Friday June 4th, 2004

Slept until the Bells Gone Wild woke me up at 8:45am. Finished the laundry. Tom ventured out for more breakfast treats ... the great white hunter, tee-hee.

After breakfast we ventured back down to the rivers in search of souveniers for friends and family back home. Lots of little kiosks along the rivers. There are huge river cruise ships that travel the length of Europe and many of these boats dock at Koblenz to pick up supplies and let passengers tour on land. I had my first street vender Brat on a Brochen and it was really good. We bought a few things from the various stands and one of the vendors gave me a shot glass with my purchase ... I was touched! Then we settled at the Biergarten by the Moselle and drank beers and listened to the people around us and watched the boats go by on the river. We wanted to take a river cruise ... just a day cruise up the Rhine but we were never able to work it in.

We have a pub crawl scheduled for tonight so I decide to take a nap so that I can hang with the big boys tonight. While I slept, Tom wandered around the city some more. Gary got home around 5 ... fixed us glasses of Scotch on the Rocks (I could get used to that treatment!) and then he ventured out to by Brats to cook on the grill. He returned with a Six pack of really good beer and a bunch of brats and brochen. So we grilled and drank and laughed and ate and listened to some great tunage on Gary's Satellite connection. There is a station out of England called Gaydar Radio ... they play really good stuff!

Finally it is time to venture out to Gary's Friday night routine which starts at an Irish Pub in his neighborhood. There are 3 seats right at the bar so we take those. The bartender is Irish and is happy to pour us 3 Guinesses ... he even carves little shamrocks into the foam for us. We strike up a conversation with him and he is very entertaining talking about how he ended up in Germany and life in Ireland and all kinds of topics. The Guiness flowed. Then two young men came up to the bar and stood next to me and ordered 2 beers in German. The bartender looked at me and said "Americans" and tilted his head their way. So I leaned over and asked the closest young man if he was American. He was surprised ... I told him the bartender knew immediately. I told him I was from Texas and he said he was here on an exchange program from a small engineering school on the East coast. I asked which one and he said "Westpoint"! So I asked him if he was one of the cadets that Gary Allen had met in Munich on Monday. He said "No! But do you know Gary Allen?" I said sure ... he is here with us tonight (but he was in the toileten at the time). They were shocked! They had been given a pic of Gary (in scuba gear, of all things) and were told to look him up if they needed anything in Koblenz. They were like ... "He's Here?? Right Now??" I said we were staying with him and that he and Tom were best friends who met at Westpoint Prep School. Then the bartender butts in and says "Are you boys looking for Gary Allen?" And they were shocked ... "YOU know Gary Allen, too? Does EVERYONE know Gary Allen?"

Gary and Tom finally return from the WC and everyone shakes hands and drinks to a small world. It was pretty amazing. And I am sure those cadets think that Gary is THE MAN. Gary actually coordinates the exchange program for the Westpoint cadets. It was a very cool occurance.

We stayed at the Irish Pub a lot longer than Gary normally does .... it was 11:30 when we finally left. We went to the next place on Gary's route and sat out on the patio and had a couple more beers ... but then I got the hiccoughs really bad ... which has never happened to me before. Gary proclaimed that we needed Pommes Fritz to soak up the beer and I totally agreed. We got a big paper cone filled with hot french fries covered with Mayo and catsup and boy were they GOOD!!

We stumbled back to Gary's place and I crashed ... Gary and Tom sat out on the deck and talked into the wee hours of the morning.