World Premiere of "Where the Sidewalk Ends..."

It is Thursday here in Germany. That means only one thing. Today I screen my documentary that I have been working on this entire time I've been abroad. How do I feel about this? Well, to be honest I'm not that excited at all. I can't really comment on how I feel about my documentary either. I don't think I will be able to though, until a few months or even years later. Regardless, it was a roller-coaster in every sense of the word.

Moreover, after today when the credits roll and the lights come up, it will symbolize the completion of my Junior Thesis and the end of my time here. This last week is going to be very tough on me. I've gotten very close to my host family, so much so, that it will be difficult to say goodbye.

Anyways, on this Thursday morning I decided to awake early and watch possibly one of my last German sunrises. I'm glad I did. I awoke to find a light snow falling as the sun began to peek out. I just sat there looking out my window glad I finally got to see it snow. I then proceeded to open my door and found a note from one of my little host sisters. Basically she said she was excited to see the next best film out of all the 18 films. The first being TK's, my new host brother (which truly was amazing by the way, and in my opinion the best in the program), and the second being mine. Followed by her signature and 'I love you'.

I sat back down, note in hand, watched the sun grow in intensity as the snowflakes lightly fell upon our pond. For once in a long time, I felt completely at peace. I felt happy. I honestly don't care what else awaits me today. In this moment I know I was meant to be here. In this moment I'm happy.

Sursum Lovin' in London

Lifting hearts...all over the world!

This past weekend I decided I needed to travel one last time, and I needed to get away from my film for a bit. So TK and I decided to do a blind booking through GermanWings. It's this promotion they offer where you get to choose a theme i.e. party, shopping, culture, etc. and then they give you about 14 possible destinations. We picked the one that had the least places we had already been. We were in fact hoping to get Barcelona of this list, but ended up with London. I was pretty stoked. I had only wanted Barcelona for warmer weather and it's a place I've never been, but currently I have a bunch of friends studying in London. With that in mind I was really happy to be going to the England.

We called them up, and they had a place for us to crash, which meant LESS MONEY to be spent in such an expensive city. London was a lot of fun. On the way over TK and I made friends with a German girl sitting next to us on the plane. We later met up with her and did a bunch of touristy stuff.

What was really great, was being in an English speaking country again. Although, I kept finding myself saying things in German out of habit, especially 'danke' or 'bitte' or 'genau'. It was also really great seeing all my friends there. They were studying for finals, so we couldn't really all go out, but it was nice to be with friends. We all went to a little pub, ate fish and chips, had a pint and watched the Arsenal vs Liverpool game (Arsenal won). It was such a great experience being in a British pub watching football with Brits.

It was good seeing friends again. Made me realize I do miss a lot of people back home, but I still love being here so much. I kinda just wish they all could come over here and we all could just go play in Europe!

Anyways, London was a nice break from all the editing and looking at my film over and over again...

Editing Editing Editing

Well, well, well...I have been busy. I managed to make it up to Berlin again and do some more filming. It was a good time in Berlin. I got a lot of good footage and met some more cool people. I managed to meet up with two friends I had made on my last trip and found a really awesome hole in the wall bar. Literally this place was the sketchiest most awesome place I've been to. You had to knock on this door that was under a bridge. It had no sign or anything that identified it. You only knew it was there if , well if you knew it was there. Then this guy slides open a little slate on the door and eyeballs you. Finally he opened the door, looked at my friend and I and asked "Just you two?" We looked around. "Yea" "Just you two?" again we look around. "Ummm...yea" "Ok! Come on in!" We enter, it turns into this really awesome pub. Low lights mirrored roof. Jazz band playing in the corner. Sehr schon!

As I left my artist to head back to Bonn, she also gave me a parting gift. A Minolta XG9! I was so stoked. I've always wanted a Minolta and I've really been wanting to shoot black and white again. An amazing gift, that was completely unexpected, but extremely appreciated.

So these past few weeks have been pretty much something like this: wake up, edit, remember to eat, edit, edit, edit, sleep, and repeat. Also the occasional helping someone out on their film. This film has been a pain. My hard drive has crashed twice. I lost everything I had been working on (luckily not any raw footage) and had to restart my entire project and re-edit in less then a week. Fun stuff.

