yesterday, we had the third rendition of the try to bring the north western german tradition kohlfahrt (literally: cabbage tour; a description in english can be found here) to switzerland. (actually i missed the two previous renditions…)

i’d guess that for everyone except the people living in north west germany, it must seem utterly strange to see a group of people going around with a hand cart, playing a strange game involving two balls rolling around, and drinking hard and soft booze all the time. whatever. we had fun.

actually, this was probably the first kohlfahrt featuring a view on the alps! (at the first rendition, one couldn’t see the alps from the place where it took place, and even though the second was at the same place than this time, the weather was too bad apparently…) here are two shots of our view on the alps:

finally a view on the beautiful sunset we were able to watch:

this one is not about me, but about drunken fellows travelling by train which are talkative. way too talkative. annoyingly talkative.
on my trip to oldenburg, one week ago, a pretty drunken guy, maybe around 70 or 80 years old, equipped with a walker and lots of booze, began asking me at münster’s main station whether he’s on the right platform for the next train to osnabrück. well, yes, he was, and so he decided it’s a good idea to stay with me and talking to me. in the train, he managed to chase someone out of his seat so we could sit there and annoyed lots of people by talking loud, which provoked some angry reactions, though they died quickly as they probably noticed that there’s no way to change the situation… well, then i spend the next fourty minutes listening to his tales and bad jokes. the couple in the seats next to us seemed to really enjoy this, often they had visible problems not to start laughing out loudly. so at least someone in that train was enjoying the whole situation. at one point the situation was pretty bizarre, when he started telling me that he could kill someone using his harmonica, by bashing it hard enough into someones brain, and then continuing that he once killed a few rabbits. while i was expecting to hear some gory details, he explained that he gave them something with mildew to eat. then, later, he started telling how easy it is to build a hand grenade with a bottle of korn, which could kill lots of people in the train. sounds great if you hear this from a completely drunken guy equipped with lots of booze… at some point, when he realized we were going to osnabrück, he suddenly noticed that he wanted to go to münster and he just came from osnabrück. what the heck, so he decided to take the train another time, to return to münster. well, finally, in osnabrück, i got rid of him… i was really glad he was simply drunken and talkative, but not aggressive…
then, yesterday, when travelling back to zürich, i had another such experience. in the ice from hannover to zürich, i was sitting at the very end of the train. everything was fine, until i went to the restroom, noticing that someone had just smoked inside there, it was stinking like hell, and when i got out my clothes were stinking, too. i suspected the guy who was inside before me, he was sitting a few seats away from me and seemed to be talking alot to the other people around him. well, first i thought that he probably knows them, and ignored the issue. later, i saw him drinking booze, and a bit more later, people around him started leaving the train when they reached their destination (or decided to change the coach, who knows…). at some point, most of the people were gone at the end of the coach where i was sitting, and at some point he looked at me and decided i’m the next one he could talk to. well, there goes the last two hours of my train ride, which i wanted to spend listening to music and watching the night through the window… in these two hours, i learned a lot on how drunk he was, about his profession, about his hobbies, about his train ride, about his salary, about his name, about his life, about his interest in martial arts – he boasted that he’s a shaolin master, and that he could easily kill people but he’d never do this, because he is such a nice guy. great, that was what i really wanted to hear. thank you. he decided many times to go smoking again, to the restroom (smoking is actually forbidden in the whole train)… well. the last hour i spend alone with him, the few people which were left left us in basel (maybe they left the train, or at least the coach). during that hour, he decided that he could smoke inside the compartment, too. well. i thought “fuck you.” and just hoped that the last thirty minutes would fly away as fast as possible… finally, zürich was announced and, contrary to my usual style of waiting until the train really arrives, i jumped up, grabbed my stuff, said goodbye and went a few coaches forward…
well. i don’t really care when people are drunk, but if they are, it would be really nice if they could simply sleep or be silent, and stop annoying other people…

ingredients:

• the big lebowski (imdb).
• a sufficient amount of vodka.
• a sufficient amount of kalúha.
• a sufficient amount of milk.
• some hardware to play the movie.
• some glass for the white russian(s).
• optionally, some ice cubes.

instructions:

1. pour some of the vodka, kalúha and milk into the glass. add some ice if needed.
2. start watching the movie, while drinking the white russian.
3. as soon as the glass is empty, pause the movie, refill the glass and continue the movie.
4. repeat until the movie is over.

the amounts should be chosen high enough to ensure that you won’t run out of white russian during the movie.

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well. seriously. (as serious as one can be after watching the movie and drinking several white russians.) the big lebowski is a movie by the coen brothers about a hippie slacker, called simply the dude, who is drawn into a kidnapping case which turns out to be a bit more complicated, with a bunch of different parties taking part in the game. the movie features great characters, most notably el duderino, his friends, donny and walter, and the german nihilists (nagelbrett by autobahn!), some great dream sequences, lots of bowling, and lots of white russians, all drunken by his dudeness.

if you’ve never seen it, watch it. and don’t forget the white russians.