Today's Blog Post. The REAL one!

Not that the other one I posted today was fake, but this is the one that I was planning on posting. The other was a (happy?) mistake.

This weekend was fun! I originally didn’t have anything planned but another lazy weekend in which I could gather strength for the upcoming weekends when family and friends will be visiting, BUT, as last week progressed, people started making plans. First, Justin and I were talking about the Harry Potter movie, and how I was going to see it on Tuesday in the english speaking theater. And he decided that he might be coming in town, and also wanted to see the movie, so there HA. Then I told Bridget what he was doing, and she decided that it was indeed a brilliant idea, and she wanted on board!! Even though she had seen the movie already. But she HADN’T seen Nürnberg yet. So she and Speer were coming. Then the twins (Ben and Corey, both working at LEONI, which is why we call them the twins) were interested in coming and watching the movie and hanging out Friday night, though they had to be somewhere Saturday. THEN, it turned out that the twins could stay Saturday night, TOO! PARTY WEEKEND! Haha. All these shenanigans were ALMOST enough to distract me from the fact that this was the weekend at home when the FIRST EVER Pub Golf outing was being held in Bloomington. And that was sort of the birthday celebration for Erik. Double sadness. But anyways. I get off of work Friday at 5, call Bridget, and she says COME TO THE HBF NOW!! And the following sequence of events, with no time inbetween, went: hang up, buy tram ticket, collect change, turn around and board tram. Phew! Great timing! We go to the biergarten in Wöhrder Wiese to meet up with the boys and have delicious Nürnberger wurst things in a DELICIOUS bread roll. The beer was okay. Since it had been raining for practically the past WEEK, a few lakes had sprung up in the park. It was hilarious watching all the kid bikers ride slowly through them, though one almost fell over when it was deeper than he thought, LOL.

Then Wukie led the way to the movie theater he had found that was huge and legit, and SO unlike the cute little podunk theater I had found to watch POTC. But the only english version this place had was in 3D. Poo. Oh alright. But wait, we don’t have enough unreserved seats available. Wait five minutes, then they’ll be freed up and you can try again. Awesome. So of course there were two chunks of seats that were freed up, and we jumped on them! The 3D glasses were HUUUUGE!!!!!! Dude. But hey, that’s actually a good idea, since I was unaware of them (for the most part) and they weren’t annoying the entire movie. Speaking of the movie. Meh. It was alright. Made me miss the books. So much more intense. Well anyways, then, we went to O’Shea’s Irish Pub! This place with an awesome atmosphere. Makes me so happy.... next time I’m there (and there WILL BE a next time) I’ll take a peeekchur. So, I’m in Germany, in an Irish pub. What do I order? A British beer, of course! Isn’t Newcastle Brown Ale English? Oh well, it made my statement hilarious, so I’m keeping it. So there, ha. After that, we walked clear across town to another bar that wukie had in mind to check out. Super tiny and super packed. I was not happy. I think after that, most of the other bars were closed, so we just took the bus home.

Wukie said we’d start our outing at 10. Ha. Woke up to an angry alarm clock, confused about my location. Hop in the shower, while Corey and Bridget were still asleep on the couches. Hop out of the shower, get dressed, and C&B are STILL asleep! Whaaaat. I made eggs for everyone. Nom. Then we got over to wukie’s. At 11. Oh well. Wukie’s apt was nice! Like mine, his was initially unfurnished when he moved in, but he had seen fit to equip his more fully. He had an actual bedframe (plus mattress), desk, shelves, and short clothesrack which he had assembled. The couch came “from upstairs.” We walked to the bakery, nom-ed on a couple baked goods. And walked forever until we got to Dutzenteich Park. Wukie walks fast. And it’s hard to tell just how fast he goes! I think it’s because he has minimal upper body movement, which is deceptive.

Frisbee in the park. Walked around the structure which was supposed to be Hitler’s attempts at luring the olympics to Nürnberg. Then we walked to a huge open concert-like space, where a live orchestra and an opra singer were practicing. She was wearing jeans. Bamf. It was wicked awesome. Then the orchestra played the can can. HAHAHAHA. We left to go to Wukie’s apartment, and walked through a neighborhood that just blew my mind. Epicly. I was thinking it was a mix between Germany, America, and Rome. Don’t ask. So after walking soooo much, we all went up to Wukie’s apt, and sat down to rest. Wukie didn’t sit down. Odd. And five minutes later, he was like alright, let’s go! And nobody moved. It’s like, dude, take a BREAK! AND a chill pill!!!

Well anyways, we eventually got underway, and walked through downtown. Stopped somewhere for a beer.

I’m boring myself with this. But I’ll keep on keeping on, just cuz that’s what I’m supposed to be doing here. Plus there’s a chance that you might NOT be bored.

