Cricket, cocktails, Krautfest and Moby

I’ve been somewhat inspired by the cricket series in Pakistan, so one day when we had our 15 min afternoon tea break at work, I went out into the car park, picked up a few walnuts that were lying around and bowled ‘em down at some conveniently placed concrete stumps. Although my shoulder isn't what it used to be, and I was reduced to slow medium, I think I did alright. My first delivery was a gorgeous yorker that took (or would've taken) middle stump clean out of the ground (okay, maybe just dislodged a bail. I am slow medium after all), but after that I started drifting down leg. However, I consoled myself with the fact that I must've been bowling to a lefthander, so it was all okay. After my brief two over stint from the Bonlanden end, I sauntered back inside past my colleagues, leaving them comprehensively bemused as to what the fuck I had just been doing.

Some time ago I went on a club crawl in Stuttgart, and I’ve gotta say it makes Hoabrt’s nightlife positively soporific. I can’t recall precisely what happened in which bar and in which order, but one thing that did stick in my mind was buying a certain cocktail. One of the blokes with us insisted that we try the famous Stuttgart cocktail, a caipirinha. I’d never heard of it, but I was in the mood to drink whatever came my way, and to also ensure that more drinks came my way. So I went up to the bar, and said in flawless German “Four caipirinha's, please”. And the guy replied in English “You have to go to the outside bar for them.” Bastard – how did he know I wasn’t German?? So we went outside and bought four of Stuttgart’s finest cocktails. No, just kidding – we actually bought four of the worst cocktails on earth. I would rather have Mariah Carey sing a really high note directly into my ear, than have to drink one of those horrible concoctions again. What utter shite it was. The moral of this story: don’t listen to some sad English bastard when he assures you that you just have to try Stuttgart’s famous cocktail. Just go and buy flaming sambuccas instead.
By the end of the night we’d found ourselves in some bar called Mash. There was a distinct lack of army paraphernalia to match the name, but I don’t think I really cared by then. At this point one of our esteemed colleagues felt he had to excuse himself, and he prompty disappeared. I later learnt that he fell asleep somewhere, and was rudely awakened by the SS surrounding him with Tommy guns shouting “Englander! Englander!”.

I went to Krautfest last Saturday. Normally a festival that celebrates a vegetable would not be my kind of scene, and strolling towards the hive of activity with copious quantities of cabbage crunching underfoot, I was tempted to turn around and flee what could possibly be my worst nightmare. But thankfully, like most German fests, it was just an excuse to get pissed. And eat cabbage. I decided to not eat any cabbage, but did partake in a few tasty beverages. (Normally at these things the typical culinary delights are half a chicken, wursts, and french fries. But this time, the french fries were replaced with kraut. People were actually wandering around, enjoying sauerkraut! Only in Germany eh?) As the evening progressed, one of my mates was doing quite a good Romeo impression with some chick, so while they were getting friendly, I listened to one the bands scattered around the place. I had heard them earlier play some Pink Floyd, and from 100 metres away it wasn’t too bad. Up close . . . well, their limitations were a little bit more evident. I can’t remember what they were called, but “The Charry Dogs” would have been apt. All older than 50, long hair (ZZ Top style, minus the beards), flannies, cigs and to top it all off – sponsored by Harley Davidson. Billed as playing “The best of yesterday’s rock!” they almost managed to do this, except for the “best” part, which they missed by a country mile. However, when they launched into “Black Velvet” by Alannah Myles, I had to laugh. Cos, they weren’t actually singing “Black Velvet”, they were, in fact, singing “Black Welwet”. Come on people, you know the words:
Black welwet and that little boy's smile 
Black welwet with that slow southern style 
A new religion that'll bring ya to your knees 
Black welwet if you please

