Gather 'Round Kiddos!

This one time I made a bunch of bad decisions and somehow still survived the night. Also I was sober.

So I decided to go on a random internet date with a guy who seemed fairly nice. He picked me up and we were going to go somewhere by his place. I told my roommates where I was going so I wouldn't just disappear off the face of the earth.

When we got down to his neighborhood he asked if he could just cook me dinner instead. I should have said no. However in a moment of stupidity I agreed and went up to his high rise apartment. He made something boring. I don't remember what but it was similar to the quality of something that may have come out of the microwave. It was not good. He then proceeded to say he was tired, and that I should leave, and oh by the way could I get myself home? I should have said no. I had however seen the train station mere feet away and thus thought it would not be an issue.

I was wrong.

I walked to said train station. It was for the wrong train. I figured that the right one could not be THAT far away and started walking.

About 15 minutes later, with no train in sight, I started to get worried. It became very clear that I had wandered into a not very nice part of town. To boot, if you have somehow missed my pictures, I am the most unintimidating little white boy. Ever. Greeeaaaat.

Then the police sirens started. I was getting worried. I called my best friend to calm my nerves. Why I did not get into a taxi I do not know. As I began talking to my best friend he also explained that he was in a similar situation. I am not sure why he was walking through a rough neighborhood in the middle of the night as well but he was. We decided it was safer to be alert and get off our phones.

A little while later I found a street with a bus stop I recognized. I began waiting for the bus. A very tall and scary looking man walked up. I was terrified. He was also waiting for the bus. He asked me about the bus. I answered quickly and shortly that I was walking to the train and giving up on the bus. He was following me.

After about 20 minutes I decided that is this man was going to jump me, then he probably would have already. Good. Safe. We finally reached the train.

At this point I should probably talk about karma. I don't believe in much of the supernatural. HOWEVER I do feel that when you have been given a gift you should repay the world for it. I survived this night and was now owing.

I met a man on the train who said he was going to visit his child aged daughter for the first time. He played out this huge sob story that was probably fake and asked me for money. I gave him $20. I don't know if I was just scared shitless or what but I certainly paid my karmic debt back that night.

To complete my night I got home and one of my roommates was clearly tripping. I came in and he was in the bathroom, with the light on, staring at himself in the mirror. This is really the best part of the story. So I said hello and that I was going to bed. The rest of the conversation followed thusly:

Roommate: Look at my eyes. They are huge.

Me: Ummmm yes. Yes they are.

Roommate: We should do something.

Me: It is almost 5 am. I am going to sleep... you should consider doing this as well.

Roommate: No no. We should go for a walk or something. The sun is coming up.

Me: Um yes. But it is early and I have been up all night and its not been fun and I really need to sleep.

Roommate: NO. I don't think you understand. We need to go for a walk. The sun is coming up. WE HAVE TO STOP THE SUN.

Me: OOOOOOK. It is bedtime. For me and ABSOLUTELY for you.

... And that was my worst date ever.

Friday Recap!

The secret is it is actually Saturday. Shhhh don't tell.

This week I think for now I am going to do away with the random photos. I am bored with that. The end.

At work this week I have been working with brand new employees. Two of them. They are nice and will be great and, as much as some people complain, I find working with newbies to be a breath of unjaded air. It has been lovely. Also I am working with a leader who is sort of attempting to groom me to be promoted into that position which I would quite like. Fingers crossed hoping that possibility becomes a feasibility soon.

Marc and I have been discussing remodeling and more excitingly redecorating a room in the house. I love planning those things so we have been emailing back and forth possible layouts, new furniture, ideas, etc. It will be interesting to see what happens there and I will post pictures as things progress.

Speaking of Marc I will be headed home on Monday! I convinced work not to send me home and to let me galavant around Europe instead. After a very frustrating morning in which Marc saved the day and did it for me I am not booked on a flight for Monday evening. The nice thing is I will have all day to explore a quaint little city in Poland before heading off.