Besides that I've been trying to hang out with my host family. Most of the other students edit at the AIB, but since I have a Mac and FCP I can just do it at home. So I haven't really seen most of them in weeks, which is really weird. However, I have gotten close to my host family. We also have a new member of the family! TK, one of the other film students, had difficulties with his original host family and moved into ours. It's been a lot of fun having him here, and we have become brother too.

We all have been going on small excursions together. We went ice skating and to a medieval theme Christmas Market. We've played board games, and just had a lot of fun together. By far the best part of this trip is my host family. They are amazing.

I did put together a short timelapse clip for my film. It actually didn't make it in the film, but hey you can look at it if you want:

Where the Sidewalk Ends... (Clip) from Vincent Patin on Vimeo.

Oh right...I'm Not on Vacation

Today began the first of our shooting weeks. We all came in and read our Director's Concept on what we would try to achieve with our film. Our professors gave us some legal documents to have signed and other forms that proved we were student filmmakers, and gave us some parting wisdom.

I myself still need to arrange when I will return to Berlin to shoot. However, I have the bulk of my footage already. So I opted to keep this weekend as the first weekend to relax and stay in Bonn, especially due to the fact that my body decided it couldn't keep up with me any more and I have developed tonsillitis or strept throat, not quite sure which. All I know is my tonsils look beautiful, and I can barely breathe or swallow. Yay!!

Regardless, tomorrow I'm off to Duessledorf to help Irene, one of the students with her project. She is shooting cage fighters, so I get to have a lot of fun filming people beating the crap out of each other, and the audience bathing in the glory of sweat and blood. Monday it looks like I'll be helping James on his project as well, which is about a comparison of US and German healthcare, as well as doing some work for my internship. On top of all of this, will be relaxing, and cutting together a teaser of my footage. (I'm currently logging....joy)

Well, that's that. Everyone is off all over Europe making some movie magic. So it begins...

This is Halloween!

For Halloween a few friends I decided that we wanted to go to the Birthplace of this fine now American commercial holiday. So we headed for Dublin, Ireland. Now Ireland was great, the people were amazing, Halloween was epic, but the traveling to and fro...not so much.

Our flight is to leave at 10:50am on October 30. We are flying out of Dusseldorf airport which takes about an hour to get to from Bonn. We decided that we want to get there a hour early to the airport, so we naturally decided to take the 8am train and catch a connecting train from the main station to the airport. BOTH of these trains are LATE. Additively we end up getting to the train station 40 minutes behind schedule. We start rushing around trying to get on our flight, since we have about 10 minutes now (we had to take a 5 minute sky cab to the terminal). We run to the check in line which closes 40 minutes before the flight is to board. Lameskis. We then run to security check in and explain the situation. They send us to someone who sends us somewhere else, who again sends us to another part of the airport. Finally one person says we just need to go to Swissport. We look around, and nowhere is there to be a Swissport sign anywhere. I'm franticly looking for red and white or some cross, or even like a dog with a barrel around his neck, just anything Swiss-ish I can think of, but alas to no avail. Miraculously, Ben finds the right place, which I'm still dumbfounded on for we both looked around once we were there and saw nothing that denoted Swissport.

The nice lady calls the terminal, and then tells us its to late....We are pissed. So we mull over the options and decided to take the next flight which leaves the following morning the same time. We get there two hours early that time.

Dublin itself was amazing. We stayed at the Barnacle, which apparently at one time U2 actually recorded a Joshua Tree Demo there. Moreover, it was in the middle of Temple Bar. We spend the day checking out some sites and of course make a visit to the Guinness Factory, which I'm not sure why, but tastes so much better at its source. I mean literally at the factory it tasted better then at a pub a few feet away. I don't understand how, but it's true. I think I may be ruined on the joy of Guinness now. We also check out the Jameson Distillery and some cathedrals, as well as Trinity College.

