Ich heisse Kem

Yes, I'm back, and you should take a look first at the post BELOW this one because this is my SECOND post. Go ahead and read the first one now. Go on............

..............finished? Good!

So, if you don't get Die Zeitschrift des Kolliers you can't read my weekly column about the crazy adventures I've been having here in Frankfurt. So I'll just have to tell you about them here on the Blog. What can I say? There's been lots and lots of bier trinken, but not so much kiffen (weed smoking). First of all it's nearly impossible to find it from any legitimate people. You can only get it from shady motherfuckers who WILL rip you off if you're not familiar with the right prices (which I'm not) and it sucks anyway. The only smoking I did was this past Saturday when I paid 20 Euros for ONE JOINT which I shared with a bunch of people and hardly got high from at all. It's just not worth it. I'll have to wait until I get to Amsterdam. So smoke a blunt for me and you'd better enjoy it because my oh my how I miss blunts. To make up for it I've taken up cigarettes smoking once again (surprise surprise) but...well...cigarettes suck. But when you're as frequently drunk as I am they taste mighty tasty.

On the plane ride over I took acid and listened to the second Coventry show while tripping and looking out the window. I watched the sun rise over Ireland from 30,000 feet high and the sky was more colourful than I've ever seen and the coastline kept shifting and changing shape...it was rather intense. But my first day I had to deal with being cracked out AND jet-lagged but luckily I had Julia, a foreign exchange student who went to TCNJ last year to pick me up at the airport and take me around the city to set up a bank account and sign into the dorm which I couldn't even move into until the next day because the only room that wasn't available yet was mine. But I spent the night at her parent's house and the next day I got into my room, met the two other New Jerseyans and began the T-Punkt saga which I described in full detail in my first post.

The first week was spent getting to know the city, shopping, and of course much beer drinking and schnitzel eating. I haven't got carded once, although one woman at an Irish place asked me how old I was because she thought I looked 16 or 17. She was ein bisschen verruckt (ask Craig). But yeah, on the second week my Intensive German class began which consists of spending 6 hours every day (with 2 breaks, one a half hour and the other an hour for lunch) with teachers who only speak German. I met a few other Americans (from Houston, Massachussetts, and Wisconsin respectively) but most of the other students come from other countries like Spain, Portugal, France, Ireland, the Check Republic (a lot of people from there) and Brazil. I'm falling madly in love with the girl from Brazil, Juliana, even though her ass is bigger than Michelle's and I don't normally go for the large cushion. But her eyes are ridiculously beautiful and the rest of her is just beautiful by association.

Not that I'll ever get anywhere with her. She hardly speaks any English and I don't speak Portuguese and and neither of us speak German well enough to have any sort of interesting conversation. But this past Friday I went to a "Tequila Party" (where I was one of the only people drinking Tequila) and she was there and I told her, "Du hast die schönsten Augen" (you have the most beautiful eyes) but all she said was "warum?" (why?) and I couldn't answer so she suggested "keine Ahnung" (no idea) and I nodded and then she got distracted and that was the end of that. The party itself was one of the most interesting things I've ever been to. Everyone was getting wasted and talking to each other in German although nobody can really speak it very well. But once you get drunk enough you forget you're even speaking a different language. But anyway I had only had 3 hours of sleep the previous night, and the Juliana thing was depressing me so I went home before it got really rowdy.

But the NEXT night was the craziest night of my life. It was Saturday and one of the bars in the city called the "Club Voltaire" had a 70s, 80s, and 90s dance party. Everyone wanted to "Tanzen! Tanzen! Tanzen!" but when we got there the bar was full of older people and the music was extremely corny. It was like high school dance music only with hardly any rap and a few German songs (including 99 Luftballoons!). But as the night went on the older people were replaced by more younger people and everyone got drunker and drunker. But I got depressed because it was pissing me off that Juliana was out there dancing and she wasn't talking to me at all but kept talking to the other american I was there with, a kid from Mass. I tried to get up to dance a few times, but I just felt like an idiot and sat back down, got another beer, smoked another few cigarettes, etc. Finally at 1:30 I decided to leave and I thought the last train left at 1:45 because that's what Jesse (the kid from Mass) had told me. But the last train actually left at 1:05 so I was forced to go back to the bar and drink another beer and wait until it closed at about 3:00 in the morning.

Then we took to the streets, a giant crowd of rowdy drunken exchange students stumbling around the streets of Frankfurt in search of another club that was open. While we were walking a few drug dealers found us. There was an old guy with a mustache who offered me cocaine. I declined but asked him if he had hash but he didn't. But now that I realised there were drug dealers amongst us I found a group of shady kids who did have some hash, and in my drunken state I couldn't quite negotiate properly and ended up getting only 1-joint's worth of weed for 20 euros, knowing the whole time I was being a moron. But they were very friendly and they rolled the joint for me and took off and I sparked it and shared it with the other people I was walking with, most of whom I'd never seen before in my life. For some reason I happened to mention that I studied philosophy, and this interested a girl there who started talking to me after the joint was finished and we found a club called "The Cave" that was open.

