Tuesday, September 21
More Tales Of Drunkenness
Does it ever end? Hopefully not.I forgot to mention when describing the Sunday night in my last post how I'd spent nearly 2 hours chatting to just one girl whilst we were in the Dubliner. She'd joined our group at some point in the afternoon, and as the evening went on we just ended up chatting for ages.
I'll just point out here how I was quite, quite drunk by the latter hours of the evening, what with the having drank for 7 hours or so. Hence my lack of memory for the best part of that time. And hence my surprise when I woke up the next morning to find a message on my phone from her.
I remembered giving my number to a different girl, not in a "hey darling, here's my number; call me" way, but simply as a means of staying in touch when we needed to. I could have sworn that her name was different from that of the girl I'd received one from. Don't you just hate that? You give your number to one girl, and another texts you... I get that all the time.
Ahem.
Fast forward to the next morning. We had to be at some random place by 8.30 (8.30?! Come on, let's get realistic) for the first day's classes on our language courses, and I was struggling. Hungover on the first day? Hell yeah. Start as you mean to go on is definitely the correct attitude.
We had indeed been streamed according to the results of the test on Saturday, and I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in one of the better classes, and even more so because there were a couple of people that I already knew in the class. I'm in the 5th best out of 15 classes, which is half-decent. I'm especially pleased by that because everybody above me (and some below me, come to think of it) study German specifically at their universities, whereas for me it was sort of on the side.
But that's enough building up my ego for one day. Let's get back on with the making myself look callous and thoroughly socially inept. I'm better at writing that.
After struggling through three hours of classes with my head pounding against the inside of my skull in all directions at once, I made my way back into the Old Town with a load of the people I'd been drinking with the night before. Stories were exchanged, and I made the somewhat stupid mistake of saying that I'd woken up to find that text message on my phone, but didn't remember who it was from.
The girl was standing right there, and I knew by that point that it was her, but my big mouth kept running away from me, digging my hole ever deeper. I sure know how to make someone feel really small. She headed home for a bit, whereas the rest of us went to the open-air swimming pool that we'd found earlier.
Incidentally, the weather here has been nothing short of amazing here. 3 weeks with barely a cloud in the sky; I was not expecting that. Which is why I don't have any shorts here, and didn't have any swimming shorts until I bought some at a shop. Big heavy jumpers? Sure, I have loads. Shorts and flip-flops? Not a chance.
Anyway, as soon as she'd left our group that was wandering down Hauptstrasse (Main Street, very long), the girl who I had actually given my number to (all in a fraternal way, remember) made it clear to me that what I'd said had actually been quite offensive to the first girl.
I spent all afternoon worrying about that, especially as she wasn't around for me to apologise to. A great way to make friends Rob, well done. You're really making a good impression here.
Thankfully, my fears weren't realised. I forget where we started drinking on the Monday evening, but I know that quite early on we ended up in a bar called iPunkt, where we discovered 4 litre cocktail jugs on the menu. 4 litres. Of cocktail. In a jug. Heaven on Earth.
The jugs were supposedly designed to be drunk between 4 or 5, but myself and Becca (the forgotten name girl) decided that we could do one between the 2 of us. We're English, we're big drinkers, we could pull this off. Kein Problem.
And we fucking did too. We finished it, 4 litres of cocktail between 2 of us. We rule. I've got a couple of photos of it on my phone, sparklers sticking out of it and all, but I don't have my connecting cable with me, so I can't put them up here. Soon, I promise. The cable, along with just about everything else I need, is in a box back currently somewhere in Europe in a FedEx van, making it's way here. That box can't arrive quickly enough, I swear.
I'm not sure if we went anywhere else after iPunkt, my memory has been dulled by the twin ravages of alcohol and the passage of time. I'm guessing that we did, because I half-remember leaving, but not really. You know how it is.
Anyway, that's another day described. Time to head out to that same bar for another night of drinking, although I'm trying to take a week off at the moment. Health and financial reasons have forced me onto the wagon for a few days.
OK, so it's just financial reasons. Medical science will eventually overtake my drinking and provide a cure / solution for the liver disease that I will no doubt develop in later life. A positive attitude, I feel.
