This week’s entry was always likely to be full-blown blog warfare. Sharing in the wonderful experience of blogging about our respective year’s abroad are Marcus and Adam. What would happen then, when the three of us met up with the rest of our friends in Stuttgart for Simon’s birthday?
Leaving work at the ludicrously early time of 1pm on the Friday I headed into the centre of Munich to meet Marcus and pick up some last minute essentials – sunglasses, deodorant and sausages. For the first time in a while, the sun was out and Babian’s first theorem was truly at work. Unfortunate then, that we had to hop on a bus and watch as the weather got gradually worse the closer we got to Stuttgart. Being loud and English, I think we managed to annoy everybody on the bus, probably due to Marcus referring to them all as “a bunch of plebs“.
We were even manage to scare Simon for a short while, when we told him I was stuck in Munich and was being held by the police due to having “a little bit of drugs” – probably not the most accurate measure I’ve ever seen I have to say, but fear struck all the same. Little did we know, but as we were fooling around on the Autobahn Nonie was in Berlin and had managed to arrive at the wrong airport for her flight. A quick dash across the city made her make the flight with 5 minutes to spare. Everything was still going to plan.
Simon, being the absolute babe that he is had organised the entire weekend with the sort of efficiency even Germans would be jealous of. Having picked us up from the airport, he guided us back to our rather swanky Hotel (note: there’s no ‘s’ between the ‘o’ and ‘t’!) wherehe’d already booked us in AND left us a Ritter Sport variety pack on each of our pillows. As previously stated – babe.
Having gathered Scouse, Nonie and Sam we headed into town, devouring our first Döner of the weekend before heading to Sophie’s Bräuhaus where the drinks obviously started flowing. After a bus, 2 car shares and a total of 9 hours travelling, Adam and Euan finally arrived from the former East. Adam being Adam, it was only a matter of time before he had candles in his ears and was chanting about Michael Carrick. There are literally no words for that boy.
200€ later and we were about ready for bed, especially with such a monstrous day ahead of us at Frühlingsfest in the morning. Once we’d allayed Simon’s fears that we wouldn’t be able to make it home, we said our goodbyes and trudged home through the pouring rain.
At 10:30am sharp our guide for the weekend knocked on our hotel room and began to rally the troops. This is the beautiful thing about Germany, we’d booked a table for heavy drinking between the hours of 11am-5pm! Wahnsinn.
fully integrated into German society!
Our table reservation included 2 Maß and a half chicken as part of the deal but as 2pm came around and 2 Maß had already been sunk we mostly decided to swap the half chicken for another beer. Classy as ever. During this time we’d met some interesting members of society, including a man from Dortmund who claimed to be Marcel Schmelzer’s best friend and a bride-to-be on her hen party who would let you rip of her tights with your teeth if you gave her 10€. She’s a keeper that’s for sure.
With the precision of a Wilkinson Quattro Titanium, Simon somehow managed to herd the troops away from the ‘fest to a restaurant reservation in the middle of town. What he hadn’t accounted for, was that we’d all be so drunk at this point and a menace to the other diners. A pot was smashed, Sam played the drums, candles were rearranged… complaints were made. 3 hours later, we still hadn’t been kicked out and we moved onto a cocktail bar to much the same effect.
casual
Between the restaurant and the cocktail bar Adam had gone to buy cigarettes from Lidl and in order to “not look weird buying just cigarettes” he’d also purchased ham and cheese slices, which he proceeded to hang over his ears and face, truly pissing off the people on the table next to us. Obviously we were having an absolute whale of a time but we thought it best that we left, so we headed back to the ‘fest.
By now the rain was powering down but we still had time to experience the fairground attractions, shelling out 5€ a pop for each ride. The owners of these rides obviously hadn’t had much to do all day as they left us literally hanging at the top of one of the rides, 50 metres up exposed to all the element in my Lederhotpants.
It was now kicking out time from the ‘fest’s tents and, admitting defeat in our beer search we headed back to the Hotel, a full 13 hours after our first Schluck of beer. After a few astute purchases from the local petrol station (Mountain Dew, Milk and Pringles to name but a few) we piled into the largest of our three hotel rooms to enjoy our treats. Flicking on the TV we stumbled across the soft porn channel which led Nonie to exclaim “I’ve never seen so many fake boobs in my life!”. A short crisp fight ensured Scouse and Adam would have a crunchy night’s sleep .
Despite my body’s desperate cry for sleep, my brain awoke at half past 8 and after turning off the soft porn that was inexcusably still rolling I began gathering my things and washing myself. There was to be one more stop on Simon’s perfectly planned weekend. But first, our ferocious hunger had to be seen to. Vapiano’s saw to that.
In Stuttgart, you’re pretty much either Bosch or Mercedes and atop the Hauptbahnhof is a huge rotating Mercedes logo with an impressive view out over the city, despite the weather. Simon then informed us, that that was all Stuttgart had to offer in terms of sightseeing, so we retired to park benches where we did mexican waves at bemused cyclists.
This left us with the small matter of getting home to our respective adopted cities. Easier said than done for some. Marcus and I got onto our 1500 coach back to Munich and that was it, the end of the weekend. The next time I’ll see those boys will most likely be back in Leeds, sitting in Royal Park Pub watching the football. And Adam will probably have candles in his ears.
Year Abroad is coming to an end! D:
Nath's Year Abroad 