My Vacation in Germany or the Time When I Couchsurfed for the First Time: Episode I - The Frankfurt Menace

  "Goodbye Hermano," I whispered, as I forced my embrace onto my roommate's body. "Safe flight, get off me," he said, as he tried to move his luggage into the taxi. 

  We were all leaving that day. I was going to Germany, the Friendly Giantess was going home, and my roommate and his girlfriend was going to HIS home. We said our goodbyes, and the Giantess and I went out for dinner, with this guy known as Schoolmate (because he didn't regard us as his friends T.T). We (Schoolmate and I) had one last Canadian beer, talked about Portugal or something, and went home to prepare for the long flight.

  When we got back, my Hermano and his girlfriend was already home. One month has passed, not really, their flight was cancelled. They told us that due to the foggy weather, many flights were cancelled. We checked and pretty much all flights that day were cancelled, except ours. We got our stuff, we picked up Schoolmate, checked in and all those shindig. 

  When we got in, there was a guy doing a survey. He asked what was our relationship. We were all awkwardly quiet for awhile, but then as I was about to say 'we're friends', he said "we're schoolmates" (thus the name). So Schoolmate is forever Schoolmate. If you're reading this SCHOOLMATE, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, hej!

  All 3 of us were taking the same flight to Heathrow, that's where we split up and fly to our respective places. I barely had any sleep in my 5 hours flight, but I did watch Mr Robot though. The flight from Heathrow to Frankfurt was only an hour or so, and I slept throughout the flight. 

  My couchsurf host was there to pick me up at the Frankfurt airport (how nice of him!). We took my stuff to his place, and then we walked around the city. My first day wasn't very interesting (for you), but it was for me, because it was one of the biggest challenge I faced during my vacation, which was trying to stay awake without looking disinterested. At night, he brought me to his friend's house party. I spoke most with this guy who barely speaks any English. 75% of the night was just me speaking broken German, as he replied in broken English. That night basically cemented my habit of saying "schön" to everything, for the rest of the trip. 

  That night was the 'Night of the Museums', where you can buy 1 ticket that allows admission to all of Frankfurt's museums, and the museums will be opened until 2am. But alas, poor Jerry, he was too tired to go out that night, and frankfurtly, he almost fell asleep multiple times during the party, so he and his host went back and he finally took a well-deserved sleep.

  I woke up 12 hours later, and my host already prepared breakfast for us. I don't know what Frischkäse is, but it was really really good, and is now my favourite cheese.

Figure 10.1: Top to bottom, Flatbread, tomatoes, some olive oil thing, Frischkäse, butter, cheese, feta cheese, cheese and honey

  Today, we took the train to Darmstadt, a little city south of Frankfurt, to meet up with his friends in a Spielhaus. I met his friends there, they were all international students, they were all very nice. Germany may be the hub for board games, but as we arrived there, we encountered a complication: all the instructions and manuals are in German. None of us are fluent enough to explain the rules, so we ended playing with playing cards. 

  The next day, we met up with another couchsurfer. We practically spent our entire day in Goethe-Haus. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe lived an extremely luxurious life. Not gonna spoil anything here, its extremely worth going. Fun fact: Goethe's mom's favourite drink was hot chocolate. Many of the other museums were closed because museums in Germany do not open on a Monday, so we were pretty lucky with Goethe-Haus. 

  We then had dinner, and went back to my host's place to watch the season premiere of Game of Thrones. I know nothing, so I was quite annoying during the show (who's this? Who's that?), but luckily, the other surfer was very excited, and does not hesitate on explaining what is going on. We watched for 3 mins, and then he paused the show for the next 5 minute, explaining to us the backstory of the scene. This went on for the rest of the show. 

  The next day was the day I left Frankfurt, onward to Ingolstadt. That was my first time coming to Germany, and also my first time couchsurfing. It was an amazing experience, the people are rather helpful and I would absolutely recommend couchsurfing to people. My host taught me everything I need to know about Germany, it's dining ethics, how Deutsche Bahn works (which really really really helped, as I rely heavily on it), and showed me how nice people can be. Also I had a dream about Emperor Palpatine, I actually didn't, but I just threw that in there to make my title relevant. Here are some photos of my Frankfurt-Darmstadt trip.

