Alex's flat

Now in karlsruhe. great night couch suring at Alex's flat. Sat around, planning to go out, drank a few beers and never went anywhere. perfect way to recover from work.

Now we just finished breaky and will head off to the autobahn in 2o mins and i will start my hitch to Holland. today i aim to reach Frankfurt.

And i have made a sign to hitch with by writing it on an old pillow case. waaaay better than cardboard. u can wrap it up and put it in your pocket or bag, you can write heaps of names on it (I'll add a pic to explain) and it can be re-used etc etc. I reckon it's an awesome idea. need to get others in on it... (o:

I catch a train in 2 hrs to Karlsruhe. There I will couch surf for one night before departing early next morning for Frankfurt mein; hitch hiking. There I stay another night couch surfing and then I will hitch up to Holland to meet Jo at a friends house; Sjoerds. He's the Dutch guy we travelled with for a bit back in our first month in Thailand. And he might even have a motorbike...

From a few nights ago...

We went out lat night in Landau. I have drunk all of three alcoholic beverages in the last month and a half and so we were to play it careful. Two of those drinks were banana beers too. Quite nice. Had them the other night when Steffen took us out for dinner. Rump steak. Cooked to perfection. Mmmmmmm. It was at The Green. He always goes there as the waitresses are worth the trip alone! B-U-T-Full!

Anyway, so we bought 6 beers each. 0.5ml bottles, 3L all up and they cost us all of $3 NZ. And if you return the bottles you get money back! Crazy.

Drinking started during work. A few sneaky's as I painted. Steffen kept asking why I was laughing but what could I say? Then another one in the bath (great!) and then another 3 drinking with Jo and two of the girls from the flat below us.

Then we hit town. First a bar to grab a snakebite for the girls to try and then on to a club. We went to The Lemon (the old Green) and wow! Do u have to be hot to serve drinks is this place too? Cool.

But they didn't serve SB's and so we had a lollie water the girls got us and then a beer of some sorts. I asked the waitress to surprise me (in German) and so I'm not sure of the type.

We then headed off to an Irish bar, still searching for the ellusive SB. First bar was closed, or not serving and so we headed off again to another one. But only Jo and I as the girls reckoned the bar would be closed. So off we walked, found the bar, were told we wouldn't be served and then next moment, just after I has suggested we head off, we found two drinks sitting in front of us.

Snakebites? Maybe, but they were pretty terrible. and the guy actually asked for a big tip for serving us so late! not sure if Jo did or not, it was his round. we ended up sitting there chatting till 3am and then when we stopped at one stage to look around we realised we were the only two still there and the bar staff told us they closed at 2am so if we had finished our drinks...

So yesterday should have been my last day working here in Landau. but I got lazy, finished early, and am in no rush now the finish is in sight anyway seeing as I am still floating as to where to go next and so i will finish instead today. just have to insulate some pipes. then I plan to head to Karlsruhe for a day or two and then hitch north to meet Jo somewhere. I had thought travelling together was over but perhaps not. maybe i was too rash. plus i seem to have ditched the car trip idea. kind of. it goes through countries which would no doubt be fun but why? what do i want to achieve? instead i will focus on surf and sail. but first to finish iup here. oh a what a joyous accasion it shall be!

oh and we might climb for a few weeks here again beginning of May with Steffen. then after that I will surf and Jo will climb some more...

imagine if you awoke tomorrow to find yourself in a straight jacket. returned to 'sanity'...