Ich liebe Sonja and Tübingen!!

So first off, let's set the scenario. We have been travelling for three months or so, hopping from here to there to everywhere, but never staying anywhere longer than about a week. This can get pretty tiring. Then we start running out of places to go. We nap on any available plot of grass we can find. We only drink out of city fountains. We sleep near fires in conservation areas. Our only sustenance is bread and meat. Dennis uses lilacs for deodorant. Things are looking pretty grim.

Then, like manna from heaven, Sonja sends us a message. We can rent a room at her place for a month! Not only is she saving us from a life of hobodom on the streets of Basel, she tells us that she is moving into her roommates room so we can have her BIGGER room!! Who does that?? Sonja is always up for a random party or spontaneous roadtrip, which makes living with her a blast!

Sonja trying to avoid ruining my picture. So I took a picture of her instead.

We all cook together, eat together, bake together, sing together, and drink together all the while! Then she introduces us to all her awesome friends, who have more awesome friends, who have MORE awesome friends. I think you get the point. Which brings me to my next topic: Tübingen is one of my favourite cities yet. It's small, picturesque, has a beach volleyball court, and is full of absolutely awesome people who I do not have enough time to chill with! Recently we've taken to hanging out in bars until way past closing, because these awesome friends also include awesome bartenders.

Damn it, I wish I didn't have to leave so soon.

Is anyone else traumatized by the smell of rotting whipped cream!?

Seriously...if you haven't smelled it...DON'T! It haunts me to this day...
(Note from the future - that was actually just the washing detergent I was using, but it DID smell like rotten whipped cream, I swear)

So this week Sonja and I made a road trip up to Aachen to see Dieter, another friend from Leeds. Sonja also had a friend living in Aachen, so it all worked out splendidly. Until I decided to go to an erasmus party. But that is a story for later.

Sonja and Dieter looking thoughtful over a city fountain in Maastrict, Netherlands.

So it turns out Aachen is right near the border of BOTH Belgium and the Netherlands, and we made a short drive into Maastrict, a chillin Dutch city, to hang for the day. After our due sightseeing was finished, and armed with Dutch and Belgian beer and snacks (stroopwaffles included, of course) we headed back to Germany to fill our bellies. But NOT before we managed to be in three countries at once, of course.

Yah right!

The drive home was filled with the typical (and legal!) beer drinking in cars and the resultant decoration of Sonja's headrests:

Cool AND legal!

We hung around Aachen for dinner and a few beers, and then headed back to Dieter's place to get some sleep. His roommates, however, were just predrinking for an Erasmus party. "Who ever said no to an erasmus party?" I asked. So it ends up that I go out with a bunch of Dieter's Spanish roommates that I never met before, and get lost within 5 minutes of making it to the bar. Realizing the fact that I have no phone, no phone numbers, and no idea of where I am, I decide to make some friends...fast. No worries! "Hey guys, I know I just met you, but I'm drunk and lost, can I stay at your place?" They respond with a hearty "of course!" before getting really drunk and disappearing just like the people I came with! So I give it another go...hey, there's that guy I was talking to with those other guys! Maybe I can stay at his place! After hanging with him for a while, going to some sketch drug dealers house, and wandering the streets for a while, I remember that I do know an address, but for Sonjas place, not Dieters. "19 Roermondstrasse!"

So the dude I was hanging with delivers me to the address, and I hesitantly puch the buzzer to wake up Sonja and Christina to let me in. No answer. So I push it again. Nothing. Keep in mind that I had been out drinking for the past few hours, it was 5 am and I was tired. So I started buzzing in morse code 'S.O.S', 'O.S.O', and other silly things like that. I'm not sure how long that was going on for, but I decided that I would just sleep on the doorstep for a few hours, and Christina would trip over me on her way out to work in the morning. As I get ready to lie down, Sonja quietly answers: "who is this?" HOORAY! "It's Jeff, I'm drunk and I'm lost!" I reply pathetically. It turns out they thought I was some kind of angry ex boyfriend or drug dealer, since no one knew that Christina lived at this address, and she just started renting it from some unknown girl a week before. And who rings the buzzer incessantly at 5 am?!? So they let me up to sleep on the couch where I snored all night and disrupted their slumber. Not that I didn't already scare them enough that they couldn't sleep the rest of the night. What an ass.

