September 30 – October 2, 2022 – Photoblog

This is what you came for, and god damn it I’m delivering. A couple of foolish Americans galavanting around the German countryside like scraps of our very own bombs aren’t still embedded in the cobblestone we take a piss on at 3am after a schnitzel and 5 beers. This is easily the longest post I’ve written, and it only encompasses three days of my friend Joshy’s 12 day trip.

Thursday and Friday I worked, but the next 10 days were free. And once my boy Joshy had one day of chilling after landing, things kicked up into bender mode almost instantly, and did not quit redlining until he walked like a zombie to the tarmac on his last day. This post takes you through the first weekend.

It all started innocently enough, with a trip to a countryside monument.

Friday, September 30

Had some fresh wine, a specialty of the area this time of year. They bottle it in the early stages of fermentation, so it’s more like an alcoholic grape juice than wine. Stuff is sick, but is known to cause tummy-rumblies. Of course it’s worth it. Then we protein loaded on the first schnitzel of the bender and saw some great views.

Back home, my friend Tristan came over and the night began in earnest. 6 pubs/bars spread across the city; this was our plan. A Mainz bar crawl.

After the Irish Pub, we made our way over to a club called Gutleut, or “Good Peeps”. I’m not proud to admit it, but when Joshy and I passed a pizza place that was open til 3am (you know the kinda place), I went in with him and left Tristan to fend for himself amongst the others. And in an act of cosmic karma, my acid reflux became so extreme while eating my cheeseburger, that every single bite created an explosion of pressure in my lower esophagus. I threw more than half my food away. When I saw Tristan again in the club, I begged his forgiveness.

We danced around at the club, some girl started screaming Russian at Josh, grabbing him around the shoulder. At some point we played mario kart on a projection screen next to a couch just outside the bathrooms. I could hear people puking as I lapped Princess Peach.

At the night’s conclusion, Tristan slept over with Joshy boy and we had ourselves a good old fashioned slumber party. We would need our rest, too, because the next day held no less activity.

Saturday, October 1

Tristan booked it the hell out of there at around 9 am, saying something about “ditching”, “abandoned me” and “betrayal” but I couldn’t really make heads or tails of it. He’s a fine bloke. At around 1 or 2, we drove off to the historical gambling and thermal spring city known as Baden Baden.

Before I get to the next phase of the night I should probably explain what the hell we’re doing at this place, and why. Backtrack with me, if you will, to the city of Frankfurt about 2 months ago. I was having a drink with Tobi and Elif when the conversation came to the topic of my USA friend visiting. I told Tobi some of our plans, and he cautiously brought up a new idea:

“Every year,” he said, “I have a sort of birthday party at my parent’s place, where they have a decades-old brick pizza oven and make this specialty german-french kind of pizza called Flammkuchen. We get cases of beer, set up all the ingredients, and bake and drink until we’ve had our fill. All my friends say it’s the best flammkuchen they’ve ever had. My parents would be ecstatic if a couple Americans were to show up and try it as well. And you’ll get to see where I grew up and meet some cool people. You wanna come?”

“Brother,” I said, “you had me at ‘every year'”. *

*Conversation is modified or fabricated at certain parts but the gist is accurate.

All of this to say, this seemed really cool, and really sincere, and I felt honored to be invited. I cemented our attendance right then and there.

Tobi grew up in a small village called Hügelsheim. We’re talking population of 4000 small. Living in Mainz has already given me a good idea of what ‘real Germany’ is like, if that can even be a designation, but seeing how these guys party in villages like Hügelsheim, and comparing the little differences to how we party in small towns like the one I grew up in (not 4000 people small, but you get the picture), seemed like too much fun. Not to mention seeing where Tobi came from and how he grew up, and meeting his parents and all his childhood friends. Come on. I’m gushing now but I’m just grateful. But now you know what this whole enterprise was all about.

And when we found out that Baden Baden, the tiny city directly next to Hügelsheim, had a famous and historic casino where Dostoevsky lost his entire fortune and literally wrote The Gambler before fleeing dangerous mobsters looking for their money… the airbnb was booked the next day.