I went to France at the start of October, mainly because I wanted to. The language is a million times better than German, but the people are just that little bit more arrogant because of it. I took the train from Stuttgart to Paris, and you really notice the difference between the two countrysides – the German country is very pretty, very neat. Tidy villages, consisting of white houses, with terracotta tiled rooves, and between each villages plowed fields and farmland. Everything neat, everything ordered – in a word - TIDY. Whereas the French countryside is quite different. I spent a day or two driving through Normandy, and that is a lovely region. But to sum it up in a word – NOT QUITE AS TIDY. (Oh, woops. That’s more than one word. Hmmm . . . hopefully if I don’t draw attention to it no one will notice) The village houses are made out of stone, and there are a lot beautiful castles/chateaus/whatever-they’re-called dotted along the way. Either way, Germany’s pretty, and France is pretty too.

Day One, Wednesday:
Train to Paris. Six hours. Anthony picked me up at the train station (Thanks Anthony!) and drove us to Auxerre to watch Auxerre v Arsenal (Thanks Anthony!). The ticket was an absolute bargain at $5 (AUD), but as a consequence I was sitting with all the hardcore Auxerre fans. So when we scored, everyone went silent and stood still. Except for me – I was silently screaming YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! and slowly pumping my fists. Try it – it’s quite hard to do. The Auxerre fans were good, the ground had a good atmosphere. But they only knew one song, which I think was called “Allez Auxerre”, cos they were the only lyrics.

Day Two:
Chartres, a lovely city west of Paris. The cathedral there is impressive, so we wandered around it, and climbed one of the towers and wondered what would happen if I threw a coin off the top. I decided not to. Then in the arvo, a bit of soccer, a bit of tennis, a bit of fantastic french cuisine (Thanks Anthony’s Mum!), and then I realised I was sick.

Day Three:
Anthony drove us (Thanks Anthony!) through the gorgeous Normandy countryside, to Mont St. Michel. This is an impressive monastry precariously placed on a tiny island just off the coast of Normandy. At high tide, the island is 1 km from land, at low tide it is separated from the land by a dangerous 1 km stretch of sand – some of it quicksand. Fortunately for us, the year is 2002 AD, so some smart cookie had already built a land bridge with a road on it, just for us, so we didn’t have to risk dying in quicksand to check it out. Hooray! We went to a few musuems, and one of ‘em had a 14th century chastity belt. I spent a while trying to figure out how it actually worked. I also spent a fair while moaning about how sick I was. Overnight we stayed in a traditional Normandy farmhouse, on a traditional Normandy farm (Thanks Anthony’s Uncle!) and I got even sicker.

Day Four:
Drove back to near Chartres, trying to find a doctor. Hmmm, no docs on a Sat arvo. Wait! There are doctors at the hospital . . . so we went to Emergency (I was sick enough by this stage) where we were told that yes I could see a doctor, but only after waiting 2 hours. Or maybe three. Or maybe four. Or maybe five . . . so we went to Chartres to get pissed. (nah, just kidding! That was the plan though, but unfortunately I was sick). After I had a lie down, we went to a Cuban restaurant. Those Cubans sure know how to cook fish, but I reckon the one I ate would’ve been scared of a goldfish it was so small.

