FUNDON! Day 2 part 2

After Matilda, Pooey and I had to wave goodbye to Caro & Friend and rush away because...WE WERE GOING TO SEE ONE DIRECTION AT WEMBLEY STADIUM!!!! This is a not a joke. This whole trip was actually planned around the fact that we had tickets to it hehehehe

The excitement started on the Tube to Wembley Park. We weren't the only ones dressed in the gear and holding the accessories!

Pooey jumps for joy as we get closer and closer!

We were waiting for Leesh and Meems and took the time to put some tattoos in strategic locations.

such as a conveniently kissable one!

Pooey greatly regretted not getting a tour shirt when she saw them in Melbs. No such regrets this time.

But please also note the custom-made shirts!

Our great regret was that neither of us notices that it would have been much more fun if one of us had first names and the other had surnames. 

Yes, we were pretty happy. And here's Leesh and Meems showing their level of enthusiasm.

Wembley holds about 90,000 people and they sold out 3 concerts.I'm just going to say that with the exception of the seats behind the stage...it got more full. Such is the world domination of their cult. Of which I am definitely a member. 

We arrived too late to late to see the warm-up act who happened to be Aussie band Five Seconds of Summer :D. But we were in time to listen to the warm up music and watch everyone dance to the Macarena, Single Ladies, and Jump Around. And when I say everybody, I don't just mean the paying audience - even the security guards were getting in on it! 

But then the entry video started and everyone went apeshit

As the tour is titled 'Where We Are', the vid featured the different places 1D have been in the last few years. 

Then Harry came out to start 'Midnight Memories' and the stadium exploded!!!

Niall actually plays the guitar quite a bit. I guess he's been practising

Oh Zayn. What a hottie

But what hey, Liam has grown up and growing up has been kind to him!

And yeah, Louis. 

The great thing about having Zayn as favourite is that, due to his heavy vocal load, he was featured quite a bit in the close ups.

Problem with this was that he often looked uninterested :( It looked as though he was having problems because he kept fiddling with and replacing his earpiece.

But Liam looked really happy to be there and kept saying things like how awesome it was to be at Wembley and not being able to believe that everything started for them a few metres down the road when they auditioned for X Factor. And so now Liam is my new favourite! Sorry Zayn, but at least pretend you want to be there!

Like you Mims! What are you yawning for?!?!

See my super-happy face? At this point I think I'd been bouncing around for at least an hour.

The performance of One Thing. *sigh*

YEAH!!!!

I think this was Little Things. 

HOLD UP ALL THE PHONES!!!!

Hehehe, animated 1D

Leesh had a much better camera on her than me and Pooders

Crystal clear shots of them!

Best Song Ever closed out the night...

And then BAM!!! It was over. 

I will unabashedly say that this was one of the best nights of my life. Not only did I get to spend a few hours bouncing around, singing at the top of my lungs and basically being the teenaged fangirl I wasn't as a teenager, I got to experience one of the most amazing and spontaneous events ever. After the concert, there was (naturally) a bit of a crush as everyone headed towards the tube station to get home. Police were out and monitoring the situation. When suddenly, someone started playing 1D music out loud and the crowd burst into song, even when the song abruptly ended before its actual end. This happened a few times and showed the general cheer of the crowd despite the very uncomfortable situation. As we inched forward, it turned out the source of the music were a pair of policemen, their bullhorn, and a mobile phone! And still high on concert buzz, much to the amusement of people on the street and Smee, Pooey and I walked home from the tube, playing,singing, and dancing along to 1D. Best night ever!

That is disgusting

Something I find really amusing when I first saw it in Germany, were the strategically positioned racks to put away your trays in fast food joints, and the dirty looks people would give you if you didn't put your tray away. I mean, we're not children - we can clean up after ourselves. Well, a trip to the Swanston/Flinders Macca's for a post-tennis cheesebao showed that, actually, Aussie can't clean up after themselves.

This was what greeted us. I think I actually said, "OMG!" when confronted with that mess.

Seriously, even accounting for the fact it was past 1am on a hot summer's day...that's disgusting.

Wading through the garbage, we eventually did make it to the front counter with all the other night owls to find that someone had spilled their drink the area where you were supposed to wait for your food, and so the floor was unbelievably sticky. It was really hazardous to people wearing ballet flats like us, or worse, people with thongs. 

Also, what's this?!

Yep, we were on CCTV for maccas!

And I was highly amused to find that it was branded *Macca's*

Readying myself for return...

In a few hours, I will board a plane to return to Melbourne for the first time in over TWO YEARS. While my time in Europe is not yet up (and hopefully won't be for a while), it has been a fun, terrifying, interesting, frustrating, and ultimately extremely rewarding experience. I've met a lot of great people and made some fantastic friends, and am absolutely determined to make myself more a of a polyglot! To my friends in Melbs who are awaiting my return, I look forward to seeing you all as well, and you can tell me if I'm speaking English with a weird European accent now :P

Also, I'm really looking forward to wearing my German tricot in Australia, if just because it's supposedly made out of a *cooling fabric*

Newsworthy

Since moving here, in addition to reading the news from back home and new home, I've been reading some international news sites, mostly the BBC and guardian. And I've noticed that whenever my countries get mentioned in the various presses, it is due to some sort of interesting political event that could have implications for the rest of the world (e.g. Julia Gillard going off at Tony Abbott, plain cigarette packagaing, investigations into child abuse) or a completely bizarre goings on.

