Always on the Run

I'm sure everyone by now, of the few regular readers I have, are sick and tired of me complaining about the random, different, always changing keyboards they have in all different countries. Well, let me tell you, if you thought Germany was going to be any better, you have another thing coming. Ä, Ö, µ, and ß are just a few of the keys that we don't have, mostly because we don't have those letters in English, and though they get in the way of what is normal typing for me, they make sense in their respective languages. The one thing I HAVE noticed, though, is the common switching of Y and Z, and that only just proves that I've tried keyboards in many countries, this week's cultural topic is:

MEETING DEADLINES

With Canadian Universities gone back last week and Europeans about to go back over the next couple, deadlines seem to be popping up out of nowhere these days. I realise, yes, that I failed to meet my latest deadline of posting at least every Monday, so for those who check in regularly, my apologies. I've been making my way around the Czech Republic this past week, with an obvious stop in Prague and a second one in the home of Pilsner Urquell (the oldest Pilsner in the world), Plzen, where I stayed with a friend and didn't have internet...or even running water. It was fun.

There are two main types of deadlines, really: the kind that are for fun, which don't really matter and the kind that actually matter. The kind that matter, for example are ones where money is at stake, or pride, or something of substance. This might be like submitting a multi-billion dollar proposal to a client, or showing up for an exam, or making a flight on time, or whatever else that can actually affect the rest of your life of somebody else's in a huge way. Fun deadlines are like the ones that I make to make sure I write a little bit every week. In fact, this blog has had more action in the last month than my journal, which goes to show, I suppose, that I've been too busy making friends and surviving the travelers life.

This whole trip for me has been virutally unplanned up until now. I've been working my way along a general route, but when I find somewhere I really like, I stay for a while. A few months ago, I had all the time in the world, and the only real deadline I had to meet was a figurative one, which said that I couldn't run out of money. When the money's out, the deadline is therefore past. So aside from the bank balance, there has only really been one other deadline that I've been working towards. That is Oktoberfest. I've met so many folks in the past weeks and they all, like me, seem to be working towards the same goal. Survive, drink a lot, go home.

This time, though, I've managed to round up a friend from Calgary to come join the debauchery. So, my deadline is meet him. The hostel I check into tomorrow is the first that I've had booked ahead in the entirety of my trip, so I'm really looking forward to facing the real world once again.

That being said, beer is a diuretic. What this means is that it dehydrates your body, sending more water to your muscles, and as you drink more beer this is why you feel bloated. The problem, however, is that since your blatter is a muscle, it contracts the more a diuretic substance is intaken. Since beer is primarily water (average strength = 95% water, 5% alcohol), the average blatter has only a 600ml capacity (less when in frequent use) and at Oktoberfest the average size of a beer 1l, the deadline we will most often be faced with over the next couple of weeks? Not peeing our pants.