When I was having my semester abroad in Rome, we all had Eurail passes and would take regular weekend jaunts to other European cities. One weekend in early December my friends C. and Friedrich (his name was actually another extremely German name, but I'm going with 'Friedrich' to protect the drunken) went to Munich to check out the christkindlmarkts. Actually, C. and I were in it for the christkindlmarkts; Friedrich was there to get plowed at the Hofbrauhaus, and that's the only reason he put up with our girlish squeals over rotating, candle-powered nativity sets all day.

So night falls and we proceed to the Hofbrauhaus. C. was a complete teetotaller, and I had just barely started drinking beer at this point (I was 18 and opted for one rattler, half-Sprite and half-beer), while Friedrich was a heavy heavy heavy drinker. But just because he was such a lush, we assumed he knew what he was doing and would not overimbibe. After all, we had a train to Vienna to catch that night.

Although American himself, Friedrich was enthused about Germany and all its little witches because his father was from there. So he wasted no time in rounding up several German lads to sit at our table and toast to all things German. C. and I ignored the revelry and held our own private conversation, while Friedrich and the Germans did shots and bought round after round for each other.

Then the Germans started chatting us up, flirtily asking to see our passports and asking how we liked Munich. About the time we started getting a weird vibe from them, one of them whipped out a gun and slammed it on the table...then soothingly told us not to be scared, it only shot tear gas pellets, "for crying," which apparently was much better than American guns, "which kill you."

From there, he waxed poetic on the theme of how America sucks, and how much better things were in Germany (Bavaria specifically). Friedrich--still upright, but clearly in no condition to protect us if something nasty went down--decided to take umbridge at this speech and go off on how the only good thing to ever come out of Germany was the Volkswagen van. C. and I were like (hissing) "Don't mention the war!!!"

But of course he did.

So we're in the middle of a crowded jovial beer hall, but it wasn't like we could stay there forever or something. We'd already eaten our brats and sauerkraut and mashed potatoes (with the mustard on the side in a little ice cream cone thingy), and our train to safety was leaving in an hour or so.

Meanwhile, the Germans, having decided to our great relief to find Friedrich comical, rather than insulting, began ignoring him completely and focusing all their attention on trying to convince us to go party with them. We were hot American girls, surely we could appreciate a good disco? We turned into complete Poindexters and were all, "We'd love to go, but we have a huge important test at school tomorrow that we just can't miss."

Then we began briskly collecting our things together (backpacks clanking with souvenirs from the christkindlmarkts and the two glass Hofbrauhaus steins C. was stealing for Friedrich because he was too much of a pussy to lift them himself) and cheerily telling them goodbye in the hopes that they would take the hint that the evening was over. They kind of chuckled and backed off, so we gathered up our last item (Friedrich, so drunk he couldn't stand up straight, and so tall and lanky that we were basically holding him jacknifed in half over our joined arms) and hustled out of there.

Two of the boys followed us to the U-bahn stop (which thank the lord was not that far away), and in our heads we were totally freaking out that they were going to kidnap us, but in the end they pretty much just tipped their hats and wished us a pleasant night. So we were probably overreacting, but it was very exciting/scary at the time, what with the gun and all. And we were super-pissed at Friedrich for getting us into this situation and then passing out.

As it turned out, Friedrich was mad at the Germans. He felt betrayed that they had "pushed" him to drink so much, and he felt they should have taken into account the fact that he was American and known that he couldn't hold his alcohol as well as they could (!!!). So he started mumbling (at first under his breath, and then not so much), "Fucking Germans...I'm sick of their shit. Them and their stupid Volkswagens...and the war...jerks..." Which wouldn't have been so bad, except by this point we were riding on the U-bahn, and all of these Germans in our car were starting at us in faint horror. We were hoping it was because they were afraid he was about to puke on them (this was our fear, anyway), but chances were they could understand English and were offended by his tirade.

Finally we made it to the train station, only to discover that the train to Vienna was running an hour late. Friedrich, somehow still able to produce vomit after puking in literally every trash can from the U-bahn stop to the train platform, located a small sewer grate near the platform wall, knelt with his arms over his head, and proceeded to retch up everything but his internal organs. For an hour and a half solid.

We took turns sitting by him and rubbing his back, having gone from being angry at him to finding the situation humorous after all. In between spasms of sick he continued to hold forth on the wretchedness of all things German (leiderhosen, bratwursts, beer, pepper grinders). Several of our classmates began showing up to wait for the train as well (despite how large Europe is, invariably we'd run into people we knew whenever we traveled), and we had to tell our night's story over and over as each new group arrived. Most found it funny, while a few made a point of standing far away and turning their noses up in disapproval. We figured Friedrich would never remember any of this, so C. took a picture of me sort of half-bending over to pat him on the back consolingly so as to preserve the moment forever. (A month or so later, when I got the picture developed, to my eternal delight I discovered that the poster on the wall above us had said "Alcohol problem?" in German and was an ad for the German equivalent of a rehab facility.)

Eventually the train did arrive, and we hauled Friedrich's limp and odiferous body into a compartment. On the plus side, he was so stenchy that we had the entire compartment to ourselves (in fact, it was so bad that in the end we left him to himself in it and just came back periodically to make sure he hadn't choked on sick or anything). We rooted around in his things to find his passport, because we would need to show it to the conductor when we were crossing the border into Austria. We were all psyched about getting another stamp on our own passports, but we thought it best to keep Friedrich separated from any more Germans (given his current mindset).

But no, Friedrich perked up when he heard the conductor coming by and was all "STAMP!" (even leaving the compartment and chasing the guy down to make sure his passport got stamped) so apparently German passport stamps aren't evil either. Or he was just a whore for passport stamps.

We made it to Vienna safely, and when Friedrich woke up the next morning he was totally apologetic (and stoked that C. had, actually, taken the glass steins for him). He even felt well enough to stumble after us as we toured Vienna (big vomit patch on his jeans and all).

Me, I had the most violent crush ever on him for about three days, because I have a huge mother hen instinct, and that was the most helpless I had ever seen anyone be. But what with his whole "alcohol problem" (which as far as I know persists to this day), it's probably for the best that those feelings had faded away even before he got around to washing his pukey jeans.