As it stands I only need a little over 9500 frequent flier miles before the end of the year to hit platinum on star alliance for next year. This may seem trite HOWEVER I am a pretentious ass about my airline status. Marc has already hit his platinum (on a different carrier) for next year and if I hit platinum as well we are going to have a platinum party to celebrate our snobbery. Maybe we will buy some shrubbery and paint it blonde. Something like that anyway. The point is my flights from Poland will count toward the 9500 I still need so YAY. Probably more like 8k to go woo! Thanks Marc :)

A little bit of time this week has gone into planning this years Thanksgiving with my family. Marc and I will be hosting it in Chicago and the folks and siblings will be coming to visit. Because of my schedule we will be doing it a week late. We also don't do a traditional Thanksgiving meal (though this year there will actually be turkey...). We are doing a sort of low gourmet potluck. This way everyone can be involved AND we still get a nice meal. I will post the menu closer to the date!

All of next week and into the following I will be in Amsterdam so expect an exciting recap post on Friday! As Tigger would say TTFN!

Widget Wednesday!

This is a better name I think.

This week I have started to learn dutch. As I am, and plan to continue, spending a lot of time in the Netherlands I feel that I should have a least a marginally functional competency in the language. It is also helpful that Marc speaks it so I have a personal tutor at hand to answer all my questions.

I have been using the website www.livemocha.com. For those unfamiliar with Livemocha it is a free language service and community. Essentially you sign up for a profile and enroll in the course of your choice. I am currently enrolled in Dutch 101. In this particular course there are three units each comprised of around five lessons. There are four courses but the number of units per course lessens in the higher courses so there are ten units all in all. I can take each lesson at my own pace. They are structured into required exercises and practice exercises. The interactive page will speak the words for the user and give challenges by matching pictures with words or arranging sentences.

In each unit there is a writing and a speaking component users submit. These are both corrected by fellow language learners. In my case a native dutch speaker will correct and review my submissions. After I have submitted LIvemocha asks me to review another user's English submission. In this way the whole community benifits.

For about 100 USD a year users can subscribe to professional reviewing plus special course features and exercises that are not availible to us cheapskates. Also for every review a user does of another user's work they are given "tokens" which can be exchanged for professional review of his or her submissions.

Thus far (I am half way through unit 2) I have been very impressed. While this is not the way I have been traditionally instructed in other languages, I am finding it to be effective and the feedback I have gotten from my dutch reviewrs has been extremely useful. One kind woman even recordered herself repeating my submission to help me with my pronunciations and inflections. Awesome.

My favorite thing about Livemocha is the idea and principal it exists upon. Users are rewarded for helping other users. People of the world are reaching out to help one another communicate. This is so important and amazingly cool I would consider getting the yearly membership. If I am a good little dutch student and stick with it maybe I will reward myself by subscribing. If nothing else you should all check it out. It goes at YOUR pace so as long as you can devote a little time every now and then you too could be preparing for that trip to Paris you've always dreamed of.

Monday... Recap? Also a Story!

Kinda missed Friday's post there. By "kinda" I meant "most certainly." I will attribute it coming down with a quick but nasty head cold that rendered my desire to troop to Starbucks for internet insignificant in the wake of sleep. Sidenote: I know it is 2011 and I don't have internet at home. Anyway I intend to throw in a short recap RIGHT NOW, just before story time so everyone can sleep well tonight. Phew.

Picture time! This one time I dressed up like a pirate. Maybe this year I should be a ninja so they don't get jealous....

Last week I was working most of the week. Which for me meant time zone hopping. Normally this is not much of an issue and I just sleep it off. For what ever reason this particular week I went a quarter of the way one way around the world just to go halfway the other way the next day. I find that it is much easier to adjust your time forward than backward when travelling and the halfway was backward. This may have contributed to the timing of my cold. Now that I have resumed my forward march however I am 95% recovered and returned to you, my adoring public.