Okay, the bizarre Australian things aren't that weird (to me) because it usually pertains to people being injured or killed by some sort of *normal* Aussie thing (dingos, spiders, snakes, the desert...). This doesn't strike me as particularly strange because I accept that Australia is a great object of fascination for people who live in environments that are devoid of killer drop bears and a fairly uniform climate.

The same is of course true for Germany. When Germany makes the news, it's generally related to the major role it has in the Eurozone...but the strange things that make the international news are, in my opinion REALLY strange. Okay, the Catholic Church threatening to ban parishoners from services if they didn't pay their Church tax wasn't that unusual (for me) but it did elicit some questions from Aussie friends about whether I was paying a church tax (hahahaha, NO!). The general bizarre nature of the German language is, of course, always good for a chuckle. But perhaps one of the best things I've read about Germany in the foreign press was this piece about a guy who was found driving with a mobile office built into his car. Say what you like about the German work ethic, they don't seem to bother about proving the world wrong.

*EDIT* I'm sorry, but the car story has been superseded by the sudden knowledge that not only is BESTIALITY legal in Germany, but because the Bundestag is looking to ban it, that there is a group of people who are defending their right to have animals as partners. Well done Germany, I'd like to see how you top that for weirdness. 

Cultural Customs

I'll be the first to say I don't get some/most of the German customs that I've suddenly become immersed in. But what I do find bizarre is when they express *How can you not know of this festival?* Case in point, a colleague said they were going home early recently because it was *St. Martins*. Huh?! Apparently on this day, children make lamps and walk around the streets with them. Firstly, as a country that has separate church and state as well as being established as a Protestant country (which doesn't recognise saint days), of course it I have no idea what it is! Also, did you know that Christmas presents are given on the 24th of December here? I mean, I don't celebrate Christmas but why would you get the presents before lil' baby Cheezus was born? Anyway, I believe that if I have to celebrate German traditions, it would be a fair trade that they celebrate Asian/Australian ones, right? So I should have gotten the second Tuesday in November off as Melbourne Cup Day, right? RIGHT?!? Or even better...my married colleagues give me money for Chinese New Year...:D

But to finish, here's another German thing I don't get. Lots of Germans love Winter and say it is their favourite season. Here's a picture of somewhere I will be avoiding like the plague during that season - The Alps!

As photographed from the Olympic Park. It was a cold night.

Status symbol

Ruben got me a (really nice) fountain pen for my birthday with the cheeky comment that since my title is *Dr.*, I must have some pretty important documents to sign. He was right (I'm expecting a call to extend my contract any day now) but it was also quite amusing given that this article about the apparent comeback of the fountain pen was published on my birthday. Fountain pens are apparently a sign of taking things seriously, a solid link to the past, and a niche luxury item.  

 Like a boss.

Testing it out. 

So how is it? Does it feel like a step into the past? Is it an affectation or a reconnect with a more personal time? One thing is for sure, I need to improve my handwriting and be careful with smearing! (I'm left handed.) But now I have something I can use to write those thank-you notes!

Americanised!!! :O

This is going to sound really weird, but for some bizarre reason, I had the urge to read Looking for Alibrandi. I don't know...maybe I just really wanted some non-Twilight teen angst If I were in Melbs, I could have just taken my own copy off the bookshelf but I'm not so I purchased it for my Kindle. It was pretty much as I remembered while reading it - oh! The dilemmas of struggling with final exams and future directions, first loves, trying to reconcile yourself with your surroundings when you attend a rich private school but you yourself come from a poor and migrant background....gosh, story of my life! :P But there was something niggling at me that something was not quite right. 


And towards the end, I finally figured it out. At one point, Josie mentions going shopping with Lee and looking at Gap and Abercrombie. This book was published in Australia and set in Sydney in the early 1990s....THERE WAS NO GAP OR ABERCROMBIE IN AUSTRALIA AT THAT TIME!!! And Ivy graduates valedictorian of the class - err, no. It's been a while since I read my book form but I'm pretty sure the title used in Australia is Dux. Thankfully Josie mostly refers to her Mum as *Mama*, *my mother*, or *Christina*. I don't think I could have handled it if it was changed to *Mom*. 

Smoking in Germany

Despite the rampant drinking and heavy cuisine, Germany has a reputation as being a fairly healthy nation. I won't bother getting into whether I agree with that assessment or not but I would just like to say that I find it strange that it's really difficult to find somewhere after 8pm to buy milk, sugar, shampoo etc....but it seems like there are cigarette vending machines on every second corner.


Just sayin'. 

Too Cynical for Rom-Com?

This was supposed to be a review of Crazy, Stupid, Love, except that the more I thought about it, the more disturbed I got. People had been telling me what an entertaining film it was, and I'll admit it, when I saw the trailer, I wanted to see it too! 

