What about Bob?

I was recently volunteered by the boss to go to the Republican National Convention this September in Minneapolis. I've never stepped foot in MN, but have heard a lot of great things about it. I also have three buddies there with whom I lived in Germany during my college junior year abroad in 1991-1992. Two of those guys, Mike and Bob, came to visit me in Virginia about 10 years ago, but we haven't kept in touch very well since then. Still, we had a LOT of crazy times together and I'm excited to see them when I go to MN soon.

This got me thinking of some of our adventures together in Germany. What an insane time! When the other Americans arrived in Trier to begin the semester, I had already been living near Cologne for six months, working at Bayer Leverkusen. I hadn't spoken a word of English in that time other than an occasional call home to the folks and once chatting with a few Mormon missionaries on a train. So I was very excited to finally meet up with a bunch of Americans and get back to the college way of life. Ironically, when those guys got to Trier, they were actually interested in speaking German, as it was the first visit for most of them. I had my German down to a native level by then and just wanted to speak English and catch up on how things were in the U.S., which I missed dearly.

Anyway, we all ended up getting stuck in this dormitory together called Martinskloster, which was on the Moselle River and not real close to the university. Sadly, the distance from the dorm to the university was not real conducive to getting up early, walking a mile to the bus stop and then heading up the mountain for morning classes. However, they did have a decent bar on campus once we got there and still decided to blow off class.

Lucky for me, I was not required to get grades. I just had to prove that I was registered for a certain number of classes per semester. The exchange program I was in had a deal with my university to carry over my GPA from my sophmore year to my senior year, while giving me 30 credits for my junior year in Trier. Pretty sweet deal, eh? More on Trier later.

Bob and I became pretty good friends and even managed to meet up during one of the long vacation breaks we had, when everyone usually went their separate ways. I went back to Bayer Leverkusen to earn some money. Luckily, Rush was on tour then and Bob was also a diehard fan. So we agreed to meet up for the show in Cologne-Deutz, a short ride away from where I was staying. Unlike the U.S., which had largely abolished general admission seating for big rock concerts after the deadly Who concert in Cincinnati, Germany still had it. So Bob and I just got there early and went to reserve our spaces. We were there several hours early to queue up and there were no security or even fans anywhere. So we wandered back to the loading area to watch the crew load in Rush's and Primus's equipment. While standing around, we saw a Mercedes wagon pull up. Out of the passenger seat climbed the Professor Neil Peart. What a sight. Our hero was right in front of us. Three other kids were hanging around back there. One called out to Neil, who completely ignored us all and walked briskly into the Sporthalle. What a buzzkill. But we snuck in another entrance a while later and sat undisturbed while watching Rush do their soundcheck in the empty arena. We eventually got kicked out, but that was fine by us. We got back in for the show and were front and second row for most of it. Killer!

That was April of 1992 and we had another three week break from school coming up in June. The Germans have a LOT of holidays on their calendar and that works out especially well for students. Bob and I wanted to go to Poland and Ukraine for this vacation. But at the time, the former Soviet Union was in a lot of disarray and we could not get a straight story on how to get a visa or if we even needed one for Ukraine. What if we had to pass through Belarus on the way in or out? I called my mom and asked her to call the mission at the U.N. in New York. She did and was told we could get a visa for $50 at the border. I wanted to confirm this with one or two more sources before we set out, but we figured we could still have a blast hitchiking to Berlin and then all around Poland. And what a blast it was. Stay tuned.