I was introduced to foreign dollar stores this week. This is not something I would ever imagine to be the amazing gem it turned out to be. While I spent more than I probably should have, my kitchenware has improved greatly due to this. That is worth the lugging this crap at least a quarter way around the world.

Speaking of travel, travel, and more travel, Marc and I have been planning my visit for next week and if everything goes according to plan then I will be at his, or as he is quick to correct me "our", house on Halloween day (my favorite holiday!). The one hiccup is that work keeps changing plans and I am sort of caught waiting til the last minute to book my travel stuffs and that makes me nervous since I am coming from somewhere I have never left from via train (the method I will be taking to our home). Not only that but they quite possibly do not speak English. This is fine of course and I have navigated the world without translation many times and I myself have a very slightly diverse language base so I *shouldn't* be worried. I would however like everything to go right and to get there as soon as at possible! Wish me luck :)

Finally, in a quick update to a previous post, I have been such a good little not very much meat eater! Yay!

On to Story Time!

Today's story is in relation to my up coming venture through the semi unknown.

I have mentioned in the past how I was a fairly fearless and extroverted child. Well the year I started kindergarten was no different. Up until this time I had been going to preschool and my parents had been driving me. Needless to say I found my reliance on their help in the act of transit irritating. So when I first discovered I would be going to kindergarten all those years of watching that big yellow bus that all my new friends were already so accustomed to I was, of course, not about to waste a smidgen of time with my parents. I immediately insisted on taking the bus to school from the first day.

My wonderful and protective mother was hesitant.

"You are sure you don't want me drive you?... It is your first day. How will you find your class room?"

I looked at her with all the seriousness of a determined 5 year old.

"I want to take the bus."

So my poor mother put her reservations aside and signed my up for the bus. Now in my school district, that year, the buses were labeled by insect. I don't know who thought this up or thought that a preteen boy would be thrilled but I, as a five year old adventurer, was super pumped to be on the majestic BUTTERFLY bus.

The big day came and I waited by the stop. Mom was staring out the window to be sure I made it on. Not only did I confidently stride right on to the bus but chose a seat right next to an enormous sixth grader and just started chatting away. Now I am not sure if she would have anyway but that certainly sealed the deal. As well all know preteen boys are evil. My mom hopped into her car and followed the bus all the way to school.

After she had parked and tried to catch up she finally found me happily sitting in my class room all ready to go. Silly mom.

It turns out though maybe she was right about the bus. It was not actually dangerous it seems while ON the bus but I picked up some colorful language on the way home. On the second day of school as I was preparing to prove the previous day not a fluke I seemed to have *erm* misplaced my backpack. In my mounting frustration I MAY have shouted, "Where the hell is my back pack?!?"

That went over well.

Now all of this has me thinking about how great it is to be a kid. Five year old me would be approaching next week without a second of trepidation and/or worry about the possible disasters that could strike. Truth be told, adult me is probably channeling my mother in the fact that the worst that will happen is I miss connection and catch the next one and maybe have to wait a few hours in a train station. In this day of cell phones it is not like I could not just text Marc to look it up, or call the train service, or go on the internet with my smart phone and look it up myself...

Please tell me you like me channeling me to combat channeling my mother. I do.

Travel Wednesday!

So for my first Travel Wednesday I think I will pick Prague. It's a good easy start and I know so much about it and I love it there.

I went to Prague for the spring semester of 2007. I lived in a dorm with a few hundred other foreign, mostly american, students. Prague has a reputation of being a little bit of a party city and, I can speak from experience, it is well deserved. I have never been in a city where it was common for people to go straight from the bars to work. I am talking about business men not bartenders.

