July 22nd: A day in the park with Kirk
Woke up hung over and tired again. These hostel days are rough. I missed breakfst and everyone was already pretty much gone so I sat on my own in the lobby trying to get the internet working and it wouldn’t. An america kid showed up to check in but was early (noon whereas checkin doesn’t start until 3). He asked the desk what he should do to kill a few hours and they pointed him to a beer garden on the map. As he was heading out I asked if he wanted any company as I was kind of at a loss for what to do with my day. We put our stuff up and headed to the beer garden. Kirk is 22 and in college in Michigan. He was on his own in Europe for the first time though….he had been doing some school trip in Singapore then was in Switzerland visiting a former exchange student they had hosted. He had 4 days to kill so came over to munich. This was his first time in a hostel and was having to figure things out and what not. So we wondered down to the beer garden and had about 3 pints and a nice chat about life and traveling and school. It was like talking to myself 10 years ago. I tried to impart a little bit of knowledge and some advice. Anyways, after that initial hour or two of hanging out we went back and he checked into his room. I of course told him we were going to the park. We rode the subway a few stops (illegally of course) and got some 1euro pints of beer at the little bodega and walked across. I was glad to have someone else at the park with me as it was a bit boring the previous day by myself (though a good chill out). He was as amazed as I was at the whole set up. Showed him the surfers, cracked open a beer and we chatted to a few locals about the best spot to float the river from. I had talked to several people about how you have to float on your back with your feet in the air so they didn’t get cut up on all the bicycles, shopping carts, beer bottles, etc on the bottom. We opted to head down and chill in the sun first and drink some beers. Eventually we got in the semi cold 2 foot deep water and floated down maybe a quarter of a mile before getting out to talk to this group of guys….they had 2 cases of beer cooling I the river. Talked to them for a bit and they gave us some of their beers. At this point we were pretty drunk, Kirk was stumbling. I had beer labels stuck all over me. I walked back up to grab the rest of our beer and towels. We got one guys number in case we wanted to go out later that night and headed on our way. We started walking back up the river and the park was starting to clear out a bit because it was getting a little late and the weather was looking gloomy. On the walk back we came across this wheel chair type cart without a seat…just a back. It wasn’t sturdy like a wheelchair, more like a small grocery cart or something. Anyways, Kirk immediately got in it and I pushed him up the path yelling “party” the whole time. People laughed at us of course. Kirk took a pretty good spill so we stopped and hung out with some 16yo kids who had a shisa pipe. We smoke some shisha and they taught me some curse words which I immediately yelled out and passers buy looked at me. I then learned how to say “you are beautiful” and was yelling that at every girl in ear shot. After knocking over the shisha a couple of times we opted to head off. I got in the cart but then the path was getting a bit rough (or we had less coordination) so we kept falling out and scraping up our arms. We headed back to the hostel and got changed in anticipation of gathering up a few people to go out drinking. The rain came so the hostel turning into a big party. I went up to kirks room to get my shorts back (he had to borrow them for swimming). He was on the 4th floor and I was in the basement but there was this open stairway going down from the courtyard his room overlooked. In my drunken state I thought it would be a good idea to throw my shorts all the way down and then go pick them up and hang them to dry. Each of the windows had little pigeon spikes on them so of course the wind caught them and they got stuck on the 2nd floor pigeon spikes. We knocked on the door but noone answered. Later that night someone answered but it was the room next door and I couldn’t quite reach them. No one answered at the actual door so I figured I would sort it out in the morning. Unfortunately I overslept and was late for my train so I didn’t get a chance to do anything about it…they were still hanging there the next morning when I left. Meanwhile, Kirk was fucked off his head. He has anxiety attacks also and is on Zoloft but asked if I could sort him out a xanex for the flight back home…I obliged, but instead of saving it, his drunk self decided to talke half right then. Well, not what I would have done. Of course now I had to babysit him to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid. Back down at the bar he was pretty sloppy, hanging on chicks, falling around a bit (keep him mind he was stumbling like 2 hours earlier). Soon enough he sat down at a table and passed out sitting up. This was not a normal passing out, it was not able to rouse him passed out. So of course we took lots of pictures with him. I bought a coffee and tried to get him to drink it to no avail. It was time to put him in bed. I couldn’t remember his exact room so I figured I would stick him in my bed for a couple of hours and then maybe I’d be able to get him up or find his room and go sleep in it myself. No one was really interested in helping me but I finally recruited someone and we did the weekend at bernies thing as we walked him down the stairs and then tossed him up to my top bunk. Eventually we wrapped him in toilet paper. I went down to check on him every once in a while and we took turns slapping him to try and get him to wake up. After a few hours I dragged him out of bed and found his unlabled key. I knew it was on the 4th floor so we headed up the elevator and I tried all the rooms until I found his. We got him back into his bunk (again on the top damnit) and I left him a note with my email on it in case I didn’t see him in the morning before I left (which I didn’t). My only regret was not drawing a big penis on his forehead or “insert balls here” with an arrow to his mouth…oh well. Hopefully he got my note as he’s worth keeping in touch with….