So, then, on with the show. After dinner we-

Please remain on the last image: the image of the blurry man in the distance. I need to wax poetic about this man for a minute. This guy has become a myth all his own. The Fanciest Man of All Time, Mr Proper, Cedric Etiquette? We don’t know his name. I took a picture of Tobi and in the background this majestic creature was performing a dance of the knuckles and fingers with his cigar that I can only describe as the movements of a radiant angel strumming a gilded harp. His hands: perfectly poised to lift the cigar again, or perhaps cup his right ear to better hear the concerto, or maybe to stroke his gentlemanly chin, to ponder whatever philosophical quandary would be posed to him next. His legs: crossed resplendently at just the right angle to both ensure posture and comfort. His face: an expression of pure joy (see the previous pictures) would be too tacky. No, his downward gaze and delicately raised smirk work together to produce an air of contentment bordering on delight, but that which could be voided at the slightest deviance of quality in what he is hearing, tasting, breathing, feeling. I could talk about this man for hours. For he is beyond man. He is something transcended, and I fear I will never see the likes of him again.

After the hotel bar we crossed the town square into the rain, down to the casino. As you may recall, I stayed at the Tump National Doral this past summer. Everything there was plated in a metallic gold I suspected at the time was only 1mm thick over what I presumed to be plaster. But damn it that place was still fancy for it. But this… This was another level.

“Wait!” I hear you yelling at the screen. “That’s not the same jacket Joshy was wearing when you guys first went out! I remember the Peaky Blinders joke! I pay attention to everything you write because I am a dedicated reader and I appreciate how much time you put toward these write ups! How do you come up with all these amazing jokes? Are you single?”

Calm down, calm down. For some reason, even though we saw dudes wearing hoodies underneath their blazers, the authorities at the casino did not find Joshy’s attire 100% appropriate for entry, and required him to don a real sport jacket and leave his strange British looking thing behind. The teller at the front desk sent him to the attire specialist, a bald man with glasses, who only smiled and laughed upon looking Joshy up and down. He decided that even though yes, the kid needed a new jacket, he would give the kid a break and not charge him (usually 8 euros for the night) nor for entry at the door (5 euros).

Gambling with these people was scary for many reasons. I watched a man put 5000 down on the roulette table, stare in dead silence at the wheel as it turned and turned, and walk away with zero emotion or response when he lost everything. No joy was had. And if he had won? I suspect there would have been no cheers, either. So many of these people were deadly serious. I myself lost 50 on the roulette table while Vici was getting hot, making bet after increasingly risky bet and hitting every time. Out of resentment I slunk off to the slots and won myself like 12 bucks with the old lady in pearls next to me grinning from ear to ear.

At some point we decided to enter the adjoining club on the side of the casino, and low and behold: A red jacket bounced up and down confidently through the crowd, followed by a posse of women in thin dresses, and immediately it was clear. The piano player from The Atlantic Hotel and Bar. He laughed when he saw me and tapped me on the shoulder and said “You were at the hotel before right? Right?” I said “yeah man, great playing!” and then he said “Thank you, you were there right?”

“Uh, yeah man, it was awesome. Great stuff.”

“Have a good night man!” and he sauntered off with posse in tow.

It was then that I knew from experience what I already assumed in my heart: these people were on some damn drugs. I wouldn’t have been surprised if their were escorts milling about as well, perhaps Russian. After all, I was told that 12 private Russian oligarch jets have been seized in Germany, and 8 of those 12 were at the private airport in Baden Baden. There’s an underbelly to this facade of wealth and healing, and I could sniff it. Perhaps one day, I will find it. Anyway, the night drew to a close. My friend Elif wasn’t feeling so well, so we got the car and picked her up out front, and drive home. As I went to bed I waved goodnight to Joshy who was staying up in the living room to get better wifi, because the kid’s room had terrible connection.

Sunday, October 2

We made a cute little breakfast in our breakfast nook, and around 3pm headed to a museum showing French Naive art. Sort of felt Ferris Bueller-esque in a way, us young folk in a niche art museum.

You know what, go ahead and click that play button and go through these pics listening to same song from the movie. It just fits. John Hughes never misses.

That was nice wasn’t it? Weren’t those french artists insanely naive? Seriously though that one painting of the city had to make me laugh. I don’t wanna be a hater, and I know it’s the point that these people weren’t classically trained, but this thing looks like it came straight from Mrs Peterson’s third grade art class.

We weren’t there for too long, though. Because we had a flammkuchen party to get to, and we didn’t want to be late.

When we arrived, the excitement and ‘event-ness’ of the night was palpable, especially as Mrs Leppert (Tobi’s mom) provided us all with cutting boards and mandolins and told us to get chopping and slicing for all the toppings. I said at the time, it was like we were at a summer camp, preparing dinner for the commune. Soon enough, we were ushered to the open garage/baking area, and the festivities began.