Albeit the crazy drinking and wonderfully affordable party scene the city itself is a wealth of history and sightseeing attractions. On my daily walk down the hill to school I walked through the presidents castle and right next to the royal gardens. The building where I had classes was where Vasclav Havel was teaching and beginning the velvet revolution. A few blocks, if you could call them that, further into the heart of the city the old town square with the doomsday astronomical clock. Beware the doom of you wallet to the hands of idle pickpockets at this attraction. Further still into the city and you could find yourself in Wenceslas Square. It's a huge rectangular plaza with a large statue at one end and plenty of shopping through out. Let me not forget the most famous Charles bridge fabled to hold the lost sword of the hero for which it is named said to return when the Czech people are in the time of their greatest need.

In visiting Prague to get away from the beaten tourist roads there are several things I would recommend:

1. Have a picnic at Vysehrad. It is a beautiful castle and less frequented than the presidents' castle. Right along the Vlata it gives you a splendid view and if the weather is night it makes for a splendid afternoon.

2. Watch the sunrise from the observation point on the side of Petrin. On top of this hill (Petrin) is a monastery and walking southeastward from the monastery and a tad to the right is a little train that goes up the side of the hill to a little observation point. My best mornings in Prague were spent drinking cheap red wine with my compatriots and watching the sun rise. Don't judge us for the booze... we hadn't slept yet.

3. Probably the most touristy but most certainly a worthwhile endeavor is right off of Wenceslas square is a wine cellar bar called U Sudu. It is an underground labyrinth of little rooms with various tables, Foosball, and wonderful pitchers of wine. I cannot even count the number of nights we spent in this bar before making the mandatory fried cheese sandwich stop on the way home.

And speaking of Czech cuisine try the potato dumplings and, of course, the fried cheese sandwich. I also tried pig knuckles one night which are not as bad as they sound and a fairly standard bar fare. An absolute must is honey cake or medovnik. There are not words to describe how wonderful it is.

Last but not least I feel that I should touch on my favorite gay bar, Termix. When entering the bar you must ring a doorbell out side a random sheet metal door. It plays Fur Elise. Once inside you will stand in a small coat check with a stairwell which after descending leads to a long bar room with a car sticking out of the wall. Yes a car. There is a private room up top that can be rented out but other wise is available for sitting and a nice small dance floor. They play all the right gay hits and several of the wrong ones. With all the cheap beer you can drink and hours that usually last until the sun is up.

I hope that each and every one of you has a chance to visit some day. Prague is one of my favorite places in the world and I miss it all the time. Maybe I'll see you there!

Story Time!

Ok. So This is where planning would be SO useful. I travel a lot. For today's post I was looking for a picture of me as a 12 year old. It is at home. I am not. So I am not actually 12 in the photo... just use your imagination. Also my mother had much longer hair... it WAS the 90s.

When I was a kid, even more so than I am now, I was of the mindset that strangers were new friends I just hadn't met yet. In the checkout lane at the grocery store my mother would just shake her head as I, comfortably seated in the cart, invited the people behind us in line to come over and play. My father once let me go in the mall to see how far I would go before looking back. I didn't.

Now my parents got divorced when I was very young and my brother even more so. He is almost 3 years younger than I am and was not much more than an infant. Several years down the road my parents were living in different states. My mother was in Wisconsin and my father in Texas. This is obviously no small drive for the weekends so we spent summers and some holidays with my father and some holidays and the rest of the year with my mother. All of this was really my introduction into the world of air travel. We did a lot of it.

At one point my brother and I were walking down the street with my mother to go to a friend's house and a car pulled up next to me. I was walking far ahead of my family members which, not surprisingly, arose a state of panic in my mother. This may be a good time to explain a few things regarding my mother.

My mother is one of my best friends. I talk to her on an extremely regular basis and about most everything. She is a lovely woman. She also is very anxious. Anxious to the point of over protective. It's endearing how much she cares for her children. She panics when driving in fast traffic. She worries. Always.

This car was going to steal her child forever.

My mom starts running down the street. To her horror I am actually TALKING to the stranger in the car. My friendly nature supporting that I would talk to any strange person and probably climb in their car to go and play. I was around twelve years old at this point and not actually likely to climb into strange vehicles. She is rushing and rushing and I'm talking and talking.

