Work, Working, and Working for the Weekend. And Apocalypto.

(When Eryn Attacks - Part 3 is still forthcoming...)


Last week's work load reminded me somewhat of residency. I was on call from the Friday before last until Thursday before this past weekend. Seven days of inpatient duty, basically working from 7:30 am until roughly about 7 pm each night, though I stayed later a few nights. It brought me back a little, and it also really wore me out.

The inpatient scene at Landstuhl is a little nutty relative to most other hospitals. Though not exclusively, it tends to be a young person's hospital. Young soldier/patients are scattered about in disconcerting numbers. Most have traumatic injuries - burns or missing limbs - and the wards at times can seem just disproportionately filled with the relatively young. In my case, the young people I get on my team are medically "interesting" types, with weird blood diseases, leukemias, odd infections, inflammatory bowel disorders, and the like. And interesting from a medical perspective is never good from the common view point. These types come and go relatively independent of the violent waves in Iraq. But the trauma patients are a different story.

The weekend before last was an especially bloody one down there. And when the violence spikes, it becomes inevitable that 24-48 hours later the hospital feels the backlash, and our ward and ICU beds slowly swell up with patients like the soft tissue surrounding a badly sprained ankle. When that surge comes, it is again, mostly trauma. But the increase in workload affects eveveryone, even the internists. There are consults to be had, and work to be pushed off onto other services. The surgeons become busier, and by proxy, so do we, especially on other, more middle-ground cases. The ICU nurses are always calling asking when my old CHF-guy can be transferred to the ward. There is buzz and activity all over the place. Planes and buses are constantly coming and going. Patients are being wheeled everywhere.

I don't particularly like walking through the ICU at Landstuhl. On my way to see my patients (typically an older sort), I have to walk by the beds of young kids with no legs, kids with tubes sticking out of their mouths, kids with visibily horrific burn wounds taking up large portions of their bodies. There's nothing good about it. Its an ugly, daily reminder of what's happening down there. Some days, its just too real. It makes me shake my head.

But I won't dwell on that too much today. Just thought it worth mentioning.


Because of my long work week, I chose to relax for much of the weekend. Didn't do anything too exciting.

I did go to the movies twice, though.

I have seen exactly five movies in the theater since I got back from Iraq. I liked the first four:

"Casino Royale" - The best Bond in DECADES. Highly recommend it. Its perhaps a half-hour too long (mostly thanks to a chase scene in the beginning), but I really liked it. It was dark, quite compelling, and actually looked at the dark side of the Bond character. Plus, it was an actual film rather than the average Bond which is more of a brand-name franchise of one liners, gadgets, and calendar girls.


"Borat" - Certainly not for everyone, but I laughed my ass off through most of it. I don't know what else to say. I will never get some of the images of that wrestling scene out of my head.

"The Departed" - Classic Scorsese. Engaging. Best acting I've ever seen from DiCapprio (though "Catch Me if you Can" was good for him too) . Good film.

"Children of Men" - I saw this on Saturday night. Not a bad film at all. It's dark - quite dark. Once you get past the primary suspension of disbelief (i.e. that all women in the world are infertile, for some reason, 25 years from now), though, and take THAT for what it is, its not a bad film at all. It certainly lacks subtlety at points - and perhaps to a fault in its anti-war messages - but its some of the best technical film making I've seen in a while, and it certainly kept me thinking about it for several days after. I'd say worth a viewing for sure, though don't go in expecting the "Feel Good hit of the year"....


And then there's number five. "Apocalypto."

Ah, Mel Gibson, is there anything he doesn't do? I'm not sure where to start, or even how much to write, but here it goes.


(WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW. IF YOU WANT TO SEE APOCALYPTO AND NOT KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON - DON'T READ THIS...)

If "Children of Men" gives you one fair improbable that requires a suspension of disbelief, then "Apocalypto" gives you about twenty. At times, this sort of thing reaches laugh-out-loud proportions. I'm sorry, but "Apocalypto" just didn't work for me.

Basically, its the story of a peaceful tribe of Mayans who are attacked and essentially kidnapped by a not-so-peaceful tribe of Mayans. The entire village is rounded up, killed or captured, and the survivors are marched off to a far away place where the women will be sold as slaves and the men sacrificed a vengeful Sun God. Our Hero (Tm) manages to save his pregnant wife and young son prior to his own capture, by lowering them into a hole in the ground during the early portion of the raid where they aren't discovered. He then joins the fray in the village. Ultimately, and after some brutal Mayan-style beat downs and killings, he and the others are all defeated and they're hauled off as described above. Along the way, they're tortured of course (It's A Mel Gibson film) and treated like less than human. No surprises here.

