Monday 1st May 2000

OK, so the journals are back due to me having a bit of spare time in my life once more.....see later.

Monday was a bank holiday in Germany, as it is in England. I had quite a lazy day which began with me lying in bed until about 11am and then taking a bath. I ate lunch in a place called Cafe Einsteins and drank a beer. After this myself and my companion, whose name will of course not be disclosed, drove out to a lake. The sky was blue, the sun was shining and the lake was pretty much deserted. My companion managed to free herself from the confines of her clothing and did a bit of naked swimming....personally I thought it was a bit chilly so I just lay around on the blankets and soaked up a few rays.

After she'd finished swimming she lay naked next to me to let the sun warm her body...and what a body it was. It's always at times like this when I'm happy to have left England, what more could a man want....a beautiful naked girl by his side, blue skies, sunshine and a few whispy white clouds knocking around. Sweet.

After the lake we went to her place where she cooked me a dinner of salmon with rice, after which we went to my place and crashed out on the sofa to watch Southpark the movie....for her it was the first time, for me it was about the tenth...but the movie really does rock.

Tuesday 2nd May 2000

The contractor types I hang out with have begun a tradition of going out on Tuesdays to do something, be it bowling, ice skating, go-karting or dinner/drinks. This particular night had been designated a bowling night so we all met up on the rooftop bar, drank a few beers, had some dinner and went bowling. The roll call this night was Sims'y, Ligita, Britta, Nats, Patrick, Thyeson, Rene and myself. Britta wore the sweetest little black dress and of course she was on my lane. Sweeeeeet. The bowling went pretty much without incident until Sims'y hurled one down the lane, slipped, and ended up face down on the next lane. It later appears that he twisted his ankle in doing so....hence his next day off work. Personally I think he just wanted to spend the day screwing his fiancee.....they are to be betrothed in the coming months and yours truly has been designated the best man. Of course, all you people out there know that the principal job of the best man is to bend the bridesmaid over the bath and give it all you've got. Well, that's what I reckon anyway! Apparently the bridesmaid is a Lithuanian beauty... :)

Britta drove Rene and I back in to Ulm and I spent the night in the arms of George, my banana munching gorilla.

Wednesday 3rd May 2000

Eva and I had been fighting a lot up to this point and the whole situation was kinda breaking down. I decided that I'd pop down to Capo's to see her and see if things couldn't be patched up.

I met up with Tony in there and we just chatted for a while with Eva bringing us drinks and we were getting on fine. After a while Tony left and I told Eva that if she didn't want to drive home then it was cool for her to stay at my place.

I got home and threw my bedding in the washing machine in preparation for Eva coming around. At this point my naked swimming companion called to see if I was available to go down to the Puffer bar for a quick drink. I threw the bedding in the dryer and walked the 200m to the Puffer bar. We just sat around and chatted for a while and she wondered if it would be possible to stay at my place for the night.

I explained the situation about Eva and that it wasn't really possible.....which pissed me off no end. Anyway, Andrew and Michael who are two barmen from Murphy's came in just as we were leaving, we bid them farewell and I was dropped off at Capos around 12.30 to pick up Eva. The two of us went back to my place and....lo and behold we fought. Part of the argument was about the fact that I'd washed my bedding, I retaliated with the question of "Was it really so wrong for me to want Eva to sleep in clean sheets?". Of course, being the intelligent chick that she is this didn't quite cut it. So, regardless she stayed with me that night in nice clean sheets. I made breakfast and then she drove me up to the office.

Thursday 4th May 2000

Myself, Rene and Richard all kinda bunked off work early with a couple of ambitions. The first was to go to Media Markt to pick up Rene's new TV, the wide screen version of the one that he has already, and that I was buying from him.