When she caught up to me the nice gentleman in the car explained that he had sat next to my brother and I on flight some two or three weeks prior and complimented her on our manners and how polite we were. My mother was of course relieved even though I was still getting the "how dare you scare me like that" look. Afterwards he waved and drove off and on we went.

My mother, thankfully, still had a beating heart. I was oblivious to her concern still at this point. This is why being an extroverted kid in a family of introverts is fun.

Friday Recap!

This week's picture is of me dressed up to go to a costume party as the March Hare from Alice in Wonderland. I did the makeup myself and this picture must have been when I returned home because what the hell is the ribbon about. No idea.

On that note I have been travelling for the last 16ish hours so if I seem like a crazy today you have been warned.

So this week Marc and I returned from my family gathering/my friends wedding. It was a great time and fun was had by all. YAY! My family gave me a dining room table (which Marc cleverly ripped in half so we could fit it in the rental car) and I have been arranging and rearranging my great room to find a good set up. I love doing that. Inevitably I end up sitting on the couch staring around the room for an hour at a time deciding if I like and and what else I need. At this point I have no chairs for the table but for whatever reason I still went out and bought fall place settings. They look wonderful though.

Other than that I lounged around my days off at home and tried to be cheap and cook all of my own meals. Go budget action!

The big news I have is that after 5 years of a faux facebook marriage to a dear friend of mine Marc and I have now made our relationship facebook official. So congratulations to us! You can start sending us gifts to commemorate the occasion. I don't mind.

Now I am back at work and after a day of arguing with United (even though I was flying Lufthansa...) I ended up sending them a nasty letter where at one point I asked if they were mailing me things via carrier pigeon. Which if they actually were I would so be ok with it taking 8 weeks to get my premier exec card. Sigh. Oh well.

Have a wonderful weekend all and I am off!

Smart Machines

Ok. I'll admit it. I am a bit of a nerd. Marc will surely back me up after a conversation the other day where I was asking him to tesseract (in reference to Madeline L'Engle's wrinkle in time) and then proceeded to explain a geometrical tesseract and posted the wiki definition as reference mid chat. I won't bore you with the nerdy details.

This Wednesday is the first Gadget Wednesday (I'm still working on a better title for that) and I have decided to talk about smart technology's impending emergence into the adult beverage industry. Huge topic but I think there are a few high points worth mentioning. The picture for today's post is of me using a glass siphon to bottle wine. It was an epic fail. Clearly I need some updated gadgetry.


The Smart Keg

This top of the line not yet released drink dispensing apparatus once behind the bar should monitor the stats of what it contains. For example what kind of beer is inside, the C02 levels, and even how many times the tap is pulled. Not to mention how much beer is left inside the keg. The obvious benefit is the bar is much less likely to run out of your favorite beer.

This is the article I discovered this from

Mindwave Vodka Tasting

Would that I had seen this before now. This past May there was an Absolut cocktail tasting with an interesting twist. The participants wore the Neurosky Mindwave headset creating an artistic display courtesy of Marcos Lutyens that also gauged the tasters brain activity reactions to each cocktail. Vodka and art. Clearly someone forgot my invitation.

Read the article here

Soberlink

And for my younger readers (more for your parents) the Soberlink. This device is something part of me wishes was around when I was a teenager because it would have solved a lot of discussions when the night was getting late and we were all going to bed. There was always that one kid who was going to try and sneak out the back of the house of whoever's parents were turning a blind eye on our underage drinking in the garage and drive home. I don't know of many 16 year olds that show restraint when it comes to drinking. This handy little gadget shows your location, your image (taken when used), and sends back you BAC. Less fun for you kids out there however death by running into a tree or, worse yet, another car is about as not fun as it gets.

you can read more about Soberlink here

Come back for Recap Friday!