Mel Gibson has some serious issues. Even taking his recent public faux-pas out of the picture, you only need to watch one of his movies (meaning the ones he directs) for about thirty minutes until you realize he's more or less a complete sadist. He also likes painting his protagonists blue for some reason.... Anyway, this is a Mel film, so there's beatings and rape and barbaric savagery throughout, and enough of all of it until you not only get the point, but also have it shoved down your throat thoroughly and repeatedly like an amazonian spear. We get it. People are savages.

Anyway, cut away to the human-sacrifice scenes which are as gory as you'd expect from old Mel, complete with cut off heads rolling down the stairs of steep, mossy temples in the South American sun. Our Hero is led up the ramp with his buddies to the top of a large temple where all these evil medicine-man types are knee deep in the hooplah. Its like a gorier version of Temple of Doom, complete with hearts being ripped out and everything. Our Hero suffers through watching some of his buddies be "sacrificed", and then its his turn to go up. After several deep reflective moments and slow motion scenes meant to elicit emotion, he is ultimately saved from sacrifice by a plot device once used in an old Batman and Robin TV episode - namely a solar eclipse occurs while he is literally on the chopping block. This is SYMBOLIC, of course, and the high priest proclaims that whatever Sun God they worship has "drank his fill" of human blood.

Quite convenient. Now Our Hero is released back to his originial captor and thereby free to be tortured with his village buddies some more - this time in a different way! They are marched down from the temple and into a large sand field of sorts. They are told to "run" toward a corn field (about 100-150 meters away) located on the edge of the jungle (and hence freedom) while their captors throw spears and launch arrows at them. Best of all, in a show of fatherly pride, the head baddie (who is also the main captor) elects to send his son out near the start of the cornfield to wait and be the "finisher", clearly a respected position. The son waits out there until the victims are writhing around on the ground, inevitably with spears and arrows sticking out of them. Then he whacks them in the head with his club or cuts their throat with his hand-me-down-from-dad knife and finishes them off, making father proud the whole time.

Well, finally its Our Hero's turn to run. He's cut free of his bonds, gets a wicked stare down by one of the other baddies (and man can you can sense a future showdown coming between THESE two...) and then he takes off with his partner (they run in pairs). Smarter than your average captured Mayan villager, our hero actually serpentines (the first pair ran utterly straight for some reason) as he sprints toward the corn. Everything looks good at first. He's quick, he's cutting back, he's dodging arrows my mere inches - he basically looks like a USC Reggie Bush highlight film set in the amazon basin circa 1600.

Meanwhile, Our Hero's running partner doesn't fare as well. He's felled with an arrow and goes down hard in the dirt. Not Our Hero, though. He keeps bobbing and weaving - he's almost there....

Oops, he's suddenly skewered with a spear - a large-bore javelin thrown with incalculable precision (over a 100 meter distance I might add) by the head baddie himself! What a shot! The spear goes right through the right side of his abdomen, just below the rib cage and liver - its a through and through wound. It looks bad. And thus Our Hero, too, begins his ground writhing. And here comes sonny, over to finish him off. First he finished off Our Hero's hapless partner, giving Our Hero precious time to consider taking the spear out of his abdomen. Oops, too late. The son walks over. It's Our Hero's turn to get clubbed like a seal, or knifed to death, or whatever. But wait! One of the other downed buddies is still alive. He grabs an ankle! The son slips! That's all it takes. Now Our Hero is the driver's seat. He blocks the killing blow and then turns the tables. Then, before you know it the son's throat is getting cut (and with his own knife - which was just given to him by dad - oh the irony!) and Our Hero is pulling the spear out of his abdomen, getting up, and starting toward the corn again. I knew he could do it!

But uh oh. You know who doesn't like that - and with a look the head baddie's face melts from fatherly pride into twisted rage. He begins to charge as Our Hero slips into the jungle. The head baddie runs up to his dying son. Some pseudo-deep "goodbye scene" occurs, the kid finally dies, and then the uber-baddie turns his thoughts quickly and completely to revenge on Our Hero. He gathers his posse of 10 peeps or so and they all charge into the jungle after Our Hero, who by the way was SKEWERED WITH A SPEAR only moments earlier. Man, is he tough!