The night finally begins and we go out for Halloween festivities (randomly we bump into our friend Sam walking on the streets as we head out). Which of course was mainly tourists, a lot of them American, and a lot of Irish guys looking to take advantage of this situation. In fact they even told me so. One thing that surprised me was how many older people were out. It was as if I strolled into cougar central, which was quite humorous because for some reason Bobcatt always seems to have cougars after him. We keep hoping from place to place when finally we start making our way to The Turk's Head. Well actually we had no idea where we were going, we just saw a lot of people and decided to go in, but right before I enter I randomly run into a friend outside. It truly is a small world. We go in and start walking around. I start exploring looking for a water closet when I randomly fine myself in a club. Apparently the downstairs area of this place led to the bathroom and club....weird. As I'm exploring I again run into a few friends. I really freak out and run over and give my friend a hug. Apparently, they were in Dublin for the weekend for a debate tourney. What a ridiculous night...

The next day Ben and I just explore the city some more, walking aimlessly seeing what we stumble upon, and just enjoying Ireland. Later that night we decide to go out and get away from the tourist areas. We wind up at this little pub that was only locals. We make friends with the older bartender, and he educates us on whiskey and tells us some of his life stories. We then head out to another little pub and meet a local Irish woman and her friend from the South of England (that accent kills). They point us to another pub to check out and tell us to tall to the barkeep about music. We abide and find ourselves in this tiny little pub.

We make friends with the barkeep and when the other costumers leave he closes down the bar and invites his Swedish friends over. We end up just talking and hanging out, talking about photography, music, books, whatever. They take us to one last place where some crazy Irish guy wouldn't leave us alone due to our Swedish friends. Yet, our barkeep friend Conall, starts talking to him about how they our both his wives and he got "250 cattle for them". All this goes over the guys head, but the rest of us our dying laughing. Ben and I end up leaving since we have a flight in the morning at 6:50am, which leads me to my next story...

I'm lying in my bed when suddenly I jump up look at my clock and realize what time it is: 6:50. Our plane is currently taking off. How this happened I know not. I look at my alarm, it's set ready to go. The time on it is correct, the alarm is set for the am not the pm, but for whatever reason it didn't go off, or we slept through it, or I somehow turned it off in my sleep (which doesn't make sense to me because it was my iPhone, so you have to do that whole slidy thing and what not) Ben for some reason forgot to set his. The thing is, we got back at our hostel at 12am so we could get a little sleep and be ready. I know you're thinking well you went to a bunch of pubs, but the the thing is we only had half pints and we only had four of those and two glasses of whiskey. This was over the course of 5pm to 12am. Furthermore, Ben and I are now acquainted with German beer. Irish beer in comparison is nowhere near as potent. In short Ben and I were completely fine when we got to the hostel, just tired. Nonetheless it happened and it blew. We had to get the next flight which was pricey and for some reason Ben's card wasn't working nor his phone. Had I not been there, Ben would still be in Ireland.

So yea, Ireland itself was an amazing trip. Just the traveling thing wasn't that great. Whatever, supposedly everything happens for a reason....

Making Mooooovies!

So I'm going to back track a little bit and recount status update on my film...

I had just gotten back from an epic 21st Birthday Celebration Galore in Munich, Germany when I finally got a solid response from one of my contacts. I was finally going to make a movie. One problem. She calls me on Monday the 28th telling me that that upcoming weekend may in fact be the only week she will be painting till Spring. Luckily I have no plans so I agree, realizing this may in fact be my only chance to get footage. However, this week was one of the longest weeks we had at the AIB. I was getting up at 7am and not getting home till about 11pm. Incredibly long school days, mixed with a trip to Aachen and Masstricht. On top of that we had an editing project to do for school.

Basically, that entire week I was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off trying to prepare for the weekend ahead. Come Friday, the day I leave for Berlin, I'm completely exhausted, unprepared, and unorganized for this trip. Yet, somehow I had unbelievable luck. One of the student workers agreed to come along with me, because she wanted the experience and liked my project. If it wasn't for her, I don't know what I would of done. She was able to keep the project running smoothly.

