High as a Kite

When you live in a city like Boulder, your definition of weird is forever changed, to the point where there's very little a person can do that will actually creep you out.

Near the end of my Europe trip I paid a short visit to the city of Cologne, in Germany, which I will forevermore refer to as "the Denver of Germany", to use the terminology of a friend of mine. The main attraction of Cologne is it's massive cathedral, which used to be the tallest building in Europe until the Eiffel Tower was constructed. Today's story has nothing to do with that, but rather a guy I met at the hostel I stayed at.

After checking in, I met one of the other people who was staying in the room that I was in. It was mid-afternoon and he was shirtless, in his underwear, with a yoga mat on the floor, doing some stretches. I asked him if he was doing an afternoon workout, and he replied it was actually his morning routine. His speech was fast but irregular, and at one point he told me then he felt like doing some push-ups and asked if he should do any on my behalf. For the next few minutes we continued the conversation like this with him spouting stuff seemingly out of nowhere. Was I weirded out? Not in the slightest. I've encountered his type several times in the past and just went along with the conversation. Later in the day I saw him doing an interview via Skype for some sort of IT job and I noted that his face was constantly twitching and he seemed to be having trouble focusing.

The next day when I was leaving he confirmed what I had suspected. "Hey, sorry about yesterday, I was high as a kite" he told me. I replied that I already knew that, and reassured him that he had not offended me in any way. I do not know what he was on at the time, but cocaine comes to mind. Now that I think of it, he actually reminded me a bit of the character Tyrone Biggums, from Chappelle's Show. If you don't know who that is, consult YouTube.