And thus the stage is set for the next hour of the movie - a long, long chase through the jungle as Our Hero runs back towards his original village (to his wife and son) with the team of baddies on his heels. It all plays out like a highly digital game of "Pitfall" with every jungle menace becoming part of the action. And here, as if it wasn't bad enough already, the suspension of disbelief simply grows to ridiculous proportions.

Our Hero is apparently able to SPRINT (and I do mean sprint - like full speed, ALL THE TIME) in a jungle for hours at a time, always with his enemies anywhere from 30 to 150 feet behind him - they are also constantly sprinting. He does all this, of course, after enduring a forced jungle march while captured, which took about two days and during which he was tortured and starved. Oh also, before all this running, did I mention he was SKEWERED WITH A SPEAR?

And so the action gets ridiculous. He literally outruns a jaguar for a hundred meters in the jungle. He climbs trees, makes astounding leaps, engages in hand to hand combat, even goes over a massive water fall - all with a perforated bowel, which occured, of course, at that point in which he was skewered with a spear. He literally rubs some dirt on it, however, which seems to help.

Anyway, it just sort of goes on from there. There are snakes, poison toads, blow guns, and other classic jungle devices which come and go. Our Hero, who's name in the movie is Jaguar's Paw (look out - more in-your-face symbolism), begins to spiritually morph into a jaguar as time goes by. He even starts running on all fours at one point (and gets turned black from quicksand a la Arnold in Predator in one scene). Yikes.

Slowly but surely he turns the tables on all his attackers. He eventually gets the best of them all, including grizzly showdowns with his early nemesis (stare-down guy) and of course the head baddie himself. There's lots of violence, lots of blood, lots of bad dialogue (hey one-liners are OK as long as they are spoken in a dead language, right?) and again a scene where a jaguar bites a man's face off. Our Hero eventually gets home to his wife and all is well...well, right up until the point where he dies of massive infection from his perforated bowel. But they don't show you that part - it must be on the upcoming DVD....

When Eryn Attacks - Part 2

Berlin (Day 5 through Day 8)

On Saturday, December 30th, Pete, Lindsay, Eryn and I rolled out of K-town and headed north on the autobahn toward Berlin for the New Year’s weekend. I had never been up to Berlin before, but was certainly pumped to go, having heard nothing but rave reviews in the past. The par-tay at the Brandenburg Gate was one of the world hot spots for such festivities, and the lure of “doing” New Year’s on such a world level was pretty enticing and something I had never done before. (Nor, should I say, was my enthusiasm lessened by the prospect of seeing endless Funboys on a party holiday in a city also known as the “gay capitol of Europe”. Game on!)


The Highlights:

-We spent Saturday the 30th traveling up to Berlin by car. Not a bad trip - about 6 hours for 400 miles and that’s with multiple stops. After a smooth ride in Lindsay’s BMW, we rolled in to town, checked into our place, and then walked around the local area. We had a few drinks at a nearby bar, and then tracked down a Thai/Chinese place and had some pretty good food. (One of the great things about Berlin is the fact that is truly an international city - and hence one isn’t relegated to eat only German food. German food, while good in small doses or for novelty purposes, becomes tiresome and heavy after multiple, frequent servings. Other than bratwurst, which you certainly couldn’t eat every day, almost all German food consists of some form of meat which is pounded flat, breaded, and fried. It is HEAVY, immobilizing cuisine. But in Berlin we had Asian, Spanish, and French fare, all of which was up to snuff and offered a pleasant variety.) After dinner we hit up another bar, this one rather smoky, had a few more drinks, and then went back to call it a night.





Eryn gets Artsy in a bar





Pete gets....Artsier




Idiots at the Restaurant





Eryn slays Lindsay


-Our accommodations for the trip provided both a good staging area (for a good price) and also some classic German entertainment. We stayed at a smallish “Pension” in western Berlin, which turned out to be a pretty cool place in a neat neighborhood. And surprisingly, two of the three “inn keeps” at this place were incredibly friendly, sociable, and helpful people, doing much by themselves to tarnish my amusing mental image of the average German stranger as a blunt, scowling, stand-off-ish type with minimal patience and quick to frown. These two main people who ran this place were seemingly always at the ready with maps, food ideas, polyester pillows (some of us have down allergies), and even a few spontaneous smiles. They really did make our stay quite pleasant.

That said, there was another, THIRD inn keep who was much more the typical German and a source of much amusement for our group. She really had it out for Lindsay, especially, and there were several encounters which had us reeling with laughter. For one thing, the lady felt it important to remind Lindsay ad nauseum about the importance of closing the outer, public door to the area where Lindsay’s room was. (This door, which required a key to open, was used by many to get to a wing of the hotel where individual room doors were then accessed.) Lindsay would leave the outer door open from time to time so that Pete, Eryn, and I could get to her room unabated when we were meeting up before meals and such. One time, this lady was snooping around and noticed Lindsay had left the door open. The following conversation ensued:

Inn Keep: (stone faced) “You must keep ‘zis door closed.”

