Eccentric encounters

Along with his Bulgarian wife, Dave is the crazy owner and manager of Snowbunnys. He's been living in Kitzbühel and running the place for several years now. Dave has possibly the driest and the most sardonic sense of humour I've ever encountered: so much so, that even calling it a "sense of humour" at all is quite a sketchy issue. Dave's managed to get on the wrong side of virtually everyone else in town; and it usually doesn't take him too long to do the same with his guests, either. Nevertheless, there are those who claim that "you just have to get to know him" — I didn't achieve this during my week at his hostel; and I'm guessing that even had I stayed a year, I'd still be struggling to work him out.

Craig and Sarah are a friendly couple from the wonderful Aussie city of Perth. I met them last night at Yoho, where they basically arranged our big Augustiner Bräu visit. Sarah's (almost) a dentist, but she's not too evil (yet). This evening, they were joined by their friend Kade — also a Perth boy, and now living in London and working as a high-school music teacher. The three of them (co-incidentally) are coming to Kitzbühel with me tomorrow, where we'll all be hitting the snow for Christmas.

Lisa's a fun, beautiful, red-headed girl who's originally from Harrisburg (the capital of Pennsylvania — no, it's not Philadelphia), but who's been studying in Washington DC for several years now. Lisa's a smart cookie: she's almost finished her Master's in special needs education. I met Lisa this evening at Yoho, and as well as joining in on the Yoho drinkfest this evening, we also went on The Sound of Music tour together the next day.

I met these two guys this evening in (where else but) the bar at Yoho. Thierry's a bearded Québécois from Canada, who adores Mozart — and since Salzburg is Mozart's home town, he's in paradise. Wilson's on holiday from Hong Kong, and he is (with no success that we're aware of) looking for a local European girl to have some fun with. I had some drinks with these guys at Yoho, and I went exploring with them the next day.

Mr. Miller is an 84-year-old, Polish-born Munich local, who shamelessly (but not regrettably) interrupted our tour of Munich today in the Marienplatz. He staggered up to Ozzie, totally wasted on Glühwein (waving his Glühwein mug around); and wouldn't leave us alone until he'd told us his life story (at times, in surprisingly passable English), and sung us a few songs in G-d knows what language. You gotta see it to believe it: so check out the video below.

Katharina is one of the many European travellers that I met, whilst backpacking down in South America. I must admit: until I met her again this evening, I'd kinda forgotten who she was, or where I'd met her. But seeing her again sparked the recollection that she's a fluent Spanish-speaking German girl, who volunteered for several months in Peru; and that I met her while chillaxing on the beach in sunny Máncora, in northern Peru. Katharina lives here in Dresden (where she's currently wrapping up her master's thesis in geography), and it was primarily to catch up with her that I came here.

John's a college student who grew up in the US state of Indiana, and who's just finished his undergraduate studies. He's a quiet bloke: but once you get to know him, he has plenty to chat about, especially when it comes to politics and ideology. He's staying with me at CityStay, here in Berlin. We did a bit of sightseeing around the town today, and in the evening we went and sampled more than a few of Berlin's local pubs and brews.

Brian's an elderly English chap whom I met on the train from Amsterdam to Berlin today. He's a real character: for the few hours that we ended up sitting together, he started chatting away about all sorts of things, from international politics to the nature of women. He's a great-grandfather, who has family scattered all over Europe (and the world), and who's been a bachelor since his wife passed away several years ago. He's amazingly pro-active for his age, and is obviously "the rock" of his large family. He lives in a small suburban place near London called Hertford.

José is about as close to the "stereotypical Mexican dude" as you can get: he reminds me a bit of Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite. He comes from Mexico City, but he's been living in Europe for the past few months, and he has an Austrian girlfriend down in Vienna. José was the first person I met this evening at Bob's (he's in the same room as me); and as soon as he saw me, he suggested that we go out and hit a few pubs. Amazingly, he's one of the few other people at Bob's who's not (completely) stoned.

Christian is the last of (no less than) four people (or groups of people) with whom I've had a reunion in the past four days; of whom three were people that I met in South America. I met Christian while doing the Santa Cruz-Llanganuco hike in Peru, back in April. He lives in Wallonia (French-speaking Belgium) with his wife Nancy, and his two daughers Marine and Florine. I had a great time this evening, enjoying dinner with Christian and his family, and catching up on old times.