Andrew Meyer in Austria Column
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Archives:
10.01.05
Hello
my fine friends! It has been a long long while since last I wrote, so I decided
to take a moment and tell you all how I have been.
I have been pretty great. I am really having fun traveling about and getting to
know the people in my group. I just sent in my last mid-term paper thing, so now
I am all set to head off to Italy! We have a week and a half to travel and I am
planning on hitting up Florence, Rome and Venice. With a little luck, I won´t
get my pocket picked or get hit on by horny Italian men. And don´t tell me there
aren´t horny Italian men out there, because I got hit on by two at Oktoberfest.
And I heard a lot of rumors that the number 4 bus in Rome is notorious for
pickpockets. Jesus Christ, people! That´s the bus that goes to the Vatican! Have
you no shame? I guess Steve will have to clear all these nasty rumors up for me
some time, so I leave the Italians up to him to defend.
Speaking of Italians, I am having a great time getting to know the people here.
There was a party a few nights ago and, for the second time, I asked an Italian
person if they spoke Italian. And each time that it happened I started off not
being all that embarrassed because we were speaking German at the time and I had
never met them before so how was I supposed to know that they were Italian? But
then they got really offended! And then I am left standing there awkwardly
wishing I had the Neuralizer form Men in Black. Maybe I need to stop beginning
my conversations with, “My name is Andrew. Do you speak Italian?”
While I am having a lot of fun, I am also really starting to miss everybody from
home. I tend to go through swings where one night I will be laying in bed
happily counting how few days there are left here and the next night I will be
counting with dread. Don´t get me wrong, it´s not that there isn´t a lot of
amazing stuff going on here, it´s just that sometimes things happen that make
you want to go home immediately. But that story comes later.
We went to Vienna a few weeks ago, which was pretty cool, but not nearly as cool
as the place we stopped on the way there. We first stopped at the monastery of
Melk. We took a bus through the nearby Wachau Valley. It was so amazing! It was
like we had randomly stumbled into the Mediterranean. The Danube snakes between
rolling hills and nearly everywhere the hills have been terraced and turned into
vineyards. It was so cool! I felt like I was in Hobbiton or something. Then we
saw this castle up on a hill and we climbed up to it. Turns out it was the ruins
of the castle Dürnstein. Me and a couple of guys climbed to the top and sang
Circle of Life as the sun set behind the hills. It was pretty sweet. But then we
heard this really creepy noise from the valley below which sounded like an eerie
whistle. It was definitely a primitive song of some kind and it drifted with
varying volume out from between the rocks. We have no idea what it was to this
day. Some say aliens.
Even better than the Vienna trip, though, was my trip to London. It was such an
amazing relief to be speaking English again. It was amazingly expensive, sadly.
We stayed with people from the St. John´s group there which was really fun
because I got to hang out with my good pal Jerry McMurray. Basically, we just
saw a bunch of museums and plays, which was fine by me, because I´m cultured,
and don´t you all forget it! I have opinions about Monet AND Manet. So how do
you like that?
The coolest part about London was Speakers Corner, which is a corner of a park
where people yell at each other about crazy things on Sunday mornings. There was
one guy that was arguing with people that since women now have jobs, they don´t
respect men anymore and “that´s why they are all becoming lesbians!” Okay pal.
And then he went on to claim that every single male on the planet is smarter
than every single female on the planet. And you know who is the smartest male of
them all according to this guy? George Bush. He said, “You know what, this man
rules the world and he is the smartest man in the world! You know why Germany
just elected a woman president? Because every man in Germany is gay! They let a
woman be smarter than them!” He was pretty funny to listen to.
Well, in other news, I saw Garden State finally, so that´s good.
Lastly, about two weeks ago there was a big party at the Schwarzes Rößl. Real
big shin-dig, everybody was invited. I think I went for maybe five seconds but
then I thought I might die from inhaling all the evaporating beer on the floor.
Anyway, so I went to bed, noticing that my roommate had not come back yet, which
I didn´t think much of. Round about three AM or so I hear someone bumping around
near the door and I see Segrun helping my roommate Marek to his bed. So I think,
“Oh man, Marek looks really drunk. I hope he doesn´t puke.” But I just went back
to sleep after Segrun left. About five o’clock I hear someone stumbling about.
It´s Marek and he´s got his hands on the table, leaning heavily. There he stands
for a while and I listen in horror to what sounds like drops of water hitting
the floor. But I didn´t freak out, because I noticed that when he shifted his
weight the floor made a noise like water dripping so it must just have been
that. Then Marek takes his pants off. As the cell phone in his pocket hits the
floor and lights up, it illuminates a river of piss running across my floor. “Marek!”
I yelled, “ Marek, what the fuck?” Bad idea. Very bad idea. Apparently attracted
to the sounds of my yelling, Marek stumbles over and sits on my bed! “Marek, go
to bed!” I cried desperately in German. Well, apparently the floor was the only
bed he wanted to go to, because fifteen seconds later he was laying spread eagle
on his back in a puddle of his own urine. That´s when I started freaking out. I
took everything I owned that was sitting out and crammed it into my closet and
then I put my coat on and wrote Marek a note that ended with my best attempt at
scathing sarcasm in German: “Marek, I will be back tomorrow. It would be
fabulous if you could do something about the floor.” Only problem now was that
my room key was randomly knocked off the table during the…struggle…and was
definitely covered in piss. We´re not going to go into detail about the thorough
washing of that key, but I think you can imagine what that would entail. Then I
walked in my pajamas down those lonely 83 meters to the Priesterhaus and asked
Corey Busch and Dave Lambert if they had an extra blanket so I could sleep on
the couch.
That morning I was definitely not in a good mood, but I did have high hopes of
seeing a deeply embarrassed Marek scrubbing the floor when I returned. I was
quite disappointed to find him sleeping in his bed with the piss-pants draped
casually over one of our chairs. Turns out he had no idea of what he had done.
Apparently he didn´t even think it was weird that his pants were wet or that his
hair smelled like urine. So, I was faced with the task of telling a 6’10” Czech
man, in German, that he had peed his pants. That was definitely a good day.
So now I know how Mike Evans felt freshman year. Sorry, man…its so much funnier
when it doesn´t happen to you.
Anyways, this e-mail is long even for me. I´m sure I´ll have a shit load about
Italy to tell everybody, so until then, may you all enjoy the rest of the
semester, and may all your roommates be potty trained.
Andrew Meyer
P.S. I tried to organize some pictures online. I suggest you all go check a few
of them out.
http://photos.yahoo.com/angryraistlin