Figure 10.2: Frankfurt

Figure 10.3

Figure 10.4: Darmstadt

Figure 10.5

Figure 10.6: Fisch mit Grüne Soße

Figure 10.7

Figure 10.8: Hauptbahnhof

Figure 10.9

  

  

How to make an Exam Pizza Margherita

  Exams are next week, that means its time to eat pizzas. Students usually order pizza online because they will be too busy studying to cook, but why order pizza when you can make pizza? I have been studying for the entire time, preparing for my exams and I will now show you the easy way of making a delicious Pizza Margherita.

  

Figure 9.1: I have doubled my playing hours in 2 weeks. It is still the only game I've been playing.

  I'm trying to quit drinking though, so I bought myself a bottle of non-alcoholic wine to pair with my soon to be authentic, Pizza Margherita.

Figure 9.2: First step to being sober.

  Before you begin, have a shot of whiskey to calm those nerves. Making pizzas are scary business and should not be done if you're easily afraid. You have to understand that Pizza Margherita is the epitome of Italian Pizzas, do it wrongly and you'll be haunted by Princess Margherita of Savoy, whom the name of the pizza was taken from. It comprises of Basil (Green), Mozarella (White), and Tomato Sauce(Red), the combination of these 3 colours would then create the template for the Mexican flag. Thats why I recommend you to bring out your inner Italian when creating this piece of art. Without further a due, ¡Vamonos!

1. Cut a shit-load of garlic ( about 1 and a half cloves), fry them in a pot, then toss in some peeled-pureed-tomatoes, chopped thyme and chopped basil (don't use all your basil, leave some garnishing), some olive oil and let it cook under medium-low heat. Stir occasionally.

   

   Figure 9.3: Something like this?

2. Make the pizza dough. Put some yeast, some water, salt, sugar, flour. olive oil in a bowl. Put your hands in there and move it around, then cover it and let it rest for the dough to rise. 
3. While waiting for the dough to cook and the sauce to rise, I would recommend learning some basic Italian, to not anger the queen, but also to get to know the Italian culture better.
4. Italien ist nicht sehr schwer. Der Kultur der Italiener sind sehr interessant! 
5. Oh Scheiße! Ich habe die falsche Sprache gelernt! Oh well, time to bust out the sausages.

   

   Figure 9.4: Så jävla gott!

   
   

   
   

   
   
6. Once the dough is risen, roll that mother into this round pizza shapy thing, and put the sauce on it. After applying the sauce, put some Mozarella on it then toss it into the oven (350ºF).
7. Use common sense to decide whether if the pizza is going to be done or not.

   

   Figure 9.5: Forza Mozarella!

8. While waiting for the pizza to be ready, open up that bottle of non-alcoholic wine. The fact that you made your own Exam Pizza Margherita, while being in your first day of being sober calls for a celebration.
9. Realizes that non-alcoholic wine taste like grape juice, and you just spent $10 on a bottle of grape juice. Go back to that bottle of whiskey as mentioned in the preamble.

   

   Figure 9.6: I'm sorry I doubted you, old buddy.

10. When you feel that the pizza is about to be done, put the unchopped basil leaves on it, in the shape of a cross. That is to ward off the evil spirits that comes when you make pizzas. If you forgot to leave some basil leaves at the start, then I'm sorry. 
11. I'm really sorry.
12. Enjoy your Exam Pizza Margherita!

Figure 9.7: I accidentally made garlic bread instead.

My Fictional Geocaching Adventure

  We went out and found everything. The weather was like, 5 degrees Celsius. Also, I did not fall and hurt my butt.

My Geocaching Adventure

  Been playing too much Binding of Isaac, but now finals are just around the corner, it's time to stop.