Lindsay: “Ok, sorry. No problem.”

Inn Keep: “Zis door is used by many to get in here. You must keep it closed.”

Lindsay: “OK, I understand. I’ll keep it closed.”

Inn Keep: “If you leave it open, anybody can come in.”

Lindsay: “Right. I got it. The door should stay closed.”

Inn Keep: “You must keep it closed.”

Lindsay: “Ummm. OK.”

This conversation continued on for about four more lines of similar dialogue. Classic.

But that story aside, this lady’s best work came on New Year’s morning at breakfast. Everybody got up hung-over (except maybe Eryn), and we stumbled dizzily downstairs with our headaches after not enough sleep to eat the solid if not spectacular hotel breakfast buffet. Pete, Eryn, and I got downstairs first. Later, we were joined by Lindsay who took a seat at the not-yet-cleaned table next to us. BIG mistake. With one look followed by a quick frown, the sour third inn keep came scuttling over as Lindsay was settling into her seat. She looks at Lindsay, looks at the dirty table, looks back at Lindsay, (probably recalling that this is the same chick who had so blatantly left the outer door open) and coldly declared in incredulous fashion:

“You have sat at a table that has NOT been cleaned...”

Now, this seems like a simple enough line of dialogue. The information in the statement is both obvious and true. What can not be brought to bear in the printing of this line, however, is the tone in which it was spoken. The accented English was so coolly declarative, containing more than a hint of unspoken German World War II era menace, as if she were channeling Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark in the scene where he played with Marion Ravenwood's fire at the bar in the Himalayas. The pause at the end of the line was the best - it hung there as if it were placed, deliberately, to give one time to reflect on the pure error of breaking the rules , of sitting at this unclean and therefore unavailable table, its silence inferring “This act you have committed is, of course, against the rules. When the rules are broken, there are punishments. Without punishments, society cannot exist. When ANY rule is broken, the punishment shall be severe. And therefore, of course, the punishment for this crime of sitting at this table in this fashion....is DEATH.”

Then, as the pause ends, one could imagine the steely calm of the lady’s voice giving way to bubbling-over vengeance as she screams the hypothetical sentence for the crime at the top of her lungs with zealous German fervor. (Now in reality, the lady simply spoke this line coldly to Lindsay, gave a disapproving look, and then walked away to get some things to clean up the table with. But WE took it much further, absolutely loving the German-ness of this lady’s no-nonsense attitude and her delivery, and of course thinking of and speaking the multiple possible endings to her pause as if she were some Nazi uber-frau.)

Just as the lady got out of earshot, Eryn was the first to capitalize and sarcastically finished the line with an imitation of her voice - a screaming decree of...”FIRING SQUAD!” in mock top-of-the-lungs fashion. Then we all lost it and took turns imitating the voice and ending that pause with various screaming punishments. (“You have sat a table that has NOT been cleaned....GUARDS! MACH SCHNELL!”) Etc.

Whether or not the last couple of paragraphs convey it - the whole surreal/stereotypical encounter was absolutely classic and hilarious. Totally jump started me out of my hang-over. We were all in stitches for at least 10 minutes and it easily one of the highlights of the trip with many repeated quotings.

-On New Year’s Eve itself we started the day by walking and busing all around Berlin. Sightseeing highlights included a bombed out World War II Era church as well all sorts of other things from enormous government buildings to medieval “doms”, as well as the various towers and museums that make up central Berlin. Eventually, we ended up over at Checkpoint Charlie near the old Berlin Wall (apparently its been torn down now), walking amidst its remnants and informative display pieces. The centerpiece and focal point of Checkpoint Charlie is a large billboard with a US Soldier staring out one side (toward the East) and a USSR soldier on the opposite face (staring West), symbolizing of course the entire cold war conflict. We also walked along the remnants of the old wall itself, and finally toured the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, which though poorly organized and crowded, was a nevertheless enjoyable look at the history of the wall as well as the multiple escape attempts made by East Berliners trying to “get West”. Some of the attempts at escape were rather heroic and ingenious. Pretty cool stuff and all very well documented, AND yet another example of a prominent European city having a real sense of history about it - which is one of the most enjoyable things to me about traveling around this continent. For some reason I couldn’t stop quoting JFK’s famous “Ich Bin Berliner” line in my head - and occasionally aloud in full Mayor Quimby voice as well. Eryn and I had also been playing the cold-war based board game Twilight Struggle (his X-mas gift to me) prior to the trip, so the visit to this specific area was even more fascinating.










