Andrew Peron

Brandon making the noose he'll eventually try to hang me with.

So, where did we leave off. Oh, yeah.

Day 3: July 9, 2008

I sit up in bed and look out the window, at a pretty impressive sunrise. I stumble around, look for clothes, take a shower, and unpack some more stuff. I come to the realization that if I’m gonna be here for a month, I might as well put stuff away like I live here. After about an hour of all of these things, I look around and find my watch, and look at the time. 5:15 AM. I think to myself, I must be on Austin time. I grab my German cell phone, flip it open, and see -you guessed it- 5:15 AM. Germany time. I slowly realize that apparently in Germany, the sun rises in the middle of the goddamn night. Later I realize that it makes sense, as we are much closer to the North Pole than the US is. It’s also relatively light outside until around 11:30 at night, which is kind of nice, makes the night last longer. It’s only actually dark from about 11:30 - 4:30, making it the shortest, most ridiculous sleep cycle i’ll ever experience. Unless I go to Alaska. I read until about 8:30, and then wake Brandon up. He looks at me, with a weird look on his face. I asked him what the problem was. He replies with a huge fart. And Brandon is up for the day.

Apparently, Germans love to eat Bread for every meal. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day, unlike dinner in the US. Every other meal is more like a snack, usually a loaf of really awesome bread, with your choice of butter, cheeses, salamis, and other goodies. For breakfast, you can throw in jam or fruit, but most people opt for the Salami, or cheeses. My particular favorite is fleischsalat, which is essentially strips of ham in some disgusting, white sauce, with other dead animals in it. Awesome.

Yeah. Fleischsalat. Let the vomit begin.

I decide to go for the butter and chives, and begin. As the trip goes on, I promise myself, I’ll try some of the nasty shit they have here. Me and Brandon eat, and decide to go off into the city, and find some fun stuff to do. It’s the middle of the week, and German kids are still in school, so we have free reign of the city, essentially. We discover that Germans love Subway, the fast food restaurant, however, we decide not to order, as we have no idea how i would tell them all of the shenanigans I want on my sandwich in German. We instead go sit outside the large shopping mall, find free wi-fi, and begin sending the emails. Brandon calls his wife, as he will begin to do everyday. I brought him an extra cell phone to use while we’re here, and he buys a SIM card from the T-Mobile store down the street from the apartment. German cell service is a bit different than US cell service, in the sense that everything you receive is free, it’s what you send that costs you. So every time his wife (aka girlfriend Summer) calls him, it doesn’t cost a penny for him. No matter how long he talks. Which is usually hours. On end. When they aren’t on the phone, they’re video chatting on iChat, while I sit and wish I had someone who could waste their day talking to me. Alas, I finish my emails, and leave Brandon to talk to his lover.

I walk to the castle, and decide to take a look around. I sneak into a backdoor, and I’m promptly kicked out by a very angry, small, German man. Fair enough. I decide to walk by the lake that borders the castle, almost a natural moat of sorts, and find a bench. At this time, my mom calls. First time I’ve spoken to anyone on the phone since Sunday. It’s good to hear my mom, and she’s glad to know I’m doing okay. I promise to send her pictures of the cool stuff, and I tell her to tell my dad hi for me. I finish up, and walk to the ice cream cafe right near the castle. Brandon calls, and meets me. We eat, laugh at the weird method of dress, and go back to the apartment.

View from the top of the apartment.

I’ve got homework to do, and food to cook, so look for Part III tomorrow.

Trip

The sunset from the boat in Nysted, Denmark.

So, I made some promises I’d write about my trip to Germany. I’m sure you’re all dying to know. Let’s begin.

Day 1: July 7th, 2008

We arrive to ABIA ragged, red-eyed, and tired. Me and Brandon both look homeless, as we haven’t shaven since two days prior, on some stupid bet to see who can grow more facial hair. I’m totally winning. We check in, sit down, grab something to eat, and wait for the flight to Raleigh/Durham, for our international flight to Heathrow. Flight is easy enough, me and brandon make jokes at the expense of the extremely large women two rows up. We arrive at RDU, at this point, fairly excited, not knowing what to expect, but knowing it’ll be fun. We reach the stage where we all of a sudden realize our hour in RDU is the last hour my BlackBerry will see a text message, email, or phone call, until August 1st. I begin the flurry of mass texting everyone in my phone book, calling the people who matter, and checking email in between. Me and Brandon eat A&W, and listen to the brat kid in front of us complain about not getting a root beer float. I look to Brandon, and tell him how much it would suck to have that kid on our flight. Well, as fate would have it, this 8 year old demon child IS on our flight, the 7 hour, 38 minute trip across the Atlantic. With his brother. Unaccompanied. I prepare to pull my hair out.

Read more…

Trip

Hallelujah (Jeff Buckley/Leonard Cohen Cover) - Andrew Peron

Rough, but I was bored and didn’t have anything else to do. Check it out.

Music

As anybody who’s ever lived in Texas knows, football games are the single biggest event of the week for 95% of high school students. It’s the one time when it doesn’t matter who you know, or who you hang out with, everyone comes together and has a good time. It doesn’t matter if we win, or we lose, because chances are we had just as much fun either way.

In the 1st Half. When we were winning.

This past Friday, we had our biggest game of the season thus far- the Westlake-Bowie game. The once-undefeated Westlake Chaps had been 0-3 so far this season, so everyone was in high hopes that we’d win the game. People came out early, we tailgated, you know, the whole nine yards. It was your typical Friday night football blowout. Except for the part where we lost. 49-35. Yeah. They hadn’t won a single game this season. And we lost to them. We should just give up now, yeah ?

But never mind the football game now. It’s time to talk about something a little more interesting. Whataburger. For some reason, someone decided a few years ago that Whataburger would become the designated hang-out for kids after football games. This descision is one of the stupider i’ve come across, seeing as the cumulative capacity of the restaurant is 89 people. We easily surpassed that, when half of the Junior and Senior classes all crammed into the tiny booths. It was pandemonium. Or something like it. But on the way home, I came across the most ridiculous song. Ever. The Salmon Dance.

School bowie, football, School, westlake

So I’ve been working on my music alot lately. I’ve written about 6 original songs in the last 2 weeks, and, surprisingly, they aren’t half bad. I find it funny how I write some of the best songs when I’m ridiculously unhappy. I realize this isn’t uncommon, as many artists do this. But it’s still amusing to think that so much good can come from someone else listening to me complain about my problems. But never mind that now. A lot has been happening with that, as well. Almost 40,000 plays have been counted in those two weeks, and I can honestly say I never expected to see the day where that would come true. I’m looking forward to whats in store for me in the near future. I’ll write back soon. In the meantime:

Music andrew, guitar, jason reeves, Music, peron

But i’m too lazy right now. But rest assured, you won’t be sorry. Come back soon!

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