Figure 7.1: Literally all I was playing for the whole of March.

  This post would be about my geocaching experience. I've never done geocaching, or even knew of it existence prior, but after trying it a few (2) times, its actually quite fun. Geocaching is like playing a never ending game of scavenger hunt, where you look for caches left by other people. I didn't take any photos while geocaching because the first time it was too dark, and the second time because it was too bright. Both times, I was too busy geocaching to bother taking photos, so I will replace them with pictures I drew! 


  It all started when The Friendly Giantess, and I were walking home from somewhere. She then asked me if she could go "geocaching" for awhile. I have no idea what geocaching was, so out of curiosity, I joined her. She told me that the cache was somewhere around Memorial's clock tower, and then proceeded to skulk around the vicinity.

Figure 7.2: Not my photo.

  She skulked around the area for quite some time, and I was beginning to feel more and more skeptic about this, "geocaching" business. "How does this cache look like?" "How do you know where the thing is supposed to be?" "The weather is really nice," I asked. "I don't know," "I don't know," and "yes," was the responses. She then told me roughly where the cache is, and then I joined in to search for this cache too. 

  After awhile, we found the damn thing, hidden behind some bars behind some more bars. The whole activity was pretty fun, so we went home, had tea, and went out again for a proper geocaching adventure. Geocaching at night is nigh impossible. Everything is so dark, the caches are always black or some really dark shade. There was this one cache, which had a 2/5 difficulty rating, took us 2 tries to find it. It was hidden amongst vines, as it was supposed to be an homage to the rock band, The Vines. The first time we tried to find it was at night, which was very dark (duh). We tried again during the day and the cache magically appeared right in front of us. We cached for a few hours, we stuck to more urban areas because going into some dark trails in the middle of the night wasn't a good idea. Creeping behind a children's hospital wasn't too but hey, we found the cache. We called it a night around 1 am, the wind was beginning to blow and the air was beginning to get colder anyway. 

Figure 7.3: Two people, staring at a tree for 30 minutes.

  2 weeks later, we had our second geocache adventure. We went back to all the places we didn't find success in in our first try, and the Long Pond trail. There's this one particular interesting geocache, which was called "The Climbing Tree". The reason why it was called the climbing tree was because you are required to climb a tree in order to grab the cache. Fortunately, our party (which consist of 2 members) had a giantess. All she did was tiptoe and voilà. 

Figure 7.4: The Giantess in action.

  Long pond was quiet that day. The trail was mostly walkable but the hilly parts were covered in ice. I ran down the ice-covered hill, proceeded to taunt the Friendly Giantess who was too afraid to go downhill, and then slipped on flat ground. She saw my fall, and decided to just sit down on the ground and scoot her way down the icy hill. I was butthurt for rest of the day. Some of the caches was really well hidden, I really those caches where you are required to stray from the trail, and enter into the trees and the hedges. Some squirrel was constantly stalking us, as though as it was plotting some hideous scheme to rid of us from his land.

Figure 7.5: Beware.

  
The weather starts to pick up as the day went by. We decided to call it a day, as we're losing motivation to look for more caches (we were in a losing streak). We blame it on the lousy weather and called it a day, went home and made pizza or something. 

The Chocolate Girl

  Quick update here. School's been tough (I actually just bought Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, and have been playing it), so here's an old story.

  I couldn't disclose much info due to the nature of the situation, but here you go.

I/\__/**\__/\I

The Chocolate Girl

  La Dame and I went to the hospital, not because we got sick or anything, but we were there to visit a person who was admitted. The person was the Chocolate Girl. 

  We met up with her mom at the hospital's lobby. She told us about her.

  The Chocolate Girl was admitted because she attempted suicide. She attempted a few months prior the visit, and she finally regained consciousness. Her legs aren't really working, and she hasn't regain full function on one of her hands. I didn't ask how she tried to kill herself, because that's not a very nice thing to ask. Anyway, when she regained consciousness, she thought she just got into the hospital (she actually has been in the hospital for months). She asked lots of question, like why am I here? How did I get here? How long was I here? The mom deflected all the question with answers like everything will be fine; get some rest.

