went into the old town, doing some shopping for friends and family. We found the second hand store, Russ bought some beads, Chris and big green German Army jacket and I can't remember what KC bought. That afternoon, KC went to get a tattoo across the street while me and the other guys went off in the direction of the soccer game to buy some cool soccer scarves like everyone wears here. Then it was back to Walfisch (my friends like being regulars somewhere and it was damn close to the house). We watched some soccer and then went upstairs to nap for a few hours, coming back down in time for the schnitzel special. After a struggle with the wandering carpenter men whose name escapes me, we finally got the boot again. See, they'd been hogging it the last 2 days after we had had it for a few hours a couple of nights earlier and after some diplomacy we finally got it but not before Freddy, god bless that drunk bastard, took the boot when Chris wasn't looking and literally drained the last drink of it, sort of robbing Chris of his glory. There should be some video floating around the backpack of KC in Amsterdam this morning showing us acting like we're pouring beers on Freddy's head. Then we shared the boot a couple of more times with the carpenter guys and pretty much anybody else who would drink from it and then it was time to call it an early night. we went upstairs, watched a couple of simpsons and that was that. Sunday was a cold mellow day, we chilled out, had a nice breakfast and they packed while I did some work preparations. At 5pm, we went to an Irish bar called O'Kelly's and watched NFL football. Everyone was sort of mellow and coming down from the big time we'd all had but it was still fantastic. They planned to trade shirts with the woman who owns O'Kelly's because two of my friends work at a place called Kelly's and the third is a regular...
So, that was about it. Unfortunately, I'm sick and am about to miss my German class but I need to chill out and get some things together this afternoon before catching the 4:01pm train to Emmendingen. I've got two classes to teach this evening! So, who's next???
