Adios hermano :(

I received some sad news during Oktoberfest - after nearly three years and many many parties together, my Spanish brother David would be leaving Munich :(.  So we did what we always do - PARTY TIME!!!

And for someone who lived here for years and went to a billion volksfest yet never got a pair of lederhosen, we bought him a uniform that would be just as acceptable. 

él le gusta!

Y con mi otro hermano, who will also leave for Paris in the new year. Oh well, another reason to go visit!

Cake time!

I am now the consul for an online expatriate group. Our thing is to make newbies in the city feel welcome, but our actual theme is that we love chocolate. Yes, you know what this means. NOW I CAN OFFICIALLY GO OUT AND EAT CAKE IN THE NAME OF HELPING PEOPLE!!!

Our first location was Maelu - definitely a very important place for newbies to know. 

My pink lady cake - a combination of berry, lychee and rose. All washed down with a hot chocolate.

Birthday Karaoke!

ShaScha had her birthday party this weekend and, joy of joys, she wanted to do karaoke! But not that stupid open mic karaoke they have in Europe - we found a Thai restaurant that allowed you to book out their entire private room and for a minimum spend, have the karaoke system fired up! I was pretty !$%#ing excited to take part in this! Someone even asked me if I was going to sing - my reply was "Dude, I'm Asian. You try and stop me singing!"

And it was necessary to sing - BECAUSE WE SPRANG THIS BIRTHDAY PRESENT ON HER!!!

Yep - a personalised karaoke song!

This was her face when she realised what we were doing

I won't post the video of us actually singing it, but here we are as popstars.

Plus bonus photos of me and Tammy singing True by Spandau Ballet!

Cafe Kosmos

I'm always looking for somewhere nice and convenient to go to for drinks in Munich. Sure, alcohol is cheap and freely available but I miss the Melbourne bar culture which I firmly enjoyed. I'm not sure at what point we started going here regularly, but there's a new favourite bar - conveniently located near the Hauptbahnhof and next to a gourmet burger shop! This bar is Cafe Kosmos and it's filled with just as tatty mis-matched furniture as any Brunswick St bar.

Here's the strawberry-flavoured cocktail of the day that I drank while sitting in the window of the bar like a hipster.  

Facial paralysis

About a month ago, I started getting very localised pain in my jaw. It turns our I have 4 wisdom teeth and the lower two are not only very close to the nerve but they're impacting on my lower molars. Not surprisingly, this also meant that my gums were quite inflamed and would require some treatment before the surgery to get the wisdom teeth out.

I had requested that the treatment take place early in the morning so as to not interfere with my getting to work in time. What I didn't anticipate was receiving 4 different injections of local anaesthetic around my mouth in order for them to do the treatment (whatever it was). Needless to say, while I got to work on time, it became pretty clear VERY EARLY to my colleagues that there was no way what I would be able to spend the entire day at work. Maybe it was because they would see that I couldn't move my face properly, maybe it was when I started to cough and not being able to move my mouth properly, I started to have a small choking fit. Either way, my facial paralysis was very entertaining for all of us.

I'm somewhat looking forward to what will happen when all four wisdom teeth come out!

As an aside, the German word for wisdom teeth is a literal translation - Weisheitszähne!

Nach-Oktoberfestgrippe

A number of people I know are currently ill. This list includes:
Swiss Chris
Sarah
Caro
Laura
Susi
Thomas
Christian
Myself
There can only be one reason - we all partied too hard during Oktoberfest.

Last of Wiesn

As much as I love Wiesn, I'm always glad it only goes for two weeks. Otherwise I'd probably end up killing myself with alcohol. This weekend was catching up with Latin types who I hadn't seen in a while.  

Mi hermano David told me that due to his company not offering him a new contract, he will leave Munich at the end of this month :(

y mi otro hermano Rubio will move to Paris next year :( 

But they both said they'll be back for the bierfests!

Carlinho also made the trip over with his new lederhosen because he NOW A GERMAN! (but assured me that he will always be Brazilian).

Here's to old friends and next year's festivals!