We've seen this pose all around the world now





Schooling the Wall






Eryn Nerds it up at Checkpoint Charlie (Don't Ask)


-After our day on the town it was time to prepare for New Year’s Eve itself. We headed back to the hotel and Eryn and I decided to take a quick nap to rest up while Pete, Lindsay, and new compatriots Jeanie (friend of Pete’s from work) and Kenrick (Jeanie’s friend) began drinking and getting ready. When I woke up, I perhaps foolishly decided I had to “catch up” on drinking. So without pause I dove into a nearby bottle of Jack Daniels and before I knew it I had done about 3-4 shots worth of Jack in the form of Jack and Coke before we even hit dinner. Fairly buzzed, we all started getting dressed up and ready for dinner. The highlight of the wardrobe selections was without a doubt the disco-funk-da-fied get up that Pete had brought with him, which provided us (and the people we encountered) ceaseless entertainment from the beginning of the night to the end.



Pete out-discos Discostup



We had dinner at Spanish Tapas place near our hotel which was excellent. And with dinner came a couple of bottles of wine as well as loud and entertaining conversation. Everybody was in a good mood and the entire evening just picked up steam from there. Eryn was sloshed like the rest of us (slurring it up Portland-style) and nobody should let him tell them different. After dinner, we realized we were running behind and we had to make our way down to the infamous Brandenburg Gate so we hopped into a couple of cabs and descended on the mecca of the Berlin New Year’s Eve celebration.

The amount of people was staggering, but so was the space, so it wasn’t until we got relatively close did everything feel “tight”. After walking a while, we were routed around a series of ropes on the outer edge of this park and we slowly made our way in. Nearer to the Gate but still in the park, Pete scampered off into the woods on some drunken logic to look for a “short-cut” but only managed to cut his face on a branch. It was the first of many alcohol-related idiotic-but-funny incidents of the night.

When we finally got into the “main” area, which was vast, we all decided we needed a drink and headed towards the nearest open bar. This was about 11:20 pm or so by now, and the crowd, the music, and the energy were in full throat. Unfortunately for us, there were about four bartenders trying to serve about 500 people beer, and the line movement was slow to say the least. We actually sat at the bar, awaiting our drinks for at least 30 minutes and sad to say, actually spent New Year’s IN LINE. Not a real big deal, though, as we were still outside in the masses - we just happened to be under the tarp which covered this outside bar and hence our views of the fireworks were sub-par. When the magic moment came, though, we simply turned toward the central area, hugged one another, and watched the show, which consisted of hundreds of fireworks and dancing, celebrating people as far as the eye could see. And then, around 12:10 am or so, we finally got our drinks.

The overall scene on New Year’s at the gate is hard to describe, and certainly this challenge is intensified because I was pretty drunk at the time (and that’s no lie). But if nothing else it was fun, just UTTERLY fun. People were going nuts, everybody was happy. People were dancing, clapping, and laughing in a series of unorganized groups that stretched for miles in the middle of the city. Off in the far distance, we could just make out the gate (we unfortunately couldn’t get close until after the crowd started to disperse a little after midnight hit). We were going to try to hook up with Irv Cohen and his wife for the actual New Year’s, but the crowds made this impossible and he ended up seeing the fireworks from about 100 meters away from the gate. There were loud speakers everywhere, which alternated between playing music and blaring the voice of some uber-zealous German DJ guy trying to fire the crowd up. Eryn and I kept exchanging “holy shit” glances every time this guy’s high energy, “ARE YOU READY TO PARTY?!!?” (but in German) type voice screamed something. His tone was clearly happy, however the loud, harsh German voice spoken in a “rally” type of tone certainly evoked memories of a slightly different German guy who was ALSO prone to speak loud, harsh German in a “rally” type of tone - a quite different sort of rally, however. Overall the effect of this “DJ Hitler” was quite amusing and had us busting up and shaking our heads every time he screamed something. (Although if he had ended any phrase with “SIEG HEIL!” or something similar, I may have sobered up instantaneously. Thankfully, he didn’t.)