Day Five:
Paris! First stop, La Tour Eiffel. My first glimpse was the tower looming over the top of an Aussie flag flying outside what I think is the Aussie embassy. Not bad eh? So we went up to the top (froze on the way), had a look around, and came back down again. It’s certainly very impressive. Next stop, L’Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysees. L’Arc de Triomphe is a massive marble arch, that in itself is quite impressive. But, even more impressive is the world’s largest roundabout that surrounds it. Actually, impressive is not quite the right word – I think interesting is a better word. Actually, make that fascinating. It’s about a five or six lane roundabout, with 12 major avenues leading into it (including the Champs Elysees) with no discernible lane markings. The result? Chaos. You know when you’re just idly watching traffic, and you notice that the bloke in the red Ford Escort hasn’t seen the Merc, and they’re about to crash. Your eyes light up and you think “Uh-oh - thy're gonna crash!!” . . . . at L’Arc de Triomphe, there are about five of these incidents happening every moment. You just don’t know where to look. Cars swerve, brake, accelerate, miss each other by inches. It’s a bit like those ads on tv, where they carefully choreagraph four cars to zoom towards each other from different directions, and narrowly miss each other. Except there are fifty cars, not four. And it’s not choreagraphed. And they don’t always miss. Utterly brilliant! I was only there for a few minutes, but I could’ve stayed for hours. Then came a delightful stroll down what is supposedly the World’s Most Beautiful Street – the Champs Elysees. Not a patch on York St, Sandy Bay if you ask me (the upper half at least), but hey, no one’s asking me are they? From there we went to check out Notre Dame, and while en route (I thought I better throw in some French for ya!) in the Paris underground, we passed a chamber orchestra. Yep, you read that correctly – a chamber orchestra in the undergound. Not bad eh? They were very good as well, so we sat and listened, and applauded and marveled at the skill of the solo violinist, and Anthony fell in love with the 2nd violinist chick in the red top, and I gave ‘em some of my hard-earned dosh. Then onto Notre Dame, which is (according to Lonely Planet) “one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in the world”. And I have to agree with them on that one. Our visit coincided with the visit of 50 Japanese schoolgirls (in full Japanese schoolgirl attire), and just as they got off the bus it started raining, drenching them to the skin. Although it’s not my cup of tea, I bet there are millions of Japanese businessmen who would’ve paid a lot of money to be in our shoes that day.

There was no time to check out the other sights in Paris, because I had to spend the next six hours sitting next to the World’s Most Boring Man with the World’s Worst Case Of Dandruff and be bored and flaked on. Gross. I tried to infect him with my sickness, but I think I failed. Back in Germany I missed the last bus home, so had to catch a taxi at 2 am. I didn’t go to work for the next three days.

Moby came to town last week, and I went along to say G’day. The support act was Royksopp (Norwegian band) and they rocked. If you liked Air’s Moon Safari, then get Royksopp’s Melody A.M. However they are much better live and more dancey, so that was cool. There were only around 2000 people there, so we had a nice little front row possie. Moby is way better live than his albums, it’s a very personal performance. Perhaps a little too personal, because he told the audience that when he was a younger lad, he used to jerk off into a t-shirt. Maybe Moby thought he was safe letting that little secret out, because few of the Germans understood what he said (i.e. there was no audience reaction whatsoever) but I know! And now you know! I’m not sure what you’re going to do about it, but anyway. The disturbing thing was when we left the gig, we passed a stall selling Moby t-shirts, which before the gig had seemed normal, but afterwards took on a whole new meaning. Unsuspecting Germans were buying them by the dozen. Or maybe they weren’t so unsuspecting?

Future travels:
Frankfurt to play some Aussie Rules (apparently lack of ability is no barrier, so I should be alright)
Amsterdam with my sister (if I get back without being arrested or being tempted by the red light district it’ll be a successful trip)
Berlin with my sister and a couple of others thrown in for extra spice.

Speaking of travel, I’ll be back home from Dec 18th to Jan 15th. I’ll be at Knoppy’s on Fri Dec 20 for a few drinks to celebrate the fact that I’m back home, and also the minor matter of my birthday, so if you want to come along to that, please do.

Last but not least, this edition’s German Lessons For Rabbits
I was told that the German word for crossbar (latte) is the same as the word for erection. I can hear the German commentator now . . . “Beckham with the free kick. He bends it over the wall, it beats the keeper . . . and cannons back into play off the erection! Unbelievable!” Yes, quite.
Also, the English word rucksack actually comes from the German word rucksack, which comes from “rucken” (back) and “sack” (I reckon you can figure out what that one is). So, to impress your friends or merely pretend to be German say this instead of bag: rook-suck (don’t forget to roll the r)
There were a couple of others, but I’ve forgotten them, so you’ll have to wait until next time eh?