Meißen Vineyard & Beer Pong Tourney

Photo by Zeynep Deligönül

I didn't end up going to Wittenberg on Friday.  :-(  It was for a couple of reasons, but mostly because it required a 6 hour bus ride and my headphones broke and I didn't have a book along.  Call me American, but you guys know I can't travel anywhere without listening to my music.  (The lack of students who wear headphones while they walk here is quite surprising.)

My boo Oli arrived in Dresden on Friday evening.  We had dinner and drinks at Vapiano's (a delicious bruschetta pizza with vodka and tonics.)  Then we went to a Beer Pong Tournament that the Bio Students had set up.  It was Oli's first time playing, but he really had a knack for it!  All of the teams were dressed up, so I put on my dirndel and Oli wore my Kanye America glasses.  I called us "Team Opposite." :-)  But officially we were just listed on the bracket as "Tricia and Freund" haha.

Photo by Zeynep Deligönül

It was BYOB (we played with water cups), so Oli and I brought some Wodka und Apfelsaft.  Not sure how it happened, but we ended up finishing the entire Flasche that night.  We played one game and won (!!!), but everyone was being too loud so we went down to the Gutz to finish up.  We were using smaller, eurostore cups (no party cups here in Deutschland) so the games took awhile.  Oli and I just hung out in the Gutz and talked with people.  There were a couple other Germans hanging out with us, but I'm afraid our American group was dominating and they all spoke English with us.  The tournament was put on hold until the next night, and Oli and I were already gut drauf so we just went to bed.  I ate a ton of Salzbrezeln (salty pretzels) before bed because I was convinced that then I wouldn't get a hangover.  It actually worked pretty well!

By the way, I'd just like to point out that so far I haven't puked from drinking in Germany. :-)  I also haven't seen any Germans throw up.  I've heard that it's a really shameful thing to do here.  Everyone seems to drink until they blackout though.  I'm not sure how you can have one without the other, but more power to them I guess.

Church and Castle in Meißen

On Saturday, we went on a wine tour in Meißen with five other Libby's and Jen's German friend.  Since two of the Libby's didn't come, that meant that Oli and this other guy got in for free!  We had to climb a bunch of steps and a hill to get to the top of the Vineyard, but the few was just gorgeous from up there (see pictures.)  All of the grapes had been harvested already, and a fresh batch of wine had been made just a few days ago.  Our tour guide, a jolly drunk old man, was also the owner of the vineyard (which he called a "Winyard" in English lol), so we got a personal tour of the woods and everything around.  We asked him how he got into the wine business, and he said it was because in college he loved beer, but then he moved to Meißen after college and found all the beer there to be terrible so he would just drink a bottle of wine every day instead.  Spoken like a true German!

Gorgeous view of the Weinberg

We also got to do quite a bit of taste testing (win!).  I think overall we must have the equivalent of about three glasses of wine or more.  They specialized in dry, white wine, which isn't my favorite, but free wine is always delicious to me!  We also learned the proper way to drink, smell, swirl, and then drink good wine.  We got to see how it was made and taste some of the juice before it was fermented into wine (much more delicious in my opinion!)  Since the grapes had a bad summer, our tour guide said that all of them had to be picked by hand to check for quality.  That must have been a fun summer job for the kids.  He also doesn't bottle his wine, but instead fills up old wine bottles or pitchers for his customers to save on glass.  He said that's the proper way to sell wine, or at least that's how the Romans did it.

When we got back, Oli and I went to Vapiano's (again!)  I had ravioli this time, so delicious.  Then we saw "The Social Network," but it was dubbed in German and Jesse Eisenberg talks so quickly in that movie that I had problems understanding.  I'll have to watch it again in English when I get back.  It was a good movie, but I didn't like seeing Jesse Eisenberg being such a douche.  He was much cuter in Zombieland!

We went back to the Beer Pong Tourney (without our costumes this time unfortunately), and we ended up winning!  Oli did better than me in the last two games, which isn't too bad for a First Timer.  I've been playing for over three years now!  Germany doesn't have any drinking games, but maybe Beer Pong will start to catch on here (or Swine Flu-friendly Water Pong, who knows.)  We got a cute little certificate proclaiming us the Official Dresden Bier Pongen Champions!

Then we drank some more in the Gutz, met up with Lin to finish her vodka, and then went to Club Mensa because it's cheap and nearby.  I really like most of the music there, but I've started to notice that they play the same songs every night, sometimes even in the same order.  Or the DJ plays like three Die Atzen songs in a row, which isn't much fun.  Variety is the spice of life!  In the DJ's defense though, he played my favorite German song of all time ("Nur Tanzen" by the Houserockerz), so I can't say anything  bad about him.  That was my first time hearing it a club, and I couldn't stop jumping up and down!