July 21st: Anders steals a bike
Spent the afternoon nursing a hangover from the pub crawl the night before. Made my way to an electronics store to get a replacement camera USB/charger cable as appearantly I lost that also. Found that easy enough and ate lunch at the mall next to store. Made my way down to the English Gardens park. One of my top 5 parks of all time. They have this creek that runs right through the middle of it and varies from like 2 feet to 5 feet deep probably. Current is running very fast…you can stand in it, but then you sit down and it just takes you away and you can go like miles along it. So people just get in and lay down and float. At the beginning there is this turbulent area that creats a constant perfect wave so people literally jump on it with surf boards. All along the creek are people drinking and chilling out. Kind of like the greenbelt in Austin but with grass instead of trees. Not an ugly girl in sight and not a one piece bathing suit…in fact sometimes no bathing suits at all. Basically heaven. I wasn’t really prepared for a drinking day at the park or swimming for that matter so I figured I would have to come back the next day. I did go to the beer garden and had an expensive pint of beer…it helped with the hangover at least. Eventually took a bus back to the hostel, changed, and walked over to meet up with Toy Town group (English speaking online community in Germany). About 20 people were there at another beer garden. Most were wankers, but I did talk to this cool red headed australian (girl) for a while before she left. As people started dispersing I was still ready to party. Since it was Tuesday night most people weren’t up for going out. This guy Alex from Chicago said he knew of a party up by the university. Took about 30 minutes to get there by the time we waited on subways and what not. This was a bit of a ways away from where I was staying. Of course when we got there the guy wouldn’t answer his phone so we headed up to the bar on the rooftop of the dorm (19th floor). What the fuck, bar in a dorm….why didn’t I go to school here. Great views of the city, reasonable priced beers. Called again, no answer. We headed to the basement bar next (yes, they have a rooftop bar and a basement bar!). Ended up talking to some americans who were studying there. It was some sort finals week so there wasn’t much going on. Alex had to take off at about 1am so I stayed and chilled out with a guy from california who was pretty wasted. About 1:30 I took off and grabbed a german beer pong poster (more of a nice flyer for an event that already happened) off the wall as a souviner. Made my way back to the subway station pretty drunk at that point. Got on the train, then realized it was going the wrong direction so got off on th e next stop. I checked the posted train schedule times and it said there was one at 1:38 and 1:58 and then not again until morning. The clock said 1:36 so I figured I lucked out and would catch the one going the other way….no train came. Decided it was best to wait for the next one in 20 minutes as I was a long way from home. 2 am roles around and still no train. It was probably good though because as I was leaving I realized that in my drunkeness I was actuallly waiting on the wrong side again so I wouuld have ended up even further away. I walked down stairs and through the tunnel to catch the night bus which I knew was right outside the station. Only thing was that after I got out of the little tunnel walkway I didn’t recognize any of the streets so I walked under and across to the other side….just neighborhoods. I though what the fuck, I have no idea how I got here, then realized I was not at the stop I came in on and was in fact in the middle of fucking nowhere. I thought about my options…walk in some random direction and try to find a cab, sleep in the subway station (hell I already pissed in it), or steal a bike. Bikes here (and all over europe for that matter) just sit out in the middle of the sidewalk or up against a building and they just use wheel locks instead of chaining it to something. You still have to break the chain, but if you had a pickup truck over here you could make quite a killing. I went around and found a pink bike that had a shit chain and not a real bike lock thing or wheel lock. I tried to twist it until it broke, but wasn’t able. I figured I could come back with any sort of metal thing and get it done if I didn’t find anotherone. I went around to the other side and pulled this bike out from a bunch of other bikes and to my surpise it rolled. I checked it out and it was a total piece of shit. No seat, 1 grip, rusted, flat tire in the rear, and slightly bent rim. Success! I took off riding on the piece of shit in the direction I thought was home ( I had no map, just a subway map). Every turn of the wheel was a bit of a thump and some squeeking. I put the little light wheel up against the tire to try and get the light working but that didn’t happen…just made it louder. So I have 3-5 miles to go on this thing with no seat…you can actually sit on the little stub of metal if you lean and put and ass cheek on it instead of right up your anus. I made it to the night bus stop at the next subway stop and there were some taxis there as well….fuck it, I was having fun now so I stayed on the bike. I stopped periodically to steal things off other bikes (I know, karma). Eventually I found a seat that fit, an innertube which I wore around my neck, and tried but couldn’t get a grip off another bike. But, at least I was in comfort now. So I followed signs and bike paths to the center of town. I actually got a good tour of things lit up at night. I passed by cafes and bars with people still drinking and waved as I squeaked and thumped by while people laughed. I made it to the center and some kids were laughing at me so I turned around and talked to them for a bit….just finished highschool and had the summer off before university. They were out drinking…its like 3 something in the morning by now. After chatting with them, I cruised over to Mcdonalds to look for the Big Rosti Graha had recommended but they didn’t have it so I opted for McChicken. Again, hot, hot girl at the counter at 3am in McDonalds on a Tuesday (well, Wednesday). Cruised around a bit more on the bike until I got home. Wheeled the bike into the hostel and parked it in some bushes in the little atrium area. Came back out to browse the internet as I wasn’t tired for some reason (probably because I slept until like 1pm). People were drinking in the lobby as the have a beer vending machine there which actually has cheaper beers than the bars (3 euro). Chilled with some other people, impressed them with my flip flop bottle opener, then caught Casey on Skype and talked to him for like an hour which was good to catch up. Called it a night. Woke up in the morning and people were pissed because I snored..fuck them because I have a bike now. The great part is I don’t have to worry about locking it up because its a piece of shit…maybe I’ll take the seat off when I park it so people will be less tempted. Im calling it Superbike.
