Got interrupted way back on 2 May when Stefan and I went out to a club, had a few beers and hung out. It was my last night in Oxford before I flew out to Düsseldorf, Germany. We stayed at the club for an hour or so and then headed back to the hostel. I thought I was going to crash but instead I had a few more beers there and talked with Victoria and a few other people. Stefan bailed after another hour or so, he had to get his silly ass to work the next morning. I, however, didn't and stayed up until 1:00 - 2:00am, maybe later I don't recall currently. Stefan has invited me to a techno music event in late July. I have promised to come down if I am not already doing some volunteer work. About 1,5 million people show up at this gig in downtown Berlin. Stefan had about 100 pictures he showed me of the event last year. It was pretty cool.
After getting into bed I pretty much passed out, but was waken up in the middle of the night by an event! I guess the lint in the hostels dryer, actually the lint that had accumulated in the dryers exhaust conduit had caught fire. In the middle of the night. Fortunately, Ayron, the hostel manager, Victoria and Stefan were up hanging out in the kitchen at 4:30am and noticed the smell and then some smoke in the exhaust fan! The alarms were going off shortly there after. In my typical fashion, I slept through the alarm, but one of the Irish guys in the dorm woke me up and told me to evacuate due to the small fire. At first I didn't take him seriously, I hadn't heard the alarm. He was being pretty persistent about the fire so I left. We all stood out in the street waiting for the fire truck to show up and it did within a few minutes. I was standing out there in my underwear since I didn't get a lot of time to dress. Luckily the wind wasn't blowing, it was just cold. I stood out there for about half an hour before the fire department gave us the all clear. While I was standing there Stefan and Victoria gave me the details as to what had happened. It was all pretty exciting but I was glad it was all over so I could get two more hours of sleep before I took off in the morning. Aryon woke me up right before 7:00am, which was pretty cool since I had just set my watch alarm and hadn't requested the service, Victoria must have had a hand in the help.
By about 8:00am I was on the road to London City Airport to catch my flight. I took the Oxford tube down to Victoria station and then the underground out close to the airport where there was a shuttle waiting for me. The underground was cool. I accidentally got the wrong ticket, I thought my station was in area 2 and I also thought I had bought an area 1 and 2 ticket. I realized when I got on the underground that my destination was in area 3, so I got off on the last stop in Area 2 to see if I could change or add to the ticket. Well, I found out that my ticket was only area 1 but they would be able to help me at my destination station. When I got to my stop I just paid an additional 70p to make the fare correct. It was pretty quick and painless. I made my was out to City airport which is a single terminal airport and caught my flight to Düsseldorf. They had some cool snacks on the flight. I was also glad to read in the onboard journal that my ticket acted as a transportation pass for the day. Exceptionally cool since I didn't have a single German Mark to buy anything. Düsseldorf is a really cool town. Once I got there I had a pretty easy time finding the hostel. It was just three miles down the road and just across the Rhine. I'm going to pause right now. I've gotten a cold and my nose is really running!
OK, made it back from the pharmacy. Here they call them Apothekes. Anyway, I'm still feeling like shit and my nose drips when I'm sitting so I'll have to finish, or rather, catch up a little later.
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