As I’ve mentioned before, New Year’s in Germany is a firework holiday. (I guess they have no fourth of July and are jealous of our freedom.) Fireworks are fine but having just come back from mortar-land, Iraq, I found that loud explosions in my immediate area weren’t exactly the best thing in the world for my sense of calm. I definitely jumped a bit, and certainly more at the bass-heavy blasts (which sound more like real mortars), but I was proud in that I didn’t assume the fetal position on the ground or scream for everyone to find cover and get down, get down...for the love of Jesus just get down...

OK, I’m back.

So in the next half hour after midnight, the crowd slowly started to spread about a bit and we found that we could make our way as a group up the main walk-platz towards the gate. In between DJ Hitler’s rantings, they were still playing music, and if a song we liked came on we’d stop and start dancing around - again everyone was having an absolute blast - I certainly was. Some of the best moments of the night came from this period of time, interestingly coinciding with the time period when I was more or less at my functionally drunkest. There were many memorable quotes, but the most lovable perhaps was my non-stop screaming repetitions of “DAS IST NEW YEAR’S!” and “DAS IST BERLIN!” which I helpfully shouted into people’s faces every 10 seconds or so just in case anyone around me: a) forgot which holiday we were celebrating, or b) forgot which city we were in.

And at one particular moment, perhaps THEE highlight of the night occurred. The stars must have aligned, for we found ourselves all in a circle, arms around each other’s shoulders, and for no good reason we jumped up and down for several minutes simply chanting, “VUN-DER-BAR! VUN-DER-BAR!” (German for “wonderful”) over and over again at the top of our lungs. We must have looked like hapless idiots to those nearby - especially to anyone who might be German. But, at the time, looking back now, it seemed SO right to jump and chant that I can’t come to grips with the notion that anything, at any other time, in the history of the world, could ever have felt MORE right - period. As we talked about all of this stuff the next day we just shook our hungover heads and laughed - I smile just thinking about it. What a blast. Eryn made the astute observation that to those Germans around us doing this it must have been the equivalent of being in Time’s Square on New Year’s Eve and stumbling upon some drunken Euros jumping in a circle and shouting “SUP-ER COOL!” “SUP-ER COOL!” over and over again for no particularly discernible reason.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Eryn managed to catch some of these amazing snippets on video tape, and I’m sure they will be available for viewing soon over at his website, and possibly over here as well. Perhaps the biggest VIDEO highlight is Pete and I dancing around to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” The video clip Eryn has is awesome, revealing an obviously drunken Pete and an obviously drunken me facing each other while Pete has his arms outstretched, gripping his gold-studded scarf, which is wrapped around my shoulders. He appears to be singing to me while shimmying the scarf back and forth as I just laugh and giggle in immeasurable ecstasy. A description just doesn’t do this one justice - it MUST be seen. (And once more Eryn’s insistence on bringing the video camera ensures I will never be able to run for any sort of elected office - ever....)

After our little dance session, we kept walking up to the gate, and then around some more, and then, a few hours later, it was time to head back. It apparently took us a long-ass time to get back to our hotel, but luckily in my drunken stupor I don’t remember a whole lot of it - I just sort of tagged along with the group and timed seemed to fly by. (Why everyone decided to follow drunken Pete’s lead I have no idea.)

Ultimately, what I do remember is that THIS New Year’s Eve was just unbelievably fun. Good group, good crowd, good moods, great time. Even the hangover the next morning couldn’t dampen the smiles as I recalled the images and sounds from the night before. This was my best New Year’s in a long, long time. Possibly Ever? Well, at least since the millenium New Year’s - for now it remains up for debate.



Guess who's been drinking...





Madness






Jeanie and Kenrick (and Lindsay)





Pete and E



- On New Year’s Day, Monday, after experiencing our hilarious breakfast encounter with the dour third inn-keep, we lounged around a bit for the morning, nursing our hangovers until about 2 pm or so. Then Jeanie and Kenrick took off out of town and Lindsay, Pete, E and I set about seeing the rest of Berlin. Interestingly enough, we headed back over to the Brandenburg Gate - the scene of the crime - this time to revel in its glory during the day time. The Gate comes complete with its own history, of course, which Pete read to us from the guidebook while Eryn and I took pictures. From the Gate we marched through several plazas of firework remnants down to the Reichstag, which is the “Capitol” building equivalent for the German government. We waited in line to go up to the top of it, and while we did that, it started raining which made things interesting, or should I say less fun. Still despite the hangovers and cold rain, spirits remained high and the four of us had a good day talking, laughing, and for some reason constantly imitating the chicken dance from Arrested Development.