All went well in Media Markt until it came to collecting the TV he'd just paid an arm and a leg for. Because it was such a big ass TV we had to collect it from the stores place rather than in the shop. The three of us bundled into the two cars and started driving around the place trying to find the stores thingy. Rene was saying "look man, it's gotta be there, that warehouse thing place" To which Richard and I replied "nahh man, that's a f*cking dump, they wouldn't want customers going there". Anyway 35 minutes later after driving the wrong way down one way roads and driving along pavements we decided to check out Rene's theory. Two minutes later we had the Sony Wega widescreen TV with stand loaded into two cars and we were off back to Ulm. Sorry Rene!

The fun was only just beginning. Rene lives on the 2nd floor of a *really* old apartment block. The stairs were these twisty turny things and very very narrow. Sims'y managed to bust his ankle during the bowling a couple of nights before so he couldn't help Rene and I with the carrying. This TV weighed a serious amount of weight....like imagine the fattest bird you've ever humped and then throw in her sister. It was a real haemerroid inducing mother. Eventually we got the f*cker up to his flat after much grunting, groaning and asshole Sims'y saying "come on lads get a move on". We were, to quote Rene, "sweating like rapists" by the time we got to his apartment. So we drank a cold one and prepared for the next ordeal....getting his old TV down the stairs and up to my apartment.

I live on about the five hundred gazillionth floor of an apartment block in Ulm, with no lift. So once more Rene and I found ourselves with sore hands, arms, backs, legs and every other muscle group you care to imagine. However, I now had a TV in my apartment and hooked up my DVD player.

Rene flew to London, I drank a beer, Sims'y went home for a bit and then came back again.

The other ambition of the three of us for the day was to go to the Auslander office. This is one of these gay places in Germany that non-Germans must register at in order to be taken to the cleaners for even more taxes. However by the time we'd finished humping TV's around we had neither the time nor the energy to go through another bunch of German bullshit beauracracy...so we sacked it.

This night was Anke's leaving party so we all met up in Alexandres which is a bar beneath the Rathaus [ Town Hall ]. The roll call was myself, Sims'y, Anke, Thyeson, Nats, Patrick and Mo. We drank a few drinks and then departed for John Bentons where we drank far too much wine, ate some fine food, and I met the delightful Keren who was our waitress. It was during the meal that I discovered just how much I will miss Anke. For some reason I'd pulled down my T-shirt to bare my nipple. I then started to egg on the boys and convince them to show their nipples. Most of them of course did. I then turned to Anke and said "Right then girlie, come on", at which point she duly obliged and lifted her top up to reveal two beautiful, albeit brassiere clad, breasts. Sweet girl....I'll miss her.

After John Bentons we went to Enchiladas and drank some strawberry Margharitas. The party slowly began to dwindle and people went home. I went down for a walk by the river and then went home to meet up with Eva. It was at this point that Eva chose to mention she thought I was f*cking around because I'd been spotted by some asshole in Murphys the previous Thursday with two chicks! I was a little smashed and as such had no idea where I was the Thursday before. After chatting with my friends later it seems none of us were even in Murphys the Thursday before as it was Dougals leaving meal and we ate in the Weinkruger after which we went to Alexandres where I met the delightful Bianca. So as far as I'm concerned Eva's little spies can lick my hairy gonads! Anyway, Eva and I fought, she left, and as far as I'm concerned she shall never darken my doorway again! Ciao baby. Of course the deaprture of Eva is the reason I now have time to resume my journals.

Friday 5th May 2000

Due to the split between Eva and I, I really couldn't be arsed going to work for another day of dogshit...work isn't going too well at the moment....you could say I'm as bored as a dickless dog. So I chose to make wise use of my time by firing up the DVD player and watching "Zorro" followed by "Eyes Wide Shut". A few tears sprung during Zorro when he died and sort of gave his daughter to the new Zorro, but "Eyes Wide Shut" was just weird. Weird as it may be it contained lots of verrrrrr sexy naked women...which was good.