You may notice that many of the pictures are at a higher quality than pretty much any photo I’ve ever shared on this photoblog. All of them are courtesy of one of Tobi’s friends who brought a camera with some real horsepower, and his sharp eye to boot. I will say he is an amazing photographer, and it was awesome that he took all these pictures of everyone, and I am definitely overly praising him because I now forget his name. You killed it man!

The flamms were definitely being kuched, and the beers were being slugged. When I shared some insider knowledge of kneading and tossing ‘pizza’ dough from my days delivering and prepping for Joseph Tomatos pizza in Lacey Township NJ, somehow I blew these people’s minds. One of the flammkuchens wasn’t sliding off the peel into the oven so I nabbed the edge of the dough with a reckless amount of confidence and blew underneath it to create an anti-friction bubble, and when that baby slid right off and people started cheering, I felt like a god. I turned at the touch on my shoulder and above me in the light was my ancestor, Victor of house Nardi of Naples Italy, and he only nodded his head and said “you’re doing alright kid, you’re doing alright”.

Too bad that later in the night I added more wood into the oven (at Matthias’ suggestion!) and we filled that garage with plumes of smoke in a matter of minutes. Yeah, turns out you’re supposed to ‘open the exhaust vent’ when you add more wood. Who would’ve known? It didn’t help that at the exact moment when Mrs Leppert came rushing in, I was in the process of retrieving Josh’s broken and disheveled mess of a flammkuchen from the oven, so as far as Mrs Leppert knew, I a) added the wood and almost burnt their garage down and b) couldn’t even make a simple flat disc with a ball of dough, apparently. I categorically reject all responsibility for any of these events. But the night goes on.

What these photos don’t capture fully is how many people were there at one point, and how open it all was. Just outside the garage was a huge driveway space where me and Joshy and Tobi crushed a pack of marlboros in like 2 hours. This is when we devised a plan to run through the heavy rain to get to the maybe-working cigarette ATM just outside Tobi’s uncle’s family bakery down the street. Before I could go with them, however, I needed to get my wallet from inside the house-house. I took off my rainy shoes and walked to the dining room, and Mr Leppert was sitting in the adjoining room watching TV. After I got my wallet I went into the room, and in my best German said , “hey, this party is great, thanks for doing all this” to which he replied, in English, “Do you enjoy western? You must, in America”. He was watching some old John Wayne flick, it seemed to me, and told him the western is one of my favorite genres, but that I’m not used to seeing them dubbed in German. We had a good chuckle and I was out the door.

One of Tobi’s friends led the way down the pitch black, foggy streets. Soon, like a lighthouse to the wayward seafaring vessel, the cigarette machine stood proudly in the moonlight, guiding us to safety and relief. Fat drops soaked through to my scalp as I desperately injected my debit card into the slot. In 30 seconds, we were running back to the party with our prize.

Me and Joshy teamed up as partners in beerpong, as you can see from the photos, and as soon as one of Tobi’s friends said “it’s the yanks vs the krauts” Josh did not stop calling them “fucking krauts” for literally hours. He said it so many times it stopped being funny, then started being funny again somehow. But hey he made 5 cups to my 1 in that first game. I think the outdated slur gave him power.

I’ll say it gets hazy from there, and we’re reaching the limit of my comfortable length on this one, but I can’t go without describing the end. Tobi’s friend Felix, bless him, tried to play me in chess when he literally couldn’t close his hands to grab things without making a King Kong fist (see picture above of me bringing the chess set over and Felix’s girlfriend Eleftheria just laughing because what he’s asking is insane). And at one point Tobi sat me down and said “look man, this is my parent’s place… Look at all this. I’m so drunk dude. I’m so…” and then stood up when a new song came on, started dancing, and eventually climbed onto the table to do a performance for everyone and almost Buffalo-Bills-table-slammed himself. At the very end of the night, it was just me, Vici, Joshy, and Tobi and Felix. I tried saying I didn’t wanna leave until I saw them go to sleep, but Tobi put it bluntly: “we’ve done this a lot, Nick. I get you, but… just fuck off. Come back for breakfast tomorrow.” When the time came to be a man, by god did Tobi deliver.

And off we went into the hazy streets, hearing the guttural moans, squeaks, laughs and yells of the two men we left behind. And yeah, I was definitely looking forward to seeing them at breakfast.

Anyway, here’s me putting away my pretensions and trying to get hype with Joshy over Don’t Stop Believin’ but getting exactly what I deserved:

See you tomorrow,

Nick