I was invited to the opening semester party at the University of Mannheim Castle building and I can safely say I was NOT in a laid-back frame of mind. Allow me to explain.
First of all it was just above freezing, the event was *outside* and I had left my thermal sweater back at the apartment (I thought we would in indoors). Second there were hundreds of drunk kids drinking glass-bottled-beer (imported from Hamburg?) and dancing outside on this super-slick, rain-soaked stone courtyard – where I come from this is a proven formula for head trauma and lacerations of the foot. Third the DJ was beat blasting (or whatever it is they do) and no one was wearing any ear protection. And finally it started raining and then it started snowing. Oh yeah, and I had not slept in 32 hours, it was dark, everyone was dressed the same (black jackets must be in this winter) and I was honestly worried that I was going to get separated from my crew and never see them again.
Concerning this last point – if you think I wear my awesome orange hoodie to support the Dutch men’s soccer team in international competition you are wrong. Reminder: Dutch soccer and I are still on a timeout after their embarassing-even-by-professional-soccer-standards behaviour at the World Cup final in 2010. I wear that hoodie so I can be easily identified in a crowd – never get lost again!
And despite the thousands of beers consumed at this party, I didn’t see a single broken bottle – event promoters from Canada outside Germany pay attention – they made the partygoers pay a two-Euro per bottle deposit. This system increases profits because a) some of the drunk people will invariably forget to collect their money b) your customers bus their own empties requiring less staff / infrastructure for the event c) there are fewer broken bottles and d) you can use the savings to reduce the cost of drinks to make your events more attractive than those of your competition.
I should have gone into business.
Was nice to catch up with Team Mannheim.
Die Hard Three 
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