Austria, 1985, part 1

Sgt. HSA · Post by **Sgt. HSA** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 8:16 pm

I spent the summer of 1985 at an international language school in Salzburg, Austria, which 2 other friends and I decided to go to for an intensive 8 week German program. The school was a boarding school for rich kids during the regular school year, and then they ran this language program in the summer.

So we arrive at the school, and as they give us our room assignments they hand out this list of rules. I don't remember all of them, but the first one that caught my eye was "no alcohol in student rooms". Being all of 17 at the time and looking forward to a summer of legal drunkenness in Europe, the three of us decided there was only one way to deal with this:

Keg party.

Now, this may sound simple, but, believe it or not, a keg was extremely difficult to come by in this city. We went to the local store, where we were informed that the only place to get a keg was the Stiegl brewery, about 10 miles away on the outskirts of town. So we got directions, walked out to the road, and stuck out a thumb to hitch a ride. Almost immediately some guy in his 20s in a BMW picks us up, and when we tell him what we're doing, offers to drive us to the brewery himself. At about 120 MPH on narrow 2 lane road, at one point driving between an oncoming bus and a car on our side of the road. But we make it to the brewery in record time.

We find some guy, who directs us to someone else, and eventually we manage to get ahold of a keg (about the size of a pony) and a tap. Then we look at each other and ask:

How the fuck do we get this thing back to the school ?

So we start walking, taking turns 2 of us carrying while one rests, I swear we did this for at least a couple of miles, and then finally we get to a bus stop. So we wait for the bus, and when it comes we carry the keg on, pay our fare, and walk back to some seats and set the keg down. The bus driver doesn't bat an eye - and neither do any of the passengers. Finally we get back to the school, get off the bus across the street, and carry it across.

Now, next question is, how do we get it up to the room (on the 3rd floor) without getting caught ?

We decide to go up the back staircase, so we carry it around back and head for the door. As we're rounding the corner, we see the headmaster coming out the back door. Oh shit. We run into the bushes and duck down, and watch him looking around, thinking "I swear I just saw something, but then it was gone". He eventually shakes his head and heads off to his car, and we dash in the door and truck it upstairs, and stick it in the shower with run cold water on it because we have no ice.

So we start going around, knocking on doors and telling people we're having a keg party that night. Some rooms have families in them, who look at us like the devil. Some are older people who have no interest. The rest are young people like us, none of whom believe we have a keg in the shower, until they come down and take a look, at which point they invariably say "where the FUCK did you get that ?!?!?"

So that night we had about 20 - 25 people down in a 2 person dorm room for a keg party, which was a smashing success. We got noise complaints from every floor, broke all the furnishings in the room, had one person puke into the sink (if I can find a scanner I'll scan a picture I took of this, which I still have to this day), and instantly gained a reputation as the people everyone wanted to hang with. Next morning, a knock on the door comes, with a message to come down and see the headmaster right now.

That was the first tongue lashing and threat to send us home of many that summer, which we pretty much laughed off.

Part 2 upcoming:
My hunger strike (the food really was pretty bad there) and attempt to live on nothing but beer and semmeln (small breaded rolls), essentially a beer and bread diet.

MarkitZero · Post by **MarkitZero** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 4:48 pm

That was sweet. Can't wait for part deux

Martini Time · Post by **Martini Time** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 5:05 pm

Sarge -

As a youth, your actions have displayed great determination, ingenuity, teamwork, physical fortitude, and a natural sense of leadership. I hope your report card for the summer reflected these qualities. But I'm sensing some future trouble with the "head" master.

Standing by for part II.

vat69 · Post by **vat69** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 11:15 pm

you are a charitable man, sharing a keg and all. if i got my hands on a keg id tell my friends to get fucked and lock them out for a few days.

Gooooon · Post by **Gooooon** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:37 am

well that sounds like a great idea, im going to germany in september, for oktoberfest and all that, so i think i may do something along the lines of that :D

Malkor · Post by **Malkor** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 7:05 am

Your right. It is exceptionally hard to find anyone willing to sell you a keg anywhere in europe, if you wanted one in britain you have to want as theres no way you'd get one.
good story sarge keep em coming

Borracho · Post by **Borracho** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 10:34 pm

Which way do I go, my best keg story, or my best Salzburg story... I guess I'll go with the best Salzburg story...

Sorry, I was in Salzburg in '82 and '83 and us underage guys got no flack when acting like complete maniacs and future members of places like this....

Anway, on to the drama..... We were having an Xmas party at the Univerity of Redlands place in Salzburb, it was known as Haus Wartenburg, and my and this buddy of mine who went on to become a Marine Officer, but at this time was a legendary partyer at our college decided that the one thing this party lacked was an Xmas tree. So we headed on down the road looking for a tree lot, except that we were shitfaced and they don't have many of those in Salzburg. So after wasting a bunch of time we got frustrated and noticed this really great treee... I always carried a nice swiss army knife, but not one of those huge ones that has a saw blades. Dave did. So we dove under this huge tree in the lot of this nice home on a main street in Salzburg and started working the thing over. It was REALLY big. We had to swtich off on the sawing several time. But in less than an hour two retarded Americans were running down Riedenburger Strasse with a fucking huge tree that nearly hid their bodies and delivered it to the house. Naturally, we were heroes, since no one would have ever imagined we demo'd anyone's front lawn, but we always felt it was a Santa's divine intervention....

God I live Swiss Army Knives...

Borracho

Sgt. HSA · Post by **Sgt. HSA** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 3:20 pm

Borracho wrote:Which way do I go, my best keg story, or my best Salzburg story... I guess I'll go with the best Salzburg story...

Sorry, I was in Salzburg in '82 and '83 and us underage guys got no flack when acting like complete maniacs and future members of places like this....

Anway, on to the drama..... We were having an Xmas party at the Univerity of Redlands place in Salzburb, it was known as Haus Wartenburg, and my and this buddy of mine who went on to become a Marine Officer, but at this time was a legendary partyer at our college decided that the one thing this party lacked was an Xmas tree. So we headed on down the road looking for a tree lot, except that we were shitfaced and they don't have many of those in Salzburg. So after wasting a bunch of time we got frustrated and noticed this really great treee... I always carried a nice swiss army knife, but not one of those huge ones that has a saw blades. Dave did. So we dove under this huge tree in the lot of this nice home on a main street in Salzburg and started working the thing over. It was REALLY big. We had to swtich off on the sawing several time. But in less than an hour two retarded Americans were running down Riedenburger Strasse with a fucking huge tree that nearly hid their bodies and delivered it to the house. Naturally, we were heroes, since no one would have ever imagined we demo'd anyone's front lawn, but we always felt it was a Santa's divine intervention....

God I live Swiss Army Knives...

Borracho

I swear, there was nothing you couldn't get away with in that city in the early 80s. I have no idea about now, but I have like a dozen more stories from that summer I'm going to put up at some point. I guess everyone was so law-abiding that they didn't see much of a need for cops.

Celtic · Post by **Celtic** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 3:24 pm

your story about australia is great, but it would be even better if it had koalas, kangaroos and paul hogan in it.

Sgt. HSA · Post by **Sgt. HSA** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 3:08 pm

Celtic wrote:your story about australia is great, but it would be even better if it had koalas, kangaroos and paul hogan in it.

And a few 'gators to boot.