A Series Of Unfortunate Events

Alternate Title: I'm an idiot and Friday night.

Alternate Title II: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Run.

     Twice a year the radio station, HTW, and University of Saarland throw a huge party for students.  The party was held in the atrium(s) of three different buildings at the University.  There were different genres for each building, and plenty of bars selling beer and mixed drinks.

I was invited to this party by some guys from my lab and gladly agreed to go.  At the party, we stayed in a room that played a lot of American music mixed/fused with electronic/dance beats.  It was fun hearing James Brown, Stevie Nicks, The Macarena, and other songs mixed to be a little bit more "party friendly."  There was also normal, modern pop songs.

There were thousands of students, and we had a good time:

My German friends were amused when I told them the US doesn't really party past 2am because everything closes; they also assured me we'd be out past 2am (they were right!).

At about 2:50am, I began perfecting my "standing while sleeping dance." We decided to go home.  There happened to be Nightbus at 4:09am, the next chance home was at 6am.

In the 50 minutes waiting at the bus stop, I got real sleepy.  I barely made it on to the bus, and sleep soon took over again.

The picture below explains the timeline of the following events:

Unfortunately, waking up one stop after Kleinblittersdorf ended up being a huge detour for me.  The bus driver seemed like he was going to be nice, but in reality we had a misunderstanding.  When I was dropped off 5km from home, I was pretty annoyed- it was 3 degrees, late at night with no cars to hitch-hike, and no cell service due to my proximity to France.  I only had one option, and that was to walk home.

I decided to run, because it was very cold and I didn't want to waste anymore time than I already had.  I took off at a great pace (considering the activities of the day).  Then my phone died-- taking my GPS with it-- and my imagination went wild with "100 ways to die on the side of the highway at night"...  

Here was the last photo I took:

In reality, this is farmland in heavy fog with a full moon (camera-phone technology needs to improve!).

Although the night was a huge inconvenience, it ended up being very enjoyable seeing the little towns and farms I never had seen before.  And, no cars or people bothered me along the way.

--------------------------------------------------------

I received a standing ovation from everyone when I showed up for breakfast at 12pm the next day.  My host family now refers to this event as Jourdan's Odyssey.