back to the futuren

Okez-dokez. Seeing as I am in Frankfurt, Germanz, I am using the hotel kezboard and the kezs are all mixed up. Most obviouslz, the place of the Y key has been swapped for the Z key, for speed and linguistic reasons. So Iäm choosing not to edit anz of this post for pure comedic reasons.

Ive also chosen not to skim through cities as I've been doing latelz. Thez're all amaying places and deserve proper right ups, so I will visit them all at later dates when I'm good and readz.

But reallz, Slovakia, Hungarz, Cyech Republic, Austria, and Germanz have all been incrediblz beauitful. There have been so manz hilights along the waz and so manz rolls of film taken. I plan to set aside a sum of monez to get these rolls processed when I get home, mostlz so thez don't end up in the bin of exposed film downstairs in the studio - which I've never had the time or monez to process mzself.

So zes, tonight will be the last night in the European Union before embarking on to the United Kingdom for four dazs. We'll be in downtown London near South Kensington for that remainder of time. To be honest I have no idea what we're doing. I'll probablz end up doing what I do in everz citz: get all buyyed up on cheap beer and go running around the citz for an hour or two. This is bz far the fastest, easiest, most amusing waz to see the sights and mazbe even get into a little trouble while zou're at it.

Also, if anzone would like a postcard, send zour info to me and I'll do mz absolute best to get them out.

Furthermore, another reason to have a beer in celebration: Hue was accepted to plaz at NXNE this summer. Boo za ka sha.

pps. since this post is boring as hell so far, I should mention that I was sitting in Vienna enjoying a beer and Beyonce walked behind me. I said to a friend 'Oh hey, that was Beyonce'.

it all depends

Alright, another one of those quick entries because I had to pay ten Euros to use the internet just to look up a few addresses, so enjoy it because I could have bought like eight beers with ten Euros.

The other night we thought we'd hit up some local polka party time. This was also another one of those infamous "all you can drink" evenings. The dinner starts out with Schnapps for everyone, except nobody at my table liked that shit because you could remove nail polish with it. Therefore, my inner Irish pushed me to drink everything in sight. The worst part of this was that I forgot about the notorious Polish hospitality, and those shots never stopped coming. An empty glass meant a refill apparently, amongst all other alcoholic beverages. I'm sure you have a hangover just from reading this.

There was a lot of traditional songs and dancing throughout the night, most of which I don't remember because I was drunkenly laughing hard at pretty much anything. But it's vacation, right?

Notice the amount of (empty) shot glasses surrounding my bowl of soup. I also threw down a couple glasses of red wine and several bottles of Zwyiec. After the meal, everything became a bit hazy. Now, I've never seriously lost control of myself when drinking (except for those two times), so I had a good understanding of what was going on. It was time to fucking polka! I should also mention that I never drink hard alcohol because I think it's the devils delicious juice and I can't pace myself.

The band was cookin' and the circle began to take formation. I didn't know dick about the polka at the time but I was totally ready for what was to come. We danced in a circle to some fairly hype polka music and this cute Polish girl laid down a towel in front of me. Apparently this meant we both have to kneel on it and kiss cheecks a few times, to which the towel gets passed to me and then I get to choose who gets smooched next. Now, don't get me wrong, I had my pick of the litter. There were good looking girls in this circle, but what happened next is a classic move from the Book of Andy. Are you ready?

Whoooaaa shit!

I totally macked up that old broad.
To be honest, I can't stop laughing when I look at that photo.
Oh those cheecks. They were so damn smooth.
I really don't have anything else to say about that. You can draw your own conclusions. If I was really funny I would create an alternate ending to that story that would end in some Depends joke, but I'm not that funny and only have 15 minutes left of my Hilton Vienna account.

There's no real end to this story. We went back to the hotel and drank some more with Bernie and Mike in the lobby. I woke up with a hangover and an old broad in my bed.

Like I said, I'm not that funny.

Auschwitz

I was considering throwing together a lengthy entry about my visit to Auschwitz, but thought I'd save the subject for a rainy day when I can really put some thought into it.
Needless to say, this was easily the most emotional landscape I'd ever laid eyes on. As soon as the fences could be seen only two words came to mind:

"Awwww...........shit,"

Just the sight of the camps made my soul flip upside down.

For those of you who have no idea what this place means, or have never seen or heard of such films as The Diary of Anne Frank, Schindler's List, The Pianist, and Life is Beautiful, I urge you to educate yourselves.

how many punchkis?

Warsaw as cool.

Wow, what a way to start a post. Right after mentioning how I pride myself in good writing structure, I blow it with a three-word thickheaded intro. Moving along...

Warsaw was actually quite interesting.

This was another classic example of a city that has been rebuilt within the past few decades because of the effects of war. Beautiful architecture, good food, and nice people. Well, mostly nice people - I had to talk Charlie out of a fight with no knowledge of the Polish language whatsoever.

The monument of Frederick Chopin. This was nice to see because I have a softy for his work, and I'll tell you why. When I was growing up we had a fancy piano at my house. This fancy piano played audio samples on command, so when my friends came over I would cue up the Chopin demos and pretend to play, when I would really just nervously slam on the keys hoping not to get busted. Needless to say I fooled 95% of my childhood friends into thinking I was a concert pianist by the age of 11.

One of the most frustrating issues on this trip so far is constant change in currency (and this will be the only thing I complain about). I can barely keep up with the exchange rates, and the result is that everything seems like a deal to me because the Euro is stronger than everything. There's been a reoccurring joke that none of us can remember any of the names of the currencies. For example, the Polish dollar has been called the names: schlotzky, punchki, polski, zlatki, dobri, fiski, tuskis, etc. And this goes for every currency so far.

moving along...