The girl was named Lu and she asked me if I was depressed and she told me how she also knew what it was like and we started having a really deep conversation out of nowhere while the others went into The Cave. Then the mustached cocaine-dealer came back and strarted talking to Lu because as I discovered later he's been trying to hook up with her for quite some time. She told me about how he's also depressed because his mother controls his life and I felt bad for the guy and we decided to go into the cave and drink and talk. But for some reason the guy at the door wouldn't let the mustached man inside, so we were like, "fuck this if you're not going to let him in we don't want to go to your club." The guy suggested we go with him to another bar, but I didn't know how to feel about following some shady cocaine dealer I'd never met before into the night. But eventually we decided we might as well trust him and he took us to a bar around the corner where I ordered another beer and he was talking in German to Lu while I talked to him in the small amount of German that I know and to Lu in english. He told me I understood 100% of German and I could speak it perfectly, and I thought he was complimenting me, but soon Lu told me he was telling her that he could tell by looking into my eyes that I was a liar and I was only pretending to be an exchange student who didn't understand German. He even asked me for my passport. But he continued acting very friendly to me so I didn't know what to do.

It was the craziest situation I've ever been in. I was halfway around the world, drinking at some random bar at 4:00 in the morning with a girl I'd never met before and a guy who thought I was some sort of dishonest liar. When the situation became too uncomfortable Lu and I left the bar and she took me back to the subway where the morning trains were already starting. But while we sat in the subway we got into a really deep, emotional and philosophical conversation (we're both all about Camus and existentialism) and we didn't want to stop talking so I let a bunch of trains go by until she started getting a headache and my bladder couldn't hold it in any longer. We left the subway and I publicly urinated behind a tree but she said her headache was too bad and she had to go. But we exchanged phone numbers and when I went home I felt really good. And the next day I had the worst hangover I'd ever got from just beer (I'd had about 11 beers) which lasted all day. I tried to call Lu again but it turns out I had the wrong number. So that sucks, but it was nice to meet someone I could talk to and connect with even though we spoke different langauges. If there is such a thing as fate (which neither of us believe in) we might bump into each other again somewhere down the road.

And that's what's been happening. This weekend we're going to an Oktoberfest celebration in Stuttgart (the big one is in Munich but it's so crowded that we wouldn't be able to sleep there unless we buy tents and sleeping bags) to that should be fun. Then next week this German class is over and we're going to Amster-fucking-dam so that she be REALLY fun.

Anyway, I want to see more Blogging from all y'all. I know you know what's going on down there in good old Ewing but I don't so you've got to keep me updated.

Craig, I don't know how you can get those Simpsons episodes to me, but if you can send them by e-mail my address is kemstone@gmail. You can't send them on CDs because my computer's CD drive is fucked. If there's some way I can download them from you directly on some sort of file-sharing program, e-mail me with all the details on how to do that. I'd also like to watch some movies because I only have one on my computer right now. So let me know how to download those. And it's up to you to get a blunt rolled for me!

Kimbo, I hope you're doing allright and haven't gone thousands of dollars further into debt. I'd buy a pound from you right now if I could, but shipping it over here might not be fesible. I'll try to send you some Amsterdam weed if I figure out how. And if you make it to an anti-Bush protest any time soon, protest extra-hard for me because Bush pisses me off even more that I'm over here. It's his fault that I get bad vibes from everybody unless I specifically explain how much I'm very much against him and his whole stupid war. And it's going to be much worse when he wins the election (which now seems inevitable unless a miracle happens). Don't let anybody vote Republican!

Luke, keep keeping it real. Tell Max I said hi, as well as Ben and all the other people who probably don't read this Blog anymore. And if you're still playing Icy Tower I hope you've finally knocked Smadrienne completely off the High Scores list.

Yastine, how's the alcoholism going? I hope you're still out there having fun and getting blackout drunk. Be careful because Luke still has a large supply of roofies. And tell Connie I said Hi. Drinking with you guys is more fun than drinking with any of the people here (and there are definitelys some fun Germans to drink with).

Kristin, I hope you're enjoying the room and keeping it nice and clean and tidy. Give Vin my regards, and tell him it's hard for me to sleep here without the snoring. I really hope you're handling your "problem" well and that you can make it through this year without all the craziness. You should still have fun, but not at your own expense.

Smashley, Lala, Smadrienne, Mark and Matt, stay out of trouble.

I miss all you guys. The next time I have a crazy adventure you'll hear all about it. I've got to go now because my Kolliers Zeitschrift is here. Holla back! Peace!