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Rock am Ring Category: Parties and Nightlife
The advertisement came over the radio in German and reminded me that the Rock am Ring concert in Nurnberg was happening that very weekend. I already had a ticket.. but the very LAST thing I wanted to do was drive there. I'd already determined that the Eurail pass was going to be worthless in the getting there side of the equation ... no way I could make it in time for the concert catching a train after my last shift.
I checked with everybody.. and I do mean everybody before finally turning back to my roomate Dan as an option. It was go time, and I didn't want to miss that concert. So at lunch time I pulled up a chair across from Dan at the dining facility, a place neither of us frequented that often so he knew something was up when he saw me come in searching for him.
I went through the line and worked up a plate, and maneuvered across the room to the table where he was sitting. 'ssup Dan? Not much Otis how about you? Find a ride to the concert yet? Funny you should ask, that was what I was wanting to talk to you about. You must be pretty desperate to find a ride if you're coming to me .. you need a ride both ways or what? No man that's cool all I need really is a ride out. I can make my way home on the train whenever it's all said and done.
He knew what I wanted, he was my roommate and we had already talked about it briefly and he told me to check with him if I needed a ride. Dan didn't drink.. he was a motorcycle fan all the way and he didn't play around with his ability to control his vehicle.. and with good reason.. the autobahn at any speed is more risky on a motorcycle than in a car. The speeds that Dan traveled though, could definitely be described as breakneck.
I hated it but I had to get to that concert, and my normal practice of evading a lot of contact with the soldiers there after hours in favor of mingling with the locals didn't usually leave me a lot of options for sharing rides to get places. Dan was the same way so he understood. Just as both of us understood that chasing around after German women speaking English usually only led one to the brothels or frustration. I never became "Germanized" enough for the thought of paying for it not to be unappealing.
This is not to say that accepting that reflects badly on the Germans, it's just that growing up in a country where prostitution is legal develops and entirely different mindset. So with the aid of a 4 week Basic German language course through the City Colleges of Chicago remote campus, I had learned to speak pretty fluent German within about a month or two after I got there.
At this point I had been there a year and was already speaking english with an accent. So we finished off the workday, rushed through showers and changing .. and man did I ever bundle up this time. I knew it was going to be bone chilling cold.. and since Nurenberg was about 200 miles of autobahn away.. I would be a popsicle by the time I got there if I didnt prepare.
In case you haven't read the previous blog about German Beer, you should know that Dan was a wildman on that Ninja. We took off and as usual, the 5 mile winding trip down the mountain was nothing to be played with, and this was the first extended autobahn trip that I'd made on the back of his bike .... and the last.
We tooled down the AB at speeds ranging between 80 and 130MPH. I made the mistake of trying to loosen my hold on Dan and peek around to see the speedometer once, and in addition to irritating him 'cause I had disturbed the airflow, the wind nearly took my head off as it tried to snap my full face helmet around in its wake.
The ride was about an hour and a half. I was SO glad to get off that bike.. The concert was fantastic! It didn't quite rival the Scorpions homecoming concert in Wurzburg but it was badass. I got SO wasted.. imagine that. The beer was flowing freely and at least once or twice I "accidentally" stumbled around through the crowd with minor pauses at little clusters of people shrouded in smoke from the hashpipes.
The concert played on and the crowd got wilder and wilder.. eventually of course I kinda lost track of just about everything going on around me. At one point I think I ran across some english speaking people who were surprised to find out that I was not only an american but also in the army. One of the last things I remembered after hooking up with this fine german lady named Pietra from Bad Bruckenau ( close to Wildflecken ) is waking up in the area around the outside of the ring passed out near some junkies that were leaned precariously against the wall.
I checked my arms real quick to make sure I hadn't gotten THAT drunk or stoned, and set out in search of the train station. I had a great time, Pietra was a babe .. and we shared a lot more than just her number that night.. we had a GREAT time. I remembered that her brother had come to track her down and she had to leave. We would meet again but I recalled that I had gotten pretty bummed when she had to go and that was what led to the little debaucle that ended me up in the gutter. The rest was just a train ride back which was not very eventful.. slept most of the way and almost missed my stop. Quite the concert though.
