Fastnacht is a celebration of the approximate end of winter; it is German mardi gras. "Schmotzigen Dunnschtig", or "Dirty Thursday", is the drunkest night of the year.
0600: Asleep.
0615: People, including a marching band, in white sheets, pass through the streets outside the apartment. This is to scare away the spirits of winter or something.
0630: I make breakfast for Alex, and eat. All the food in my stomach bothers me. We get ready for school. I feel sick. We put on costumes; I'm a cowboy, like my president.
0725: We take the number 1 bus to school.
0750: "Classes" start. This amounts to hanging around in the gym, watching each class present something, usually making fun of the teachers. They take this in stride.
0840: The city marching band (dressed as fools) shows up and sets us free; a traditional end to school for the coming week. Fastnacht break commences. Some kids from my grade give me a beer. I feel kind of sick.
0913: I take the train back to my host family's house. I feel better.
1010: I arrive back in Liggeringen. The town hall is giving away free sparkling wine and beer. I make a very poor decision and stick around for two hours, getting hammered. As the party is winding down at the town hall, I meet up with a group of half a dozen men, aged around 50-65, and am invited back to a house with the group to eat food and drink apple cider.
12XX: I am offered a fourth glass of hard apple cider. Hard cider? Oh shit. We then consume a shot of apple schnapps (the guy made it himself from his apple orchard) to aid in digestion. You've got to digest food properly, y'know?
13XX: I make a toast: "When I read about the dangers of drinking, I stopped... reading." I black out.
1800: Asleep.
1813: Woken by host father who has brought the telephone into my room. Alex is on the other end and asks me where I am. A good question. I don't remember going to bed, but it was probably sometime about 3 hours ago. I feel sick. I tell Alex I'm going to take the next bus.
1829: Got out of bed. Quickly cleaned up vomit next to bed and grabbed a half a case of Tannenzäpfle; put them into a tote bag, ran to the bus.
1843: On the bus. I feel sick.
1859: The Regional Express leaves, and I have to wait for the Seehas. I feel somewhat better, and buy a Fanta.
1938: Arrival in Konstanz. The number 5 bus takes a detour by way of Brüelstraße, and I get out.
1945: In Alex's apartment, Rebecca, Steve, and Jay are there, along with a German, Oskar. They've already finished off the rest of the Jacky, possibly already having started on Jay's voddy. They are thrilled about the arrival of new alcohol, and start their first round of Tannenzäpfle (you can't easily get it outside of southern Germany, and they've all been staying in Niedersachsen). It's good beer. I finish my Fanta, and still feel a little sick.
2002: Jay starts a power hour: one beer shot per minute. During the next 20 minutes or so, nobody pays enough attention to make sure they do them on time, so they constantly are playing catch up. With 2 cl shot glasses, you consume roughly 1.2 liters of beer in an hour. A variation is the "century" which is the same, but lasts 100 minutes. It's good to have a clock on hand with seconds displayed.
2015: Alex says we should go soon.
2035: We all leave the Wohnung (apartment), with varying degrees of sobriety. I'm not interested in drinking; Jay and Becca can't walk very well. Steve is with his host brother (14 and mostly sober). According to Jay, this is where his "filmriss" starts. "Filmriss" means "film rip" in English. If your memory could be characterized as a movie, imagine a section that's missing because of alcohol.
2040: At the bus stop (about 60 seconds from the Wohnung) I tell Alex I'm going to go check on the others. We kiss and bump our teeth against each other. I now am missing part of my tooth (a cap, but still). Jay and Becca have stumbled into the bushes about 10 meters from the door. Jay ostensibly went there to urinate; his pants are down. Rebecca tries to pull him up; she falls and hits the wall. She freaks out because it hurts and asks me to check if she's bleeding. I can't see, but her head feels dry. I try to help Jay up. Jay says he wants to see if he can prove to himself that he's able to stand up on his own. He recites the alphabet backwards, to see how drunk he is, and stops in the middle. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba. He finally gives up; I help him up. We try to pull up his pants with mixed results. He goes into the middle of the street, pants at his ankles, and urinates. Rebecca says "oh my god, I lost an earring in the bushes." I tell her I don't want to look for it now, but am sober enough to remember where to look tomorrow. She then insists she needs to go inside and go to the bathroom. I try and bring Jay along, but he won't come. I take Rebecca upstairs. Jay is in the bushes when I come back out, and I help him inside. I tell him we're taking the elevator. He refuses, on the grounds that he's sober enough to handle the stairs. I shrug. Both collapse onto the bed in the apartment, and stay in the same position for the next hour until I leave. I get Rebecca a bucket; she says she feels sick.
2200: I guide Steve to the apartment with the number 6 bus
2213: I finally leave (again) to go to Fastnacht, by getting on the bus with Steve. We get out at Untere Laube and wander through the city. The streets are littered with broken glass, and teeming with people. It's insane. I meet up with Alex, then Niklas and Friedrich. They're not sober. We wander around for a while, and then go to McDonalds.
2307: I look at the time, and then go (bus 6) back to the Wohnung to check on Becca and Jay. They're still drunk, but now cuddling. They say they can't leave. I tell them how they can come to the city later.
2340: I go back into the city, and meet Alex at the Kaiserbrunnen. We go to Stefansplatz again, and dance until the party stops at midnight. We go to the Brauhaus and dance for a bit. I drink my first beer of the evening, a Fasnet bier, although I had beer much earlier in the day. Steve collects other people's glasses and turns them in for the €1.50 deposit. What a jerk.
0115: We leave the Brauhaus, and walk to the Wohnung. Jay and Rebecca are there. This is roughly where Jay's Filmriss stops.
0130: In the apartment, Jay and Rebecca have started drinking again, and are being loud. I try and calm them down, then go to bed.
0145: Steve comes into Alex's bedroom, where I'm sleeping, and asks us if we have any condoms. They were planning to have a threesome (which never actually happened). We don't, and he leaves.
0200: Steve calls his mom in the US from Alex's phone in the apartment. She isn't happy about that.
0315: They're still being loud. I tell them that they're definately pissing off the neighbors. Jay has chucked two empty beer bottles from the balcony, followed by a firecracker (looked kind of like an M2000). Steve asks me "Why are you against being loud and irresponsible? You're an anarchist." I gently explain to him that I'm interested in replacing coercive government institutions with voluntary civil ones. "Oh." Jay climbs around the divider between our balcony and the next-door neighbor's.
0330: I take the rest of their vodka and they quiet down for the night.
0400: Asleep. Uneasy dreams.