  The Chocolate Girl request that once she is released, she wants to stay with grandma. Unfortunately, Grandma has passed away one year ago (She wasn't in a coma for a year, she just simply lost a huge portion of her memory). The mom tried told her that grandma is long gone, and told her that she attended her funeral. The Chocolate Girl then lost her composure, and started wailing and crying. She blamed herself that her grandma is dead, it was a very unpleasant story to listen to.

  Her birthday was today (the day when we visit her), and she told La Dame that she wanted Lasagna, so we brought her a huge lasagna and a chocolate cake. We brought candles and lighters too but the hospital staff told us not light it, unless we don't mind being soaking wet. When we first entered the Chocolate Girl's room, she couldn't recognize any of us (except her mom), even La Dame, who recently visited her. This was really bittersweet, because she couldn't remember the person who has been constantly visiting her, but the upside was that the arrival of the lasagna was a genuine surprise to her.

Figure 6.1: Yum!

  The hospital's chaplain and I ran around the floor looking for a damn working microwave. A nurse let us use the break room's microwave because all other public microwave was broken. We all shared some lasagna, and then La Dame broke out the cake.

Figure 6.2: "Do you like chocolate cake?" "I loveeee..... chocolate..." And thus her name was given.

  We shared the chocolate cake amongst the visitors and nurses. It was quite a huge cake, I love it a lot but I felt ashamed having a third, or fourth serving (I did had a second serving though). We stayed there for awhile, talking to her mom and the rest of the visitors and nurses. We barely talked to the Chocolate Girl because she looks really disorientated. She only talks to her sister and her mother, and not with the rest of us.

  At the end, her mother thanked us all, thanked the chaplain, thanked us for bringing gifts, cake, food, and ourselves, and we went our separate ways.

I/\__/**\__/\I

  That's it, back to Binding of Isaac, I guess.

Bonus pic! Cake + lasagna!

Undesignated

  What a fine, sturdy tree, I thought to myself. Fine tree isn't it? Said the voice behind me. I turned around, and there my friend was, in the flesh, and another person that I don't recognize. 

  Long time no see, I said to my friend. Yes, a long time indeed, he replied. A fine tree indeed, I said, you could hang a body on the branch and it wouldn't break. 
  Well, that's a bit grim isn't it? You hadn't changed much have you? We haven't seen each other for years and yet here you are, still fascinated by methods of displaying corpses. 

  I chuckled.

  No, that was just a phase. I've changed a lot since then. I was just trying to ease you in since we haven't seen each other for years. Well, I don't expect you to remain in that phase after all these years you know, I know you were doing it just because you were interested in that emo person. Oh, by the way, how rude of me, meet my new partner, we've been together for some two, three years now. Oh, you don't remember? I was just pulling your leg, we've been together for two years and five months now, are you satisfied?

  I reached my hand out, preparing to shake hands. The stranger followed suit.

  My name's Sam. Nice to meet you. My name's Jesse, nice to meet you too. So tell me, how did you and Alex met? Well, Alex and I were in the same cafe, I didn't know him at first, but I kept on noticing the huge hat, it stands out from the crowd. Ah, so you knew Alex during the hat phase. Hey! It wasn't a phase, I'm just not wearing it now because I lost my hat. I would be wearing it now if I have it. Yeah, well I approached Alex, and that's pretty much how we knew each other, a very weird approach on meeting new friends, but hey, it worked. Cool story. Yeah. How did you meet Alex? Well, I was the new kid in town, and Alex volunteered to give me a tour around the place, we became friends afterwards.  