Brandenburg Gate




Lindsay and E in front of the Reichstag




Berlin by night from the top of the 'Stag


That night we ate dinner at the French Restaurant in the Ritz Carlton and afterwards we toured around old East Berlin a little bit, walking off the dinner and seeing some of the eclectic neighborhoods. We had a few more drinks that night and on the next day we did a little more sightseeing and then headed back. Our trip home took a lot longer because of mega-traffic, but we still had a good time, and Lindsay subjected us to her bottomless hip-hop and dance music collection, which was both good and bad...

Overall, Berlin was awesome. A great time in a great city. I definitely want to go back again and would also like to just experience it on a non-holiday weekend. I would have liked to have seen the Holocaust Memorial and some of the world-class museums which we weren’t able to get to. But still, just a phenomenal place. It might just be my favorite European city at this point. I’ll definitely be heading back in the near future.


(Up next, When Eryn Attacks, Part 3 - “Worms, Euro Go Karts, and Munich!”)

Back from France

Had a great time in Chamonix this past weekend, despite only mediocre snow. But I'll get to that later - right now I'm working on finishing up the other posts regarding Eryn's trip out here. The Berlin piece is turning into quite a doozy on my word processor - five pages at this point - yikes. Unfortunately, its not ready yet; hopefully tomorrow.

A couple of pics from this weekend's trip in the meantime:

Off to France

Future installments of "When Eryn Attacks" will unfortunately have to wait until after the long weekend. In about an hour or so I'm leaving again with the Tannenbaums to go snowboarding - this time in Chamonix, France. Pete and I will be assaulting the legendary "Mont Blanc", and apparently they actually have snow.

Toodles.

When Eryn Attacks - Part 1

He stalks silently, coalescing from the shadows, bringing only DEATH.



On the cold and drizzly morning of December 26th, I got up early, drove to the Frankfurt airport, and picked up my long time friend Eryn Roston to begin two weeks of galavanting about the German Fatherland. (And from that moment on, from the Black Forest to Berlin, no German would be safe from two distinctly American friends with little to no reservations about making complete jackasses of themselves...)

Eryn has the distinct position of being my longest-running friend that I still keep in regular touch with. He was the second friend I ever made in San Diego, behind only the legendary Abe Rodriguez. But with Abe out of the picture now (and I realize that the phrasing there makes it seem like we murdered him - which we did) , Eryn gains that title, sitting on the oldest-friend-I-still-communicate-with depth chart slightly ahead of Marc (Fwats X) and even more ahead of a gaggle of my other San Diego boys. Eryn and I have been friends for 17 years now, a fact which makes me feel old, but in a good way.

And thus it was with no small amount of excitement that I anticipated his arrival and the two weeks of good times I knew we'd have.

People who know both Eryn and I know our dynamic a little bit. But for those who don't, it worth pointing out that both Eryn and I are quite gifted in "bringing out the jackass" in the other. I believe this to be a direct result of us forming our friendship in the giggly and immature years of high school. Of course, rather than growing out of this sort of thing - like most normal people do - Eryn and I have chosen to cling tightly to and embrace this "jack-assed-ness" and live it to the fullest every time we're together. Its not that we can't be serious together, because we can. Its just that 85% of the time - we choose not to be - and makes it for countless laughs (at least for us). More on this later - just keep this in mind as some of the events unfold...

Day 1

I picked E up in the morning and within a few minutes we were blasting out onto the Autobahn and he was telling me about the kid next to him on the airplane who for some reason wouldn't shut up about "Guild Wars" for a good chunk of the flight. A good start.

We got back to my pad (by "my" I mean "Gwen's") - I gave him a quick tour, we exchanged some X-mas gifts (he got me a board game - shock!) and then we set out onto the Kaiserslautern walk-platz to get some food and just check stuff out. The platz was as empty as I'd ever seen it, being the day after X-mas (Germans aren't shopping crazy like Americans) and it was also freezing cold. We found a place to eat serving a Euro-style buffet, though, and sat down to eat. Eryn saw his first funboy at the restaurant, some teenager with a faux-hawk and full on leather pants (at a lunch buffet, remember), and had his first (of many) exposures to Phil Collins - the Lord and Master of German Radio. In fact, I couldn't help but laugh - the restaurant was playing a Phil Collins CD - it wasn't even radio. (People never believe just how much Phil Collins dominates out here - but believe it. He rules with an Iron Fist that most people assume only David Hasslehoff can wield.)