At any rate we make it to East Berlin where the artist lives. It was pretty sweet being in East Berlin because it just so happened to be the 20th anniversary of the signing of the reunification Germany. The city felt so incredibly alive. I was in awe of the surroundings for everywhere I looked was covered in some form of street art. We finally manage to get to the artists house, a bit behind schedule. The second we walked in the door she asks us "Where's the beer?" So we drop off our stuff go grab a few pints come back and stay up talking, watching movies, and enjoying a few pints.

I managed to grab some solid interviews the next day and some pretty sweet shots of her painting.

The next few shooting days were insanely hectic, however I was able to get some really good footage. Although, I'm not entirely satisfied with what I currently have.

At any rate the last day I went to this really sweet bar and made friends with the bartender as the place was closing. Turns out this guy is a graffiti artist and would be doing a joint piece with his friends the next week our group went there. Also, he may be doing it on a piece of the Berlin wall. I was freaking excited. So all in all hectic, but fairly good week.

The Pitch!

On the 26th of October we all had to pitch our ideas to a bunch of composers from Musicube. Hopefully by the end of the day we were all to have a composer or at least a step closer to having composer to truly get our film in the works. Sadly, we arrived at AIB early in the morning only to hear about the passing of a good friend back home. Needless to say it was a long and hard day. However, we all did manage to give our pitches, and in my opinion every single one of us did a damn good job. Everyone has really good and really interesting ideas, I'm looking forward to every single one of their films.

My pitch was interesting, I had no idea what I was going to say save "I'm going to keep this short..." It ended up being pretty decent although, my story became a lot more philosophical (for obvious reasons) Luckily after my pitch I had a few composers interested in my idea, and am now working with Sebastian Werrmeyer who is just as passionate as I am about my project.

Anyways, my heart goes out to all of you back at LMU, especially those men of principle who lost a great brother...

Il Tartufo Bianco

After the Berlin and Prague group excursion I had no weekend plans, so my friend Ben approached me and wanted to know if I could help him film his documentary in Italy. My instant reaction went something like this "Italy! Hell yea!" I'm so glad I did. Not only was Ben kind enough to pay for my flight since it was a bit last minute, we also got our lodging for free. Oh yea, I didn't mention that we just so happened to be staying on an Italian vineyard in Piedmont region of Italy. Not only did we get lodging for free, but the vineyard paid for most of our meals or at least gave us a nice discount. I was very content!

So here we are in this free bed and breakfast-esque vineyard making movie magic. Ben's project involves following the Il Tartufo Bianco or the white truffle from its search in the forest to the first bite. So Ben and follow a truffle hunter and manage to discover four white truffles. Prior to arriving in Italy Ben tells me to "Go crazy filming and just do what I do..." Me = Very Happy now.

It was pretty freakin epic following this dog around in the forest trying to film her in search of truffles. (They use to use pigs to find truffles, but they like to eat them. So now truffle hunters train dogs. Yea...there's a fun fact for you. You should feel smarter now.) So Ben and I are stoked on getting some pretty sweet footage, and go back to get some dinner and wine....for free! Awwwwww yeeeeaaaaaa!

The next major scene was to film a truffle dish being prepared. So the next day (after getting to sleep in for the first time since I left) we went to a restaurant, although not the one we initially planned for. Regardless, it was amazing! They took us into the kitchen and I begin bouncing off the walls trying to get sweet shots. The chef ends up making four traditional truffle dishes. One is buttered noodles, the second a cheese dish, the third some raw meat (basically it put Kobe beef to shame), and lastly a simple fried egg. They bring the dishes out and we get all the shots we need. Then Ben and I look at each other and turn to the chef to which he says, "Sit! Eat!" We are in shock. We ask how much and they refuse our money and instead bring us wine. We can't believe it. White truffles are pretty pricey, the truffle they were about to use on this dish was at least 40 to 50 euro! They want us to eat this for FREE!

They then shave the white truffle on the dishes... Now I need to take a moment to explain this to you, so you all can truly appreciate the beauty of the white truffle. They take out this elegant silver shaver that is wider then a normal shaver with an octagonal shape. They began to shave this delicious fungus onto the food.