After the movie-thon I went and had a bath where I made use of the scissors to give myself a trim [ not on my head ] and then returned once more to the real world. I wandered down to Capo's and had a few beers with Tony, Mark, David and Carla before heading over to Alexandres for dinner with Patrick.

It was my belief that the delightful Bianca would be working this evening, but she wasn't :( Bianca is someone I met the week before - tall, blonde hair, beautiful smile with a verr nice body.....she has a boyfriend in Stuttgart but we'll soon sort that out!!! Anyway she wasn't there but the place was rammed with totty and Patrick and I had a superb seat for eyeing them all up. Following this we popped over to Murphy's to see Fiona, Andrew and Michael. In Murphy's, much to my surprise, was Tony and Mark. After a while Patrick left and I stayed with Tony and Mark. A little later one of Eva's friends, Suzie, came in. Personally I think she's the asshole that's been doing all this spying and bullshit rumour spreading so she didn't receive a particularly warm welcome. I was sat with Tony and Mark but there was a girl about three seats down from me so we'll see if I get accused of screwing her shall we!

After Murphy's Mark and I walked over to Capo's to have a quick drink then I returned once more to the arms of my gorilla.

Saturday 6th May 2000

During my hectic day of watching movies on the Friday, Ryan [ my crazy Texan/London/Frankfurt friend ] had called to say he was going to Zurich and to see if I fancied joining him. He'd mentioned this a few days earlier but I had declined his offer as things were going OK. However, after the bust up with Eva the weekend....the weekend of my birthday...was not offering me too much fun so I decided a trip to Switzerland was in order.

As I write this journal I'm sat on the train in Switzerland heading dow to Zurich. This morning was a little odd as I was just walking through town on my way to the train station when I heard somebody shout "Darren". It was Tony sat outside a cafe in the pedestrian zone, so I joined him for a few beers before boarding my train. The train thing was another cool thing....it's just cost me 96DM < ummm, less that 30 pounds > for a return trip to Zurich. The other cool thing is you must cross the Bodensee [ Lake Constance ] to make this trip. So it's been an hour or so by train, 40 minutes on a boat across the lake then one and a half hours by train down to Zurich. During the train trip I made use of my time to make a couple of calls, one of them to Chris in England as I haven't spoken with him for a while:

Him: Hello
Me: Alright Chris, it's Darren..how's it going.
Him: Pretty good actually, I'm just receiving a blow job.
Me: .....errrrr.....right...ummm I'm on a train to Zurich.
Him: .......yeah.....errrr Darren maybe I'll call you back.....I'm a little...... distracted right now.

So I arrived in Zurich and Ryan took me to the hotel he was staying in where I got myself a room. This is one crazy ass hotel called the "Two Cows" or something like that. Everywhere you look there's pictures of cows and stuff, and the whole of the reception desk is covered in cow fur - or whatever you call it.

So I took a quick shower and we headed out for a night of eating, drinking and partying - arriving back at the hotel at about 5.30am when the birds had started to sing. It was the usual crazy night that Ryan and I always seem to have. Far too much Jack Daniels and Coke, I laughed until my face ached and discovered Zurich to be a verr verr pretty, verr lively city.

Needless to say there was of course another member to the party who's name will not be disclosed.

Sunday 7th May 2000 : My 29th birthday

We all wandered down to Lake Zurich nursing hangovers but still very happy. We ate lunch near to the lake then drank a little wine. Had a load more laughs about some of the crazier times in the past. Then we all jumped on trains and made our way home.

The day was interspersed with phone calls from people around the world wishing me a happy birthday, and amazingly enough even my Father remembered...which makes a change.

I arrived back in Ulm where Mark was waiting for me in Capo's. Mark, Tony and David had all got me a gift of a Zippo lighter. Lets see if I can keep this lighter for longer than the average time of about 1 week before losing it!

Me and the banana eating gorilla slept alone. Probably the first birthday that I've slept alone in a very....very....very long time.