But you know what? Instead of feeling humoured, warm and gooey, I felt like the movie was giving across a bad message.


The key aspect of point of Crazy, Stupid, Love is the belief in soulmates. Steve Carell and Julianne Moore are soulmates but he let himself and ultimately their relationship go. In comes Ryan Gosling, a player type reformed by meeting his own soulmate, Emma Stone. And Robbie, 13 year old son of Steve and Julianne, believes that his 17 year old babysitter Jessica is his soulmate. Now belief in soulmates in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. What I disliked about this movie is that it uses it to override all other problems in relationships. 


As Julianne says in the trailer, she slept with someone else and Steve moves out of the house without a complaint. He is later berated for *giving up* on his soulmate. But you know what? I'm more concerned that the fact that Julianne already felt the relationship was in such a bad state that she went to someone else was no addressed. So he gave up on their relationship? What about the breach of trust caused by cheating?! 


Robbie actively does things that embarrass Jessica, like turning up at her school to declare his love, telling her that he only thinks of her when he has a meeting with Rosie Palm and her 5 sisters, and basically not taking no for an answer (until right at the end when she says she'll wait for him to grow up). To me, this is not cute and romantic, this is the first step to becoming a stalker. In addition, your feelings at 13 are different from your feelings at 23, 33, and so forth. In fact, I'd say that was one of the problems between Steve and Julianne - they may have been soulmates at 16 but they clearly were no longer by the late 40s. 


Okay, a player being reformed by meeting The One, okay, I'm not so fussed about that but I did wonder how all those women fell for his lines. I am kinda curious why a guy who seems to love women couldn't seem to form a lasting relationship with anyone until his late 20s/early 30s and instead made do with lots of one night stands though. 


Now for people who think I'm bashing romcoms, this is NOT TRUE! I love the genre, I love the improbability of the storylines and how a good one makes you feel all gooey inside. And I don't take them seriously. I mean, come on, I love Pretty Woman but I don't think hookers are good partners for businessmen (or are they....) and I love Enchanted but I know a secret cartoon world doesn't exist through a portal in Times Square (or does it....!). But basically, when Crazy, Stupid, Love ended, I did not feel that warm gooey feeling that a good romcom is meant to give you. I really thought that none of the relationships we saw would end well. Okay, maybe the Ryan/Emma one will be okay if she can get over his past and he can stop with those stupid lines to random women. Maybe they chose to use conflicts that were too realistic (end of love) or too unrealistic (being in love at 13). And if this is what's considered a good romcom nowadays, I'm really worried. You shouldn't walk away from romcoms wondering about the characters' future mental health! Anyway, that's my two cents...I'm gonna watch Amelie again. 

Multilingualism

I was in Regensburg over the weekend with my amigos y amigas to enjoy the first Weihnachtsmaerkte wochenende (Christmas market weekend). One thing I discovered is that while my chums very kindly spoke English as much as possible for me, I could vaguely understand their Spanish! This has instilled a desire in me to learn Espanol....which may have to occur after I finish learning Deutsch, Francais, Italiano, Zhongwen....


But I've already started! After pointing at a merry-go-round/carousel and telling Ruben that we needed to ride it, he said to me, "Do you know that it's called in Spanish? Tiovivo. Do you know that that literally translates to? Lively uncle." When Eva complained about bizarre word translations, I noted that uncles are the most likely ones to hold you up and spin you in a circle. See? It all makes sense!

Final Garden Review

I have finally eaten all the flavours in the Ferrero Garden box and here is the review of the final flavour, pistachio.

Nice green wrapping

Nice Garden look

Nice pistachio-flavoured filling.

As you may be able to tell, my overall feeling about pistachio is that it was nice. Like a pistachio, it had a subtle nutty and salty taste. This is not a bad thing but it didn't knock me out and go *wow!* the way other flavours did.

And so, my assessment of which one was the best? To be honest, we have to straight back to the start and say it was (for me) STRAWBERRY!!!! *applause applause*. 

Animal Handling

I like animals but I do my experiments on mice and the more I work in this field, the more I believe that they are necessary - you can't create models for diseases if you don't know what happens. 


I just wish they wouldn't squirm so much when I clip them for ID numbers and DNA samples. 


I also wish I didn't have to wear laundered underwear to get into the animal house.

Ferrero Garden - Redux

After discovering the greatness that was Ferrero Garden Strawberry a couple of months ago, I found a GIANT box of Garden with all the different Summer flavours! Naturally, I had a very important task to complete - purchase a box and test them to determine the most superior type. Very. Important. 

 Flavour 1 - Coconut. 

First impression - it looks a lot like a Ferrero Raffaello

Second impression - it tastes a lot like Ferrero Raffaello. This is not a great thing for me because it's my most disliked of Ferrero chocolates. 

Flavour 2 - Lemon

First impression - it looks a lot like coconut

I really liked this one! Very important - it had a great amount of TANG!!! Is it better than strawberry? I don't know yet...

I haven't had time yet to test the last flavour in the box - pistachio - but Juliane has told me it's her favourite flavour. I hope this is not building it up too much...