Quasi-Vegetarianism

So a few years ago I decided I wanted to look as pleasantly built as I did when I was 19. Now I have never been big or fat so I am not saying I was trying to lose weight. I was more interested in losing a little excess fat and replacing it with a runners build. I went to the store and bought running shoes and started running a few miles everyday. I also insisted on a dietary change and started restricting my carnivorous meal choices to once per week except on special occasions.

The first two weeks or so without meat were hell. Since I am out with my coworkers for meals a lot and they have not restricted their diets accordingly I was eating salads and wraps and they were having fried chicken. Jerks. This is the moment where in my head I am starting to rationalize the skin is more breading than skin so its probably fair game right? No no no must be strong. 19 year old working out everyday body. I persevered.

After that it really was not bad. I also began feeling much better on a day to day basis. I was in better moods and I had more energy. I still got my weekly meat fix. All was right in the world. Almost.

I started dating a foodie during this time. My resolve was being put to the test. We would go to these amazing restaurants with tantalizing meat filled dishes. If for no other reason than I had never been in these restaurants before I started ordering meat more regularly again. Then I got a new job which required a lot of international travel. Produce is not generally a good thing to try to carry through customs and when I was there for a very short bursts it became in convenient to get to the grocery store for one day in *insert random worldly place here*.

Even now that I am no longer with the foodie that habit has sort of struggled to return. The reason for this blog post will now become clear. If I say that I will be resuming my limited flesh ingesting habits on here then I can be held accountable by anyone. I mean literally anyone. Well only people with some sort of access to the internet. Now when I am in a restaurant I will be crazy paranoid. Any other patron may know that I should not be eating meat. The immense possible guilt will hopefully keep me in line.

As of today I, James, am resuming my faux-veggie habits and burning the possible beginnings of a beer belly away. I will not become contented with a sub-optimal body image. If you see someone who looks like they might be me and they have meat glare at them.

Recap Friday!

I love this picture because it was totally candid, at work, as I was climbing into a stretch SUV limo. There's a first time for everything you know.

It's been a rough week this week. In the begining Marc and I were having some communication issues but I think that has been totally resolved which is a relief. I, for one, sleep better at night knowing he is a happy man. Speaking of happy things, I cooked homemade mac and cheese in my slow cooker for the first time on wednesday for the both of us. It smelled so good and I threw in some turkey bacon and garlic. Nom nom nom.

It has just begun to start cooling off in Chicago and I have to say I was less than excited. For a second it looked like it was going to skip even a brief fall and go right into weather that makes it uncomfortable to wear all of my favorite fall sweaters and jackets. However during the daylight this week it has actually been very lovely and I love fall fashion so I am loving it. Can we just forget winter and skip it please? At least no snow. there is a reason that word has four letters...

I wish anyway.

I am currently rereading Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I am currently delving into The Two Towers. I always forget how much I love these books (though from the disrepair of my nice hardbacks no one else will miss it). The metaphors he uses for everything are so fantastic.

Yesterday Marc and I drove up to Milwaukee for the night on the way home to my freinds' wedding. We had a million plans which nearly were all changed as my reliable source of information about things to do seemed to pick things that no longer exist. In the end of the night we ended up in a little divey gay bar with a mostly tragic but still enjoyable drag show.

And today we have driven up the rest of the way into Manitowoc for the wedding tomorrow. Tonight we are having dinner with my family. That being said we need to be off and off we shall go.

Have a great weekend!

Rotating Wednesdays! Also videos!

So as it currently stands I think I will be structuring the posting schedule of this blog as follows:

Mondays are story time. This section is mostly about funny things that happened in my life a long time ago or that are not specific to the general date that they were posted.

Fridays are weekly recap where I give myself a pat on the back and just talk about all the little things that happened in my week.

Which leaves Wednesdays to be a rotating day. I am thinking that, starting with this post, 1st Wednesdays shall be video day. It's like one of those parties that gets horribly sidetracked by youtube. Only you are already online. Second and fourth Wednesdays will be obsession days where I talk about some really cool gizmo, gadget, random thing that I have been on about lately. Third Wednesdays shall be travel days where I talk about some cool place in the world I have been or really want to go to. Finally when there is a fifth Wednesday it shall be something to do with readers if I have any at the point when there is a fifth Wednesday (please).

