St. Louis, IL - Augsburg, Germany
Part II of the story, I took a bit of time on the first part, because during that time I had done much of my initial pondering. In Manassas I had done a lot there too, and that story should be told at some point too as it is a prequel of sorts, involving Plato, Socrates, M.C. Escher, Bruce Lee, Tupac Shakur, Demitri Martin and Mama Cass for philosophy and a slew of events that are quite interesting in my mental development. Ask me about it later, and I'll be sure to document it as well...
This story though is my trip from Blacksburg towards getting into Augsburg Germany with my German family...
...we last left off though with me waking up at 10 am in Jeff's house, hearing the dvd menu for Monty Python's Life of Brian playing over and over again, which is the chorus of "Always Look on the bright side of life" which is very ironic when you get annoyed with it. I was hungover as shit from just...being awake and working my mind this whole time. I got Joe up, drove him home, he slipped me a $20 which I think I used half of for provisions to wake me up, feed me and keep me up on the road. Everyone seems to have played a role i've noticed in my journey coming to London, and I hope one day, that I can find a way to do something in return of the help I got. Joe is just one of the many on that list...
...The drive itself isn't worth mentioning, suffice to say that I broke down in Kentucky. My water pump broke in half for one reason or another, and I was stuck in Mt. Sterling for 24 hours, waiting to find a person 1) able and 2) willing to fix a volkswagon water pump. $500 and 24 hours later I am on the road again, making it into St. Louis...
... I spent two days here, sorting through my stuff going to London with me, packing only what I felt was important for my goals to get into the music industry and left many "necessities" that did nothing to satisfy those goals. I had good talks with my parents who showed me their support in my goals but kept a clear head about the reality of it all. In the end it was a very good time for my mental development because until this point, my sense of reality was constantly altered and my mood was always swaggering and slouching and not really formalized in a professional or adult fashion. Here was the beginning of such thoughts. And again, I felt ready to go to London. Just needed to go to Germany first for a week to be with family...
...I spent 36 consecutive hours in either an airport or in an airplane to get to Germany. I had stand-by status which meant that I was on the lowest of the totem pole of people getting onto a plane. I spent an entire day in the airport in st. louis (which was actually kind of interesting, playing guitar while in lines and next to disgruntled people, the blue lady and her missed flight to Kuwait, the asian lady and her cheeky demeanor) and finally got lucky and caught a side flight to chicago to try there. (Note to the wise, don't go to chicago) There is always shitty weather in Chicago, and my plane got grounded for 3 hours due to shitty weather, meaning I missed my connection flight I was promised by catching this flight. So after ariving in Chicago at 3 am, I flew back into Dulles VA at 6 am, spent the afternoon having a quick nap and a lunch with Kate. She is still a fun kid, but it is apparent that we are moving in two different directions, I wish her all the best though, as I know she does with me too...
... Dulles to Munich works on the first try, and I fly business class over the pond to Germany at 6pm. Probably the best break of the whole trip. Free booze on the plane, more ambidexterous drawing attempts. More notes on how to make it in the industry. No sleep. Good food suprisingly. Thoughts on role models, limitations of human beings and limits to my mental capacity. James Narby's book The Cosmic Serpent, DNA and the Origins of Life. Very good book that promotes thinking constantly in a duality of logic...
... Augsburg, Family and Down Time. My aunt Nicole picks me up from the airport and drives me to her home which is above a bakery, across the street from the train station and the doner kebab stand. I love this place, but....I get trapped there too...almost like the swamps of sadness in Neverending Story. If you let it get to you, you can really sink into nothingness there. On the light side, I was eating well, had great conversations with the family (my german at this point is fluent, i am just lazy now with trying to figure out words I don't know), the dynamic in that household is so much different than that of my immediate family in the states. Five kids, all do gymnastics, all are crazy in their own right. Stephanie rebels for the sake of rebelling, I don't think she has figured out yet who she wants to be, but she knows what she doesn't want to be. Lukas is competitive and energetic, Max is never around and is always working but is always real with you. Jacob is self serving and demanding of attention, whereas Johanna tries to stay in the shadows of the lime light, stives to be the perfect child, quiet and unique. Here I learned most about my family ties, and how that relates to me and who I am as a person. The thing is though, is that I spent a whole week here, and so far on this trip this is the longest stop that I have made. We really didn't do much of anything the entire time worth mentioning, and could be best described as "hanging out," which my mom seemed fully content on. There was a 70th birthday celebrated, my parent's 25th wedding anniversary, and my personal favorite event was the Overkill and Exodus show that I stumbled upon as I exited the Edeka, the grocery store two blocks away from our house. This show caught me by suprise and was the real outlet for all my frustration up until that point. Germans are fun to headbang and mosh with, but god damn can they get big. There was this 7 foot giant in the mosh pit, pushing people aside and laughing whilst headbanging. I got a good elbow to the eye, which slowed down my enjoyment of the show. Overall though...fucking awesome show...
