The First Major Adventure

     My eventful second day started with registering for classes and general school requirements, always a fun undertaking. After a scavenger hunt around the building for signatures from people whose offices are hidden in tiny corridors, I headed back to my room to finish unpacking and chill. Around 5:30pm, I went with two of my new compadres, Taylor and Kae Lani, to a grocery store called Kaufland to buy stuff for the food co-op we've started in the dorm. Luckily, Taylor's fiancé Mario had driven down for a visit and was nice enough to drive us to the store. We putzed around for an hour or so, checking out all the different German packages and labels and trying to decipher what the non-obvious ones were. Kaufland is great, it has everything you could possibly need, which I think makes it even better than Super Wal-marts. That, and the fact it's not Wal-mart.

     After we got a mountain of food for an amazing price, we headed out to the parking garage and packed up the car. However, it was only after the very last box had been loaded in that Mario noticed we had a flat tire and a burned out headlight. Of course. Soo, we had to unload all the food and go back inside the shopping center to wait because it was cold and snowy outside. Luckily, there was an auto center right next door so Mario rolled the flat over to pump it up. However, Lady Luck was not on our side, because the air pump there was frozen. I'm still not really sure how that happens. Anyway, Mario and Taylor decided to drive with the flat on up the road a bit to another auto station we had passed. Meanwhile, I'm standing in the shopping center with an overflowing cart of food, trying not to look like a newb, while Kae Lani is buying some forgotten coffee. After about 15 minutes, they finally return with a pumped up tire and new headlight. Of course because of this fiasco, the three of us are way late for the new student orientation back at school. With the tiny European car fully laden, we set off for home. All goes well until we reach the tiny back roads of Heidelberg. The ever unfaithful GPS gets us lost and tries to tell us Bergstraße 106, the address of the school, doesn't exist. It had already gotten Mario there once, but apparently now it decided it didn't feel like cooperating. I am now convinced that technology is highly overrated, this not being my first severe mishap with the Global Perplexing System. After making u-turn after u-turn for 15 minutes, we miraculously found the school at about about 9.

     After unloading the food, Kae Lani and I went downstairs to the orientation that was supposed to end at 9 but was still in full swing until about 9:45. People were busy chatting, drinking champagne, and trying to decide where to go out to and how to get there (A student orientation with champagne, ya gotta love Europe!). After much hemming and hawing, the returning students, which was almost all of the group, decided O'Reilly's was the place to go. It's an Irish pub about a 10 minute walk from Schiller where lots of Americans and rowdy Irishmen like to hang out. Once there, the group of us sat around a covered pool table and the night began! Karaoke is the big thing at O'Reilly's and it's always fun to watch drunk people make fools of themselves. No one in our group did it that night but we weren't really there long enough for people to become intoxicated enough to sing. Every time the DJ would pose a question to the audience, the Irishmen in the back would call out hilarious smart a$$ answers to his questions. I love the Irish.

The atmosphere was upbeat and lively, even though it was so smokey you could barely see across the room. EVERYONE in Germany, heck Europe, smokes, especially the young people. They'll tell you this themselves. You start to get used to it enveloping you after a while, but every time someone lights up a new one, the strong scent gets in your throat and makes you cough. Luckily, this strengthens my resolve not to smoke, even though some of the guys are betting it will take me 1-2 months to start. I will prove them wrong! Drinking however is something I have no problem with. I'm glad to be legal at last, if only for four months before I have to wait until July when I get back. But I've traveled to so many places where 18 is the legal age it's not really a huge deal for me. Some Americans go crazy in Europe when they know it's legal. My friend Martin tells me that pretty much if you're 16 or an old looking 15 the bartenders will serve you. I've never yet been carded in a country where 18 is legal so I believe him. Actually, in Germany 16 is legal for beer but you can't drink the hard stuff or drive until you're 18. I think that's actually a pretty good system.  I only had one nice, sweet B52 that night; I'm here for four months, no need to overdue it the first night! America is so uptight about so many things that if we just sat back, took a deep breath, and looked at the example Europe sets, our kids wouldn't go so nuts and look bad when they go to other countries. Europeans know how to handle themselves; I've been here five days and I already know that. They aren't stumbling all over themselves in public or shouting and making a scene (except sometimes for the Irish lol). Anyway, enough of my philosophies for now. This is only part one of my weekend! I'll try to post my activities from Saturday soon.