It's been some time...

Ok, so I've missed Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I've tried to update this a few times, but always get interrupted. I would save each draft and finish it later, but all the buttons I have to click on are in German, so I have to guess which one means "Save for later" and so far all I've found "Delete Forever." I hope I finish this one.

Thursday was an adventure. The students are out of school for both Thursday and Friday. Thursday is "National Celebrate Men Day" which translates into "Guys, get wasted." So school was canceled for that. Friday was canceled for the unofficial "National Hangover Day." So on Thursday, a few of us were invited by a group of students to go to a beach to play volleyball and other beach games. This sounded cool, so we went. Originally, the plan we heard was to take a tram to parking lot where some friend with a van would pick us up and drive us to the beach. We took the tram to a parking lot, then a bus came to take us to the beach. And by "to the beach" I mean "two miles from the beach" which we then walked. Bear in mind that this is still "Drink 'till You Can't See Day," so we are accompanied by plenty of loud Germans as we walk along this road, also sharing the space with the local drivers, who are presumably also taking part in the day's festivites. But after the long walk in the rain and cold, we arrive at the Beach. This beach is about 100 feet long (well, not really, beacause we're on the metric system), with beautful waves of black oily foam lapping at a rough, crushed gravel shoreline. But it was still fun, even though the water was unswimmable, the rain cold, the beach painful, and the stomachs empty. The fellowship was fun :) Eventually the rain and cold got to myself, Jamie, and Carrie. We decided to find our way back. Up till this point in the day, we've been following local guides, and therefore not paying attention to streetnames, bus numbers, or tram routes. But we're confident. So off we go. After the familiar two mile walk, pestered by loud inebriated Germans, we round a corner and see a bus driving toward our bus stop. Casting thoughts os Social Outcast to the wind, we decid to sprint, while wearing backpacks. We arrive just in time for our bus to drive straight past us without stopping. We laugh, realizing that the totally uncool sacrifice of running with a backpack was just made totally worthless by missing our bus anyways. So we wait for it to come back. Jamie remembered that we needed bus 16 or 18 to get home, and 18 came into sight. The sign at the intersection said Rostock (our destination) to the left, and SomewhereElse to the right. We boarded bus 18 and hoped for a left turn. Luckily for us, it turned right. Because who would actually want to go home? We laughed at our situation, because that's that kind of people we are. So we decided to ride the bus to the end of the line, wait for it to turn around, then head for home. We arrived at the end of the line, which turned out to be Wandermunde. You may remember this town from an earlier post. Yes, we had been there before, but this time we were on the East side of the bay. Which basically equates to trying to get to the Grand Haven beach from Blockbuster and ending up in Ferrysburg. Your goal is just about in sight, but you really have a long way to get there. We sit on the bus and watch the Numer 18, and the destination, waiting for it to change to Number 18 and SomeplaceWeRecognize. It changes to to Number 17 and WhoKnowsWhere. So we bail from the bus before it takes off in some random direction, further from our desitnation. Luckily, the bus doesn't leave, and in broken German, we ask the driver how to get home. He tells us to wait 1 hour and 45 minutes (metric time) for the new #18 bus, or take the ferry. We again laugh at how unfortunate we are. So we start walking around Wandermude East-Side. We find the ferry, and walk up to the ticket office. In horrible German, we make attempts to talk to the ferry ticket sales-dude. The nice old man speaks in more broken English, and conversation begins to ensue. I show him my bus-and-tram pass, trying to figure out if ferrys were included on the ticket. After quite the conversation, we conclude that we're good, and so we walk to where the ferry was loading just a moment ago. As we turn the corner, we see the ferry pulling away from the dock. Again, laughter at our horrible misfortune ensues. I couldn't have asked for better traveling companions. We take a couple pictures at the dock and chat for about five minutes, until the next ferry pulls in. The Germans are certainly efficient. We board the ferry, take more pictures, and travel across to Wandermunde West-Side. After disembarking, we recognize nothing that we were hoping to. So we simply follow the mass of people into the town. Magically, we pass the Train Station! We stop at the station, and spend about 15 minutes trying to figure the schedule in another language. Not only are we convinced that we're successfull at that, but we're pretty convinced that we know where to transfer from the train to the tram! So we jump on the next train (they all have to go South, since North leads to the Baltic. As Marko said, the trains leaving Wandermunde only go North once), and are on our way to freedom! On the train, we reflect on our adventures and continue to laugh more. We succesfully make our transfer, and arrive back at Hänse-Hostel, missing the rest of the group by mere hours. A note was left for the three of us to call "Scoddy," who we deduce is Scott, our team leader. We get in touch with Troy, who tells us that if we left now, there may be some dessert left at Mike and Simone's. We tell him that we're going to grab some food, since we hadn't eaten in about 8 hours. So we walk up and down the street, trying to find something that is open on "Men, Get Plastered Day." We find a Chinese restaraunt. We manage to convey an order to the service person there. Imagine only knowing English and couple words in German, and trying to order from a person who only knows Chinese and a few German words. It was very similar to that. But we get our food, and return to the hostel to eat. Again, we laugh, this time at the fact that we're Americans in Germany, and we ended up eating Chinese. Good times. Eventually, the rest of the group makes it home (we didn't have time to go get dessert), and the rest of the night continues with devotions, then bed. All around, and adventuresome day. Ok, this is way too long as it is, so I'll get to Friday and Saturday a little later on. 'night!