  We were just touring my hometown, said Alex. Remember how we used to cut class and come up to this tree to smoke some spliff? Yeah, those were the times. I stopped doing it though, gotta keep my partner happy. Yeah, lots of memories surrounds this tree. Is it today? Is today the anniversary of Quinn's? I mean, yeah, it should be, that's why we're all here, Alex added. I have never met this person, but Alex keeps on talking about the things about what you all used to do. Car accident, what a way to go. For a moment you're alive and well, singing along to your favourite tunes in the car, and the next moment, if you're lucky, you're gone. Quinn went out fast, didn't felt any pain I believe, died on the spot. 

  I took out a box of cigarettes, and handed them a stick each. 

  To Quinn. To Quinn, we declared, as we raised our cigarettes, and placed them in the hole somewhere near the part where the trunk meets the earth. Alex, Quinn and I made that hole when we were young, that was where we hide our spliffs, now it's just a graveyard of cigarettes.

  Alex brought us all for dinner that day, and then we went our separate ways.
  

  

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Hatoful Boyfriend

  I've recently bought Hatoful Boyfriend for $1.49 and decided to finally try it out. This is my first impression of the game.

  You play as a female human in an avian world. You decided to attend one of the most prestigious avian high schools in the area, for reasons. Due to the Japanese nature of the game, I feminized and Japanized my name into the character I am playing as. 

I named myself Jeyoko Rin.

  This game is one of its kind. It is somewhat of a dating sim, with birds. Every character you meet in the game are birds. There are also many adorable bird puns in this game. 

Everybirdie is a bird, which makes my character stand out from the flock

  You get to talk to all these interesting characters in the game. However, just because you are in a dating sim-esque video game, doesn't mean you get to slack off. You would still need to study for exams and tests. You need to balance your social life, your grades, and your interest/goal in this game. 

  There are many interesting characters in this game, but one of them caught my attention. His name is Sakuya Le Bel Shirogane. He too just recently transferred to this high school, so we're both kinda the newbies. He came from an aristocratic family though, which explains his arrogant and better-than-thou personality.  

He is a fantail pigeon.

  He instantly got elected as the president of the student council, because he felt other positions are not worthy of his class and stature, and also no one else bothers about the student council. We new kids have to stick together, so I became his VP. He said he likes a girl who volunteers herself to be his right wing man, but I'm doing it just to progress the story.

xxxxx

   Sakuya and I spent a lot of time together. Being the only 2 members in the student council is a lot work you know! As the semester is about to end, we have to clean the student council office. Apparently, he had never cleaned before. He thought that just because he was the president, he didn't have to do any work, but I told him that a president leads and a VP follows, and I tossed him a mop. He didn't know how to use a mop, so I had to teach him how to. We spent lots of time cleaning the student council room together. Not because I like him or anything, its just we're the only 2 members.... baka...

  The next semester have started, and we're all preparing for our finals already. Avian curriculum goes by fast. I decided to spend most of my extra time in the library. As I was walking down the hall towards the library, I heard somebirdie was playing the piano beautifully. I went to check out who was it, and it was non other than Sakuya! He felt extremely hazukashii when I complimented him. He told me to not tell anyone about this, despite him playing the piano very well. He then asked me a very strange question.

I answered: "Udon"

xxxxx 

  2 months have passed, and it's Legumentines! If you don't know what day Leguementine is, you need to get out of your nest, but I'll still tell you what day it is.

Did you remember to buy beans for the boy you like?

  Sakuya immediately came to mind. I then went to the bean shop and got some expensive beans. Its really expensive but I don't think he'll appreciate his waifu giving him some cheapo beans. The next day, I looked for him, and he was studying in class. He told me he was studying and is interrupting him. I adore the fact despite coming from an extremely well-off family, he still prioritize his academics, and not just bunking off his family's fortune.

  

I gave him the beans

  He told me that he had never seen such a cheap and low quality beans before in his life (even though I bought the most expensive one in the supermarket uguu~), but he appreciates the gesture and thanked me for it. Although his words were mean, he seemed to be really happy that he received something today. I hope he'd appreciate it and would consider me to be his waifu and he to be my hazubando. Owl owlways be your ワイフ、 銀＝ル・ベル＝朔夜。永遠に、いつでも。=^。^=