...fast forward to yesterday, Karl and I leave the kids and the family behind and fly to London... where the story REALLY gets interesting...
This story though is my trip from Blacksburg towards getting into Augsburg Germany with my German family...
...we last left off though with me waking up at 10 am in Jeff's house, hearing the dvd menu for Monty Python's Life of Brian playing over and over again, which is the chorus of "Always Look on the bright side of life" which is very ironic when you get annoyed with it. I was hungover as shit from just...being awake and working my mind this whole time. I got Joe up, drove him home, he slipped me a $20 which I think I used half of for provisions to wake me up, feed me and keep me up on the road. Everyone seems to have played a role i've noticed in my journey coming to London, and I hope one day, that I can find a way to do something in return of the help I got. Joe is just one of the many on that list...
...The drive itself isn't worth mentioning, suffice to say that I broke down in Kentucky. My water pump broke in half for one reason or another, and I was stuck in Mt. Sterling for 24 hours, waiting to find a person 1) able and 2) willing to fix a volkswagon water pump. $500 and 24 hours later I am on the road again, making it into St. Louis...
... I spent two days here, sorting through my stuff going to London with me, packing only what I felt was important for my goals to get into the music industry and left many "necessities" that did nothing to satisfy those goals. I had good talks with my parents who showed me their support in my goals but kept a clear head about the reality of it all. In the end it was a very good time for my mental development because until this point, my sense of reality was constantly altered and my mood was always swaggering and slouching and not really formalized in a professional or adult fashion. Here was the beginning of such thoughts. And again, I felt ready to go to London. Just needed to go to Germany first for a week to be with family...
...I spent 36 consecutive hours in either an airport or in an airplane to get to Germany. I had stand-by status which meant that I was on the lowest of the totem pole of people getting onto a plane. I spent an entire day in the airport in st. louis (which was actually kind of interesting, playing guitar while in lines and next to disgruntled people, the blue lady and her missed flight to Kuwait, the asian lady and her cheeky demeanor) and finally got lucky and caught a side flight to chicago to try there. (Note to the wise, don't go to chicago) There is always shitty weather in Chicago, and my plane got grounded for 3 hours due to shitty weather, meaning I missed my connection flight I was promised by catching this flight. So after ariving in Chicago at 3 am, I flew back into Dulles VA at 6 am, spent the afternoon having a quick nap and a lunch with Kate. She is still a fun kid, but it is apparent that we are moving in two different directions, I wish her all the best though, as I know she does with me too...
... Dulles to Munich works on the first try, and I fly business class over the pond to Germany at 6pm. Probably the best break of the whole trip. Free booze on the plane, more ambidexterous drawing attempts. More notes on how to make it in the industry. No sleep. Good food suprisingly. Thoughts on role models, limitations of human beings and limits to my mental capacity. James Narby's book The Cosmic Serpent, DNA and the Origins of Life. Very good book that promotes thinking constantly in a duality of logic...
... Augsburg, Family and Down Time. My aunt Nicole picks me up from the airport and drives me to her home which is above a bakery, across the street from the train station and the doner kebab stand. I love this place, but....I get trapped there too...almost like the swamps of sadness in Neverending Story. If you let it get to you, you can really sink into nothingness there. On the light side, I was eating well, had great conversations with the family (my german at this point is fluent, i am just lazy now with trying to figure out words I don't know), the dynamic in that household is so much different than that of my immediate family in the states. Five kids, all do gymnastics, all are crazy in their own right. Stephanie rebels for the sake of rebelling, I don't think she has figured out yet who she wants to be, but she knows what she doesn't want to be. Lukas is competitive and energetic, Max is never around and is always working but is always real with you. Jacob is self serving and demanding of attention, whereas Johanna tries to stay in the shadows of the lime light, stives to be the perfect child, quiet and unique. Here I learned most about my family ties, and how that relates to me and who I am as a person. The thing is though, is that I spent a whole week here, and so far on this trip this is the longest stop that I have made. We really didn't do much of anything the entire time worth mentioning, and could be best described as "hanging out," which my mom seemed fully content on. There was a 70th birthday celebrated, my parent's 25th wedding anniversary, and my personal favorite event was the Overkill and Exodus show that I stumbled upon as I exited the Edeka, the grocery store two blocks away from our house. This show caught me by suprise and was the real outlet for all my frustration up until that point. Germans are fun to headbang and mosh with, but god damn can they get big. There was this 7 foot giant in the mosh pit, pushing people aside and laughing whilst headbanging. I got a good elbow to the eye, which slowed down my enjoyment of the show. Overall though...fucking awesome show...
...fast forward to yesterday, Karl and I leave the kids and the family behind and fly to London... where the story REALLY gets interesting...