These are subject to change depending on how much I like them as they happen. I also reserve the right to post extra in between and basically run the show how I want since it is my blog. The structure just helps me since I travel so much and do not operate on a regular schedule I can set up all my posting to happen even if I am flying. So thanks for reading :)

Yay for Video Wednesday!

I love this video because A) I cannot play the cello. B) I cannot beat box. C) I certainly cannot do them at the same time. D) This guy certainly can:




You've all seen those really expesive but really cool air multiplier fans that are just loops. This was a fantastic idea:




Last but not least I saw this on work.failblog.com last week and if you missed it I am bringing you some IT humor:

Chapter 2

If you haven't read last week's first post (the very first post on this blog) you may want to read it here as I am just going to dive right in head first.

Chapter two
An introduction to my drinking habits

So in 2007 I lived in Prague, CZ for a semester abroad. I was in a dorm with 120 some american students. We attended classes together, went out together, got lost together, and basically had the best semester long vacation of our lives. Our teachers seemed to be encouraging us to bring beer to class. Beer was a dollar for half a liter IN THE BARS (or the school cafe...). Be jealous.

One night we decided to go out in a fairly large group to a bar called Mecca. Now this bar is located in an inconvenient location where once there it is more worth your while to not come back until morning because the train stops running at midnight. It was a more expensive bar (still amazingly cheap just not Prague cheap). I did not want to be there after about an hour.

The one special they had that was a really good deal was Absolut shots. So I was drinking straight vodka. I was drinking lots of vodka. This may be a good moment to stop and explain my relationship with vodka. I love it. I drink it always. I have a decent size collection of booze in stock at my home and by far the most of any one liquor that I have in store of a rainy day is vodka. I was trashed.

Trashed James decided to travel to his favorite bar, Termix. Now for those unfamiliar with Prague there is a large river, the Vlatva aka the Moldau, that winds through almost the middle of the city. I needed to cross that river. First I went cab hunting. Now the cabs in Prague will try and rip you off. The solution is to set a price before getting in. Whatever these cabs wanted me to pay I was not having it and decided to walk. Did you catch that? Mistake One: Deciding to walk.

I had my handy dandy pocket map and set off on my merry way. The first problem arose quickly. I was not finding bridges across the river. They seemed to all be elevated and not clearly marked on my map. I kept walking. Finally I find a bridge that I should be able to cross the river on ONLY a few small hurdles stood in my very disoriented path. First I needed to climb up a muddy hill to match the height of the bridge. Done. Second I needed to climb a fence. Alarm bells should be going off here. Mistake two: Don't climb fences drunk. I did it anyway and I started walking across the bridge. I should point out that around this time I noticed that this was not a normal bridge. I was walking on train tracks. About halfway across it occurred to me that this was highly unsafe. I hurried up. Mistake three: do not get caught stuck on train tracks.

Upon reaching the other side of the bridge I was once again presented with a challenge. There was no hill to aid my getting down from the bridge on this side. I just kept walking. Eventually I was able to sneak through a train station yet somewhere in this fiasco I had lost all track of where I was. I kept wandering totally ignoring my trusty little pocket map. Mistake four: use your map moron! Finally, fairly sobered up, I found a tram number that I knew. I went to look at the sign to see how far I was from a station that would get me where I wanted to go. After several minutes of careful study I discovered I had ended up back on the wrong side of the river (I have no idea how) and not anywhere close to where I was trying to go.

Now at this point I decided to give myself point for trying and go home. The tram I needed was not running so I simply followed its route for at least two more miles to the station that would have a tram that would take me home. The best part of the story is as I in my muddy, tired, sober, disgruntled state boarded the tram I was greeted by all my classmates that I had left at the bar.

Moral of the story: I should not ever be left to drunk wander in unfamiliar territory.