The flakes lightly fall on to the dishes releasing their aroma into the air which gently caresses your nostrils longingly begging you to explore their deliciousness. It almost looks like snow as the shavings so delicately land on the field of noodles, finding a nook or cranny to cradle them. Once the waiter is done shaving the beautiful fungus you can't help, but salivate. The aroma is so pungent and distinct, that you can already taste it. At last we sample the dishes. I slowly take a bite of the buttered noodles now covered in the deliciousness that is still truly unknown to me. I take that bite, and in an instant my senses are just filled with beauty. We eat all the dishes and drink our red wine which so subtly compliments the flavors enhancing the overall experience that your tastes buds are going through. In truth I must say that the best dish was indeed the simplest. The fired egg truly let you taste the majestic flavors of the truffle. By the time we finished all the dishes and wine I thought my tongue needed a cigarette from the mind blowing tastegasm it just had. (I don't actually smoke...)

Afterwards Ben and I relaxed some more, hiked in some hills, and just enjoyed Italy. The final day we went to the 79th Annual Truffle Fair and got some footage then headed back to Bonn. Ben managed to pick up a truffle to use for his pitch the next day!

Last Group Excursion with a Side Dish of Extended Family

For our last group excursion we went on a week long trip to Berlin then Prague. I had been to Berlin the week before and made a few contacts that could possibly prove beneficial to a paid project LMU had put me on. Basically the idea was that Sam and I had to collect interviews on the street about the Berlin for its 20th year anniversary.

So when we arrived in Berlin Sam and I were allowed to deviate from the planned group events, and do our thing. We met with the bartender slash graffiti artist I had met in my previous trip. He took us to this little alleyway where he and five of his friends were working on a collective graffiti project. His friends were some well renowned artists in the graffiti world, among them being Poeta! We filmed their entire work, and I occasionally left and wandered gathering other interviews.

They were a great group of people and a lot of fun to work with. They came from all over the place some being from Berlin, others from Chile and Argentina. We spent the entire day with them, and even gathered more contacts, and another possible side project.

Later we met back up with the group. We checked out a few sites, like Checkpoint Charlie and the actual wall. We went to an amazing dinner then some of us went to catch a concert. That was an epic night. The concert went from being really tame to off the wall crazy the second BNR started playing. Somehow though we went from the very back of the crowd to right on the stage. We returned back to the hotel really late, and really sore, but it was an epic night.

The last night we all met up and went on top of the Rathus. After a few days we were to head out to Prague. Before that though we went on a few more tours and were allowed to do our own exploring. Sam and I did a little bit more work on our internship project as well as the other project I mentioned earlier.

We then checked out a studio in Berlin where they had just recently filmed "Inglorious Bastards" After that we were headed to the Czech Republic.

Oh Prague! After a long train ride we finally end up in Prague. We get there in the evening and we all go to this amazing restraunt together. We later explore the city as a group at night.

The next day I wake up to hear one of my friends say, "He look guys it's kinda snowing..." To which I immediatley wake up yell "It's Christmas!!!!" succesfully waking up everyone. Phil and I start dancing around and I open the windows and start taking pictures. Mind you it's snowing outside. I'm hanging out the window in nothing, but my boxers taking pictures talking about Christmas and Santa bringing toys. After a hour of this we go downstairs and start the day. We have a few planned activities and a walking tour. We stumble upon this little coffee shop and everyone gets hot chocolate (Prague was the first country I've been cold in)

The night begins and first it's off to the Opera. It was pretty cool for the most part, although it was in Czech. Afterwards we all headed to this little place called the Beer Factory. It was pretty sweet. Basically every table had a tap, and every beer you poured the bill and a tally would add up. The tally was sent to a big screen where every tables tab was kept. So basically you ended up trying to beat other tables or even challenging them. We won. Moreover, our entire group, well mainly the girls, decided to dance and once we hit the floor the place really picked up.

The following day we were on our own till midday. So we ventured around exploring the town. We found a Dali museum that was pretty cool and did some shopping. At midday we all went to a TV Studio. For some reason we were all acting silly and the tour guides were eating it up. They took us into this sound booth and started playing really random music to which we all instantly starting dancing too in whatever style it was.

