Sleepy Head

So if you have listened to ANY of my stories throughout my college experience, then you will know that I get myself into the most awkward situations all of the time. For instance, you may all be thinking that I am making this up, but less than a week after meeting Knut, I was walking down the main walking street in Copenhagen - called the Stroget (but pronounced ajfldasjkldfasjkl) - totally engrossed in my music when a young European male stopped me on the street. And yes, I can tell immediately on sight who is American and who is European. European males look like they are from the Jersey shore, sans the steroids. After I impatiently removed my headphones from my ears, he said in English (because clearly, I look American with my lack of blonde hair, blue eyes, and terrible fashion sense) that he wanted me to help him find a present for his sister's birthday. I gave him my, are you serious face? After saying no, I had important shit to do with my life (like go watch Danish tv, which is exactly like American tv, just 6 months behind and with subtitles at the bottom) he then asked me to rate my average level of fun on a daily basis. I think he was trying to gage if I would get drunk enough during the weekend to fulfill the typical American stereotype??? But I'm not very good at social cues so who knows.

When he asked me to rate my fun level (on his scale a 10 = you get a tingly sensation when you wake up on a Friday morning because of all the drinking you will be doing later) I had to admit, I am pretty low on the scale. I mean, I used to be fun, I think. Anyway, I will get back to fun level in a minute.

Last weekend I led my first study tour to Germany, and I would have to say it was an overall success. I left with no prior knowledge of two of the three cities I was leading my students to (and my other guide had never been to ANY of the cities), and all I had was an emergency cell phone, a first aid kit, 10,000 danish kroner, 300 euros, a work credit card, 4 bottles of wine (gifts for speakers but if an emergency situation breaks out I could always just start drinking), and some google maps of how to get to a couple of places. We left early on a Thursday morning with 32 American students, and arrived late on Saturday night with 33 students. So, if you were to grade me on sheer number of students returned, my percentage is off the charts. Not to totally bash American university students from affluent east coast schools - well fuck it, I'm going to - these kids are spoiled as all hell. Now, I know that I was one of those elitist assholes only 12 months prior so I probably shouldn't complain too much, but I will anyway. For instance, let me just discuss the sheer amount of times and the number of awkward places these students suddenly feel the strongest urge to need to pee. We will be taking a guided tour through the Hamburg Parliament and girl number 5 comes over to me and asks "Where is the bathroom?" Or we will be on a guided walking tour of a 15th century sea port city and boy number 9 comes and asks for the facilities.

Well I'm sure you all want to read about American students' pee habits, I will move on to a more fun subject: drinking. I'm stuck in kind of an awkward situation as a tour leader because I am only 2 years older than the students so I feel like I'm one of them, but at the same time I have so much responsibility. They really want me to go out with them but I'm not allowed to get drunk, do drugs, or hook up with any students (so what's the point of going out then??? one may ask, but I assure you, not me...) But they did finally get me to go out with them in this little Western Denmark city called Sonderborg. We stood outside drinking Carlsberg for an hour while the boys bought me free beer!! Yay for free alcohol! Yet, I only had two Somersbys because I am a model tour leader. After consuming my two beverages, this one boy kept pushing me so that I would lose balance and then would say "look she's sooooo wasted, she can't even stand up straight." Then we went to a dance club where I was wearing too much clothing and the average age of the ladies was about 16 so I was looking old too. But if I do happen to go a little overboard on the drinking on my next trip, Jacob gave me great advice. He said: "Go to the bathroom and (insert: hand gesture of finger going into mouth.) A little gross, but sometimes these situations cannot be helped.

So my tour made it back... alive. What more can you ask for? The only thing that bothers me is that somehow I picked up the nickname of "mom" on my tour from my students. So, to answer my European man friend's question about my fun level right now, I think I need to work on making my answer higher.