My Second Best Story of All Time

Upon finishing the semester abroad in London, my friends John, Ted, and I proceeded on traveling by backpack through the rest of Europe. First, we took a flight from London into Munich. Ted, devious as he was (and frankly still is), devised a plan to get John quite inebriated on the plane. John was then someone that never refused a drink. Furthermore, on international flights, drinks were free. As such, Ted and I continually ordered drinks and fed them to John. By the end of the flight, Ted's mission was accomplished and John was drunk.

Upon landing, we took a connecting train into Munich. On the train raid, we struck up a conversation with a lovely German lady and eventually grabbed her phone number. Upon arriving in the terminal, despite being totally drunk John was able to suggest that it be a good idea to square away lodging for the evening. Ted had spent some of the flight checking out Let's Go Europe and had already devised a set of activities for us. As such, he suggested that we table finding lodging, put our bags in the lockers in the terminal, and proceed for a healthy session of sightseeing.

After a couple of hours of sightseeing, Ted said it was time to experience a German tradition, the Bavarian Garden.

Beer garden derieves from the German name "Biergarten" and is an open-air area where beverages, (preferably beer), and prepared food are served. It is usually attached to a drinking establishment such as a public house or a German beer hall, which in places such as Munich may serve large numbers of customers.

Since the sightseeing had weakened John's buzz he was all for it and we proceeded to a Garden that Ted had scouted out. At the garden, the signature drink was something known as a Stein. A hug mug of beer that carried somewhere in the neighborhood of three to four can's worth of beer. Being that we were all in college, it wasn't long before machismo set in and suddenly Ted was challenging John to a drinking contest. Of course, at that time, drinking contests was one thing that John never lost let alone backed down from. I had, and still have, bad indigestion and so this was one contest I declined.

The battle was one of Titans. They were each almost done with their third when Ted finally called no mas. John was the big "winner" though frankly both were losers since they were taking turns heading to the bathroom. At some point, another lovely female turned around from the table behind us and began to speak in a perfect American English accent. She turned out to be from Cleveland and she was now living and working in Munich. We eventually exchanged numbers.

Ted returned from one of his frequent trips to the bathroom and began to look at me with a puzzled look. "Where's John" he asked. I pointed next to me, but he shook his head. I turned to my side and found that John had left without a trace. We began a desperate search for him only to find him passed out on one of the pic nic tables that were spread out in the front of the Bavarian Garden we were at. After we woke him up, it suddenly dawned on us. Two of us were totally wasted, we were in a city we'd never been to before, and we had no place to stay that night.

Ted suggested we call the girl we met on the train. We found a set of pay phones and I was chosen with the task for obvious reasons. There were two problems. First, the wait was something in the neighborhood of ten minutes. Second, these phones needed an engineer to figure out. After about five minutes of trying to make the call finally I got through. Unfortunately, the phone call went just a little worse than my attempts to make it. Let's just say that this girl wasn't nearly as nice now that we all needed help as she was on the train.

I came back to tell John and Ted the bad news only I found even worse news. The two of them had passed out on the curb. I attempted to wake Ted up, however he rolled over slapped the back pack he was using as a pillow and said,

Volpe don't worry, I set the alarm

Ted was slapping his back pack as he said it and so I could only assume he thought the back pack was an alarm. I sat down on the curb and had one of those "it's another fine mess you've gotten yourself into" moments. Soon, I had a new problem. Now, I needed to go to the washroom. I attempted to wake them up but that wasn't happening. Finally, I couldn't hold it in anymore.

I ran around finally winding up back at the very train station we had started in and relieved myself. I came back to the curb about twenty minutes later only Ted and John weren't any longer at the curb. (I can only assume that Ted's back pack/alarm went off)

I sprinted furiously through the strange city of Munich in a desperate search for my friends. Finally, after about fifteen minutes of running everywhere I spotted Ted and John off in the distance. I could see Ted with his arm around John and guiding him. I ran up to the two of them and Ted gave me one of those, go with me on this, looks.

Mike, I was just telling John that I think it's time to go back to
Chicago.

He gave me one of those, go with me on this, looks so I went with him.

Yeah Ted I was thinking the same thing.

I said.

John was having none of it. He did a Barry Sanders 360 spin move right out of Ted's arms and started sprinting all the while screaming

I'm not going home, I'm not going home

The only problem was that he never noticed the chains that protect the grass and when he crossed from the asphalt to the grass the chains tripped him and he fell head first on the ground.

It was now time for Ted to pull a move only Ted could pull. John was at his moment of his most vulnerability. Did Ted help him up? Did he check to make sure he was all right? No. Instead, he took out his instant camera, began snapping photos of John on the ground, and laughing heartily at John.

We had all had a good laugh, and we were now in a great mood. Still though, we were still stuck in the same basic problem. We were in a strange city, two of us were trashed, and we had no place to sleep. It was time to call the American from Cleveland. Fortunately, the American girl was much friendlier than the girl we met on the train. She was even able to figure out exactly where we were from my novice direction.

This girl was nothing more than a god send. She let us sleep at her place. She took us out and she even cooked us breakfast the next morning, some great pancakes. She even appeared to be interested in John though unfortunately John was too drunk to notice.

The best thing about the story at the time was this was the first day of our trip through Europe after studying in London. What else could we pull off we thought?

Now, you can compare it to my best story of all time.