They then took us onto some stages and gave us these muppets to play with. It was a really weird tour, but pretty sweet. With the coming of night we all went to one final restrauant together. Thee best sausage I have ever had. I called it the Obamasausage. It was that good. Our teachers were having a good time with us so we invited them out. They ended up coming with us to this 80's - 90's club. It was a pretty epic night.

The next day I departed from the group to a little town in Germany called Hof where my Step-mom has some family. It was a really relaxing weekend. They took me to this comedy club (Although I really only understood a few jokes about Obama), and then we went to a wall memorial where a piece of the wall actually went through a house. Later we met with more family and the daughter who was my age took me out with some of her friends. All in all an epic weekend!

Golden at Oktoberfest

So before I even left for Germany I was determined to celebrate my 21st at Oktoberfest. Part 4 of MG21E! was just that. We took an overnight train to Munich so we would arrive in Munich at 7am. Upon arrival our friends got separated. A few friends of ours who were already there had saved a spot for me in their hotel as a Birthday gift, and they also invited James to stay with them as well. Our friend Sam was going to meet up with some USC friends of his and stay with them and Phil and Ben were staying with some of Ben's contacts.

It's very hard to get back in touch with people in a place like Oktoberfest. On top of that all of us had run out of minutes, and none of us were really able to call each other. We only had some money to text each other. So the celebration didn't really go as I had planned from the beginning because I was separated from a good majority of my friends. At any rate we ran into a few friends, David and Sammy T. We tried to get into the Spaten tent that our friends were at, but could only make it to the garden (It turn out there were two tents, and we were at the wrong one anyway). Regardless, we decided we would try to meet up with them later so we go looking for a tent. Many of them were closed off, I thought I wouldn't get in, but good ole David was determined to get me in one.

We ended up at the Pauliner tent. It was amazing. There is nothing quite like Oktoberfest. After looking for a table for about 15 minutes we finally found one in front of the band, but had lost Sammy T and James. We figured they would try to text us, or were just a bit behind. David and I got a few liters and started making friends. The table next to us was all Italians, the table behind us was British folks, the table on my left was a mix of German, Austrian, and Alaskans. The table behind them was some guys from New York, and the table directly across from us was just some cute German girls. After a few liters we were all friends. Glorious thing of festivals involving music, food, and beer.

At last Sammy T and James had found us. Just as a group of Italian football players arrived. They were ridiculous. They instantly befriended me for my Italian heritage and the next thing I know we are singing and drinking together. The New Yorkers turn to me and yell, "Hey California!" I respond, "What up New York?" For some reason all the Americans found it easier just to call each other by their state. He continues, "Yo man, we need to get a goddamn God Bless America in here!" I respond, "Why not? You start, I'll get your back." "I'll right once there is a break between songs!" As he says this the band stops playing and there is an uproar for New York and me, the Alaskans, and my friends. The Italians join in as well as the Germans, and once we finish all of the Italians and Germans yell, "Obama!!!!!"

The Italians treat me as one of their own now. They start getting really saucy, and well, start grabbing woman passing by pulling them onto our table and having them dance for us. Meanwhile, continually telling me to grab their posterior. I'm not going to lie, I did, and every single time it went exactly like this. "Hey! Did you do that?" cried the damsel. "Why yes I did?" I replied with a slight grin. "Where you from?" they would retort. "California..." I would say. "California!!!! I love you!!!" they would yell. To which all of the Italian guys would start laughing and goading me on....oh ONE of my peoples.

We finally leave that tent get some food and crash out in the hotel. Which was sweet because the hotel was literally about a 100 feet from the festival. We later regroup and I get a call as I wake up that all my friends had just woken up from a nap to and our waiting for me on a hill. Meanwhile, one of the guys who had invited me to stay in his hotel, had gotten sick the day before (literally sick and was in the hospital). He ended up being ok, but could go out. Which sucked because he is of German decent and had gotten really excited about being here to the point where he had gotten legit linderhosen. I told him I would don his garb in his honor for the remainder of the day. Mind you he is bigger then me in both height and size, so the entire ensemble hung on me, and I looked as if I was 12 years old. I didn't care though...I was a man with a mission.