This place served red beer. Amber, I think. And since it was in a clay bierstein, I had to take them at their word, because it was dark to my eyes. Whoever thought of first serving beer in a glass or other transparent vessel was BRILLIANT! I like being able to see my beer. If I have to choke down the swill, I want to be able to appreciate it visually as well! By golly. This place was right next to the place which did the tours of the undergrounds of Nürnberg! So we stopped in and asked about tour times. But then we decided that of the three things that we still wanted to do today, seeing the castle, touring the underground, and going to the lederhosen shop, we definitely wanted to see the castle. So, we elected to do that first. Blah blah, walk around the castle, blah blah, decided that the twins REALLY wanted to buy Lederhosen, blah blah, we go there. I find a bench to sit on and rest my feet, and relax, and almost fall asleep, thanks to that half liter of beer I had consumed. They looked adorable when they tried on their lederhosen and plaid shirts... Though Ben’s arms were too long. He has the same problem Erik does, where in order to get a shirt that fits the arm length, it is usually too large around the torso. Or with a shirt that fits the torso, it is way too short in the arms. Komisch. Even Justin got another shirt to go with his lederhosen that he already bought, so I decided that I should do a little shopping too. I didn’t buy anything yet. That will come, in time, and definitely before I leave. But I have decided that I kinda want a plaid one. I like plaid. And here in Germany you see it EVERYWHERE!! I like that part, lol. Makes me fit in. :D By the time we were done there, it was too late to go to the underground tours. Awwww. Rats.

Schäufele!!!! YUMMY!!!!!

Then we split up, Bridget and I to go to my apartment, where I called Erik. The boys went to Wukie’s apartment to drop off their wares, and so Corey could actually pick up his luggage so he could make himself presentable upon waking up in the morning, since he had to go to the airport to pick up his girlfriend and her parents on Sunday. Well, it took the boys quite some time to get there, all except for Wukie, and they hung out for a few minutes. We finally go to leave, and Corey’s standing in my kitchen and asks “So, whose Snickers are those?” Erik had left nearly a full bag of snickers here, and I put them on the kitchen table thinking my roommate would eat them. “Oh, they’re Erik’s, and I don’t like them, so they’re fair game.” Upon saying this, all three boys swarmed the Snickers. It was quite hilarious, especially since Ben was outside and almost to the stairs when I said this, and came running back inside! Lol. So we take the tram to where we changed lines and waited for the next 9 for about 15 minutes, just so we could get off at the next stop. We honestly could’ve walked that distance in the same time. So we’re standing there, on the phone with Wukie, who now tells us that the place we are eating at is right around that area where we waited for forever. OOPS. And that he might not be able to hold down this 6 person table all by himself much longer. Double oops. So we man up and walk the rest of the way. This place is called Schäufelewirtschaft, and all it serves is Schäufele. Super yummy. I walked past it weeks earlier when I went a couple weeks ago to check out the hotel mom dad and Karin will be staying in this upcoming week-and-a-half. They serve a red beer, too! Some of us got the red beer, and a couple got the dunkel. Well, the dunkel looked slightly red, which made the red look a little like wheat. Halfway through, Nathan gets a text from a couch surfer he’d been in contact with about hanging out tonight, and runs outside, and comes back in with Marlena (at least I think that’s what her name was), a girl from France who’s in town visiting her relatives. Cool! We were headed out, when the hostess lady comes over and we all pay, and then she asks where we’re headed. To another bar! She says that’s nice, and proceeds to tell us about some tragedy that happened in some other night club or bar where a kid shot some people, and I may have heard something about a bomb, but I can’t be sure. She finished the story. Then she’s like, “have fun!!” yeah, okay.

At the English Pub

We found a cat running around!! Corey, feeling
separation anxiety from his cats hat home, was super
worried about it, and even called the number on its tags.

We get to the altstadt, then walk over to an irish bar, which was overflowing, and we all stand there like, No way are we going in there. So we go to the English Pub a few blocks over. And as soon as we walk in, we hear a million voices speaking in English with British accents. It was lovely! All day, the twins had been lauding Gutmann beer, so of course when we saw it on the menu, we all wanted to try it. But I saw the Murphy’s Irish Red, and decided to continue the trend for the day, which was apparently “Drink Red Beer!!” so that’s what I ordered. Bridget was right behind me and ordered the Gutmann wheat beer, and apparently the tap was out after they drew it for her. Oops! Sorry boys. So we all sat down and asked Marlena to teach us some French. She asked us what we wanted to know. We were all quiet, thinking about it, and one of the boys blurts out “Where’s the nearest bar?” And we all had a bear of a time trying to repeat the French mess that came out of her mouth. It was hilarious! The boys played darts there, because they had a real dart board! Not the plastic cheap darts that can be found everywhere. Or rather, CAN’T be found everywhere, since darts is kind of a rare species here. But THIS was the first real dart board with which contact was made. Wukie at one point walked Marlena to the bus stop. And we eventually all walked home. I don’t know why. Why couldn’t we use the NightLine? Shrug.

Corey got up and left at around 9 in the morning. I told him to wake me so that I could see him off or something like that. It turned into me blinking at him, grunting, then shutting the door after him. Followed by diving into my pillow for another three hours. Yes, this weekend was a fun one. :D

And just this evening, the entire engineering department went out for a night on the town!! (read: dinner at a biergarten.) The drinks were on Siemens. How nice! It was all delicious. I ordered a salad. My first outright vegetables since I can’t remember. And don’t worry... I googled ecoli+germany today and didn’t get any recent articles, so I think it’s over. And I was in luck, since I ended up sitting next to two people who weren’t native to the Nürnberg area, so I could understand them completely! Yaaaay.