There was the whole thing with the sleeping bags.
We'd lost them somewhere in the basement (very serial killer-y down there, it's pretty sweet), and therefore would have had no coverings for the next few nights, except that D and S were kind enough to donate a roll, and we happened to find my brothers old one right before leaving. Then there was a whole panic as my sister was trying to do stuff for her visa (she'd had the craziest time trying to figure out her trip here from India), and I'd lost the phone given to me by my german dad. After running through the house to search for a little while, my phone finally turned up in the front seat of the car. Nobody knows for sure how it got there.
S was driving, and so we laid back, finishing the Great Gatsby and starting an odd tale by the name of "Mercury". Stopping at a couple restpoints on our 6 hour trip to the Netherlands, I was able to show off (more like bumblingly practice) my newfound skill at getting into those bathroom turnstiles. Pretty sure I nearly walked into the women's section on accident at one point.
My sister had been so kind as to give me a lesson in basic german on the drive down to Austria, which consisted entirely of her chanting expressions at me, my throat performing verbal backflips to try and pronounce the choking "ch" sound, and her correcting me, along with the other germanic adults in the car.
I'm getting off track.
The point is, I'd grasped enough of the grammar and pronouns that I actually managed to translate an advertisement on the bathroom stall. I was elated, trust me. The plastic backings of those doors had never looked so cool before.
Oh, also, when I turned and flushed, the whole toilet seat rotated in a giant loop, and a jet of something washed off the surface.
German engineers, man, like whoa.
We were back on the road in no time, munching on Haribo gummy bears and being fairly impressed that they had a restaurant, cafe, hotel and an entire miniature church at the reststop. You know, in case you'd sinned really badly on your way over.
As a side note, because I haven't mentioned this, I'm quite impressed at how smoothly roundabouts work in Europe. And they're pretty, with fountains and stuff, so that's chill.
We arrived at this grid of houses, which fit together like lego pieces, each one slightly different and yet all the same. They looked squashed from the sides, and each had a little yard, fenced off with a gate. We them met Ma (not M), a very well meaning sailor friend of S's. He owned the house we were to be staying in, which, as it turned out, was incredibly modern, sleek, and altogether just impressive. Everything was black and white and silver, with all sorts of compartments and drawers and modules, fit into this tiny floor plan. All in all, it looked like a model of future living, compact and efficient in all manner of things.
We got around to making a salad, and some sort of meat (I don't really question it at this point), and finished the meal with an odd gel-covered gelatin, which sounds redundant and is very good. I worked on his puzzle (a 2000 monochrome challenge that guests have been working on throughout the years, nowhere near done), and was happy to fill in a bunch of these single piece gaps while the rest of the gang watched Madagascar. The next day was to be the Summer Music Festival, so we went to bed restless.
I'm going to keep this a one day, so I can put the event of the incredible festival all together :P Later!
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