We eventually meet up with our friends and get into the Haufbrau tent. We spend the rest of the night there, as my friends buy me a few more drinks for my birthday. At last we get a bit more food and part for the night. Oktoberfest is an endurance test. Drinking from about 7am to 12am is quite a challenge, but we had survived.

The next day I took advantage of being in Munich and explored the city. I headed to the Olympic stadium, visited the BMW museum, and the Haufbrau Haus. We ran into a few friends throughout the day. Namely I ran into my friend Blake and Sam Thomas (who is studying in Austria). Later we ran into a few of the girls. First being Anna, who tagged along with us to the Haufbrau Haus. Along the way she found a stein from one of the tents and decided to take it. James had warned her that it wasn't a good idea, but she took it. As we walked up to the Haufbrau Haus they caught her with the stein and kicked her out. It was slightly funny. Anyways to make it up to us she offered us a space in the car that she and another girl were renting to take back to Bonn. James and I mulled it over and decided to take her up on that. Not the greatest choice cause we ended up in traffic the entire way. Oh well, I saw a lot of country side, and sang obnoxiously to the random music on German airwaves....

Overall, part 4 of MG21E! was pretty amazing. A few of the guys still want to do a little something for me, since we didn't really get to celebrate together till the very end though. So it looks like there may be a part 6 and a possible part 7 still to come. Part 7 being celebrating with my friends and family back home, since my 21st actually means something there...

Je'Taime Paris!

Awwwww Paris.... I have been to Paris once before when I was 12 years old, and to be quite honest didn't really enjoy it all that much. I did, however, enjoy the countryside quite a bit. Yet, I decided to give Paris another go. Especially since two of my friends speak French fairly well and one of them, that being Ben, had lived there for a year.

I must say this time I thoroughly enjoyed Paris. Ben showed us his favorite spots from when he was living there as well as some major tourist things to check out like that big metal thing that's really famous.

That night we out to dinner in this little Fondue place. It was such a good meal. They served us wine in baby bottles, which apparently started a long time ago during some prohibition movement or something, but the place kept in tradition. We later went to a few pubs and just really enjoyed the night.

Finally we made it back to our hostel, which also happened to be a bar on the first floor. We made friends with the bartenders and had a great night. I think I only paid for one drink there, it was pretty epic. Finally the place closes up, and the barkeep asks me if I wanna go out to this place he knows. I recall the words of my brother-in-law as if he were Obi-wan speaking to me through the force, "If someone asks you out, even if it's four in the morning...just say yes." So I heeded these words. We ended up at this little club listening to live music. It was an epic night. I finally made it back to the hostel around 7am and got up at 8:30am to head out to Disney Paris with Ben.

Disney Paris was freaking awesome. It was all made possible by cousin back home who gave me a free ticket to any Disney park in the world, as a birthday present. I was very happy, needless to say. The park was the most detailed Disney park I have seen thus, far. It also has the best Space Mountain of all Disney parks. Ben has been to Disney Paris a few times, and knows the park fairly well. So when we went on Space Mountain, he neglected to tell me the joys of this particular Space Mountain. So as we begin our descent we hit a loop, and I flip for I completely forgot that this was the park with the indoor loop. The entire time I'm laughing and yelling, "There's a loop...and a CORKSCREW!!!!" It truly was a great time.

We later met up with the rest of our group. They had gone to the Lourve, which I have been to before, but would have loved to seen again. We spent the rest of the time exploring Paris by night, and taking some photos of the lights. When we got back to the hostel, my friend's told the barkeep it was my Golden Birthday and he put on the most childish Happy Birthday song I have ever heard. Thus began part 1 of my Golden 21st Birthday Epicness!

We headed back home the next day and I got a birthday beer via train with the guys for part 2 of MG21E! When I arrived home my host family had surprised me when I entered the door with a few gifts as well as a cake. They prepared a traditional German meal for me, then my host sister took me out with a couple of her friends for part 3 of my MG21E! It was a good Birthday day, but was still be actually celebrated a few more times.