The Leeds crew at a very very pink bar.

So when I said before that volleyball is life...I meant it.

It seems that no matter where we go or what we do, it all revolves around volleyball. When we're hiding in our hotel room so that the owners don't know we're playing "threesies" (I don't think they'd like the game much), we turn on the tv and guess what's on? Volleyball.

When we wander around Basel as homeless bums, we find what every bum calls paradise: Free Stuff. Free crappy volvic water, free bandaids, and free SportMints...all at the outdoor beach volleyball tournament. What do we do while we enjoy these refreshments and try to figure out where we're sleeping that night? Watch volleyball.

When Dennis heads to Bern for a visit to Aurelie, what does he find? MORE outdoor beach volleyball tournaments, probably stocked with free crappy volvic water.

When we live a month in Tubingen, rather than travel or explore the city, where do we spend our days? At the volleyball courts. Our friends don't even call us to see if we're there anymore, they just show up for a game. And THAT's how I like it.

Just to prove we play rain or shine, here is a pic of us playing in a rainstorm. The freibad was empty, which meant the courts were free! =D

Way to drop the ball, Ryan!

Either write something worth doing, or do something worth writing.

Again, that has nothing to do with this post, but I thought it was interesting.

Alright so a long long time ago, in a European country far far away, Ryan (Pallett, a friend from Leeds, not my brother) and I decided that we should take a break from beach volleyball and train up to Denmark and Sweden to see some very good friends of ours who we had not seen in a very long time. So we hopped on the next midnight train goin anyyyywhereeee (uhh...in the direction of Copenhagen), and called up our friends saying we were on our way!

We arrived in CPH and met Charlotte, my bestest bud and favorite cook. We toured around the city for a while until dinner, which was a 3 hour feast (no surprise there!) of rice curry stir fry, 2 bottles of red wine, some ice cream bars, rum tasting, cognac tasting, then some Swiss cookies and something called 'Peanut Flips', which I will re-brand 'Peanut Butter Puffs' and bring over to North America to make my fortune. They are basically Cheesies, but taste like Peanut Butter instead of fake cheese. Sound gross? They're not! And if you steal my idea...*points menacingly* After all that, it was time for bed.

The next morning we woke up to my favorite part...DANISH DANISHES!! Look at them!

Charlie and Anders and DANISH DANISHES!! SEE! RIGHT THERE NEXT TO THE BREAD!! SO GOOOD

Anders was just finishing up his thesis that day, so we hung around and did a bit more sightseeing before meeting up with him to hit the town for some partying! I tell you, there are things I've seen in Copenhagen that I haven't seen anywhere else. Danes are crazy.

The next day Ryan and I headed up to Sweden to see Sven (another Leeds friend) in Helsingborg, and he took us out into the Swedish countryside to see his summer house, complete with bubbling brook, apple tree and small orchard, a small army of semi-wild kitties and guest house with loft, sauna, and awesome view of the property.

Ohhh, Ahhhh

Awww look at all those kittie-witties snugglemuffinooggleboogle!!

Charlie decided to come up to Helsingborg for a day also, for some more sightseeing and an at home cocktail night, since Sven had conveniently just finished his bartending course and bought several hundred dollars worth of exotic boozes and fruits. Sweeeeeet...I had an appletini.

The Leeds crew at a castle tower thingy in Helsingborg.

Helsingborg, Sweden

After a lovely visit, Charlotte and I perfected our almost-miss-every-form-of-transportation-from-ferry-to-train-to-bus routine and ran frantically for all of our connections, even when we didn't need to. Of course, we didn't know that ahead of time. Ryan flew back home to Canada from there, ending our golden era of hoboness, bumdom, and beach volleyball (well...we kept playing, but it just wasn't the same). Thanks everyone for a great time!! Miss you already!