After lunch, we walked around a bit more, then headed back to my pad. We hadn't planned anything for the first day because I was unsure of how much jet lag E would have upon landing. Dinner time rolled around and Eryn was starting to get tired. We met up with Lindsay (friend from work) and her fiancee (on leave from Iraq) and Eryn just about passed out at dinner from the jet-lagged exhaustion. So we cut out early and Eryn went to bed.

Day 2

On Day 2 (Wednesday), we went to Heidelberg, where Eryn encountered the first of several notable German people who were chuckle-worthy in their "German-ness". This lady, a tour guide (like most of the local population that we found amusing - other than funboys of course) for the centuries old Heidelberg castle, was a stoic older lady who spoke frankly and bluntly about the castle's history, it's inhabitants, etc. Our favorite part of her spiel was her look of utter disdain - in the form of a pure German scowl - which she would don after asking us if we had any questions on the material she just covered. Nobody ever had any questions, and she would scowl in disgust and storm off to the next part of the castle tour, angrily imploring the group to follow while Eryn and I mimicked impressions of the scowl. Awesome.

The castle itself was pretty cool, and I had never done the "audio" tour. When not enjoying our tour guide, Eryn and I stood in the back during this tour and compared the castle, and its defenses, to the one we'd visited in Japan. We decided that if we could take out a thousand samurai at Himeji Castle, then we could easily have taken this medieval number out without too much difficulty as well. We high-fived about it.

After visiting the castle we walked around the Heidelberg walk-platz which was cool. And by cool I mean freezing cold - a recurring theme of the trip I might add. Here we got to try out our German while buying food and stuff. We'd say a phrase and then pat ourselves on the back at just how much we were convinced that everyone around was convinced we were completely German. We high-fived about that too.

After Heidelberg, we drove back to K-town and met up with Irv Cohen and his wife Andrea for dinner at Julien's (a French place in town) where Eryn was able to catch up with them. Irv and Eryn go way back, of course, to the days of college when Eryn dated Irv's daughter Rebecca, who graduated with us from high school. Irv now works as a nephrologist reservist at Landstuhl. Its all mildly confusing. Dinner was good, though. Let's just move on.



"Sprechen Sie Jack-ass?"




Day 3

On the third day, Eryn and I met up with my friend Libby (from work) and her out-of-town friend Heidi and the four of us drove up to the little country of Luxembourg which is nestled between France and Germany. I had been once before, and Luxembourg City is a neat little place to check out. We walked around the town for a little bit. Not much stands out in my mind from this day other than the fact that it was freezing cold (again). Libby and I dragged Eryn and Heidi to sushi (even though they're both from California) because WE are so starved for decent sushi out here. Rumor had it that there was a pretty good sushi place up in those parts, and I was eager to check it out. So we went, and it was kind of a surreal place where the menu was written by, as Eryn put it, the same guy who wrote the Red Robin menu - complete with corny jokes like "this roll filled with 'cream-of-sum-young-guy". Really odd. The fish was decent, but definitely not great. Though it was nice to have sushi, any sushi, again. It had been a while for me. Our waitress was one incredibly surly asian chick - any question about anything would set her eyes rolling with a "what the hell do you want from me?" type of look. Sweet.







E and Libby

Day 4

This was Friday, December 29th, and we didn't do too much. We were leaving for Berlin the next day, so Eryn and I took it easy, sleeping in a little. Then we had some lunch at a good Himalayan place in K-town. We were joined by Libby and Pete (she had just picked up Pete from the airport as he returned from the States). After lunch, we cruised back home and made more Berlin preparations. Dinner that night was at an Italian place with Lindsay, who would also be going to Berlin with us the next day.



And there it is. Part 1 of what I suspect will be about 3 parts. Up next: New Year's in Berlin.

(Also, I will try and put up ALL the pics (there are a bunch) in a flickr album or something. For now I'll just do a few pics here and there with the posts. )

Ain't No Sunshine When E's gone...

Eryn left today, after flying in two weeks ago to live it up here in the Fatherland. His visit was awesome and we had a blast. Full trip details to follow, in time, hopefully this week. I will say the New Year's Eve in Berlin was one of the best I've had in years - by far - and Eryn (unfortunately) has the video with the drunken escapades to prove it.

For now, its back to the grind of work. I'm exhausted after two long weeks of fun but tiring travel and staying up late last night to watch my sad Giants pretend that they were a playoff-caliber team. I finally got all my Christmas presents today, and thanks to all those who sent things - gifts, cards, etc - either through the mail or with Eryn, or in whatever form. I will write everyone individually in the coming weeks. And I suppose I should get around to mailing MY gifts out at some point. Unfortunately, I often suck at giving gifts on time.