Lost in Translation

So I was hanging out in MediaMarkt looking at various tech things that I was considering for myself when I ended up in the DVD section. DVD buying in this country (so far) has been somewhat precarious because while they'll play in my computer, the one DVD I've purchased so far (Amelie) did not have English subtitles. But it was only €5 so that's fine. 

Anyway, I was browsing what was there when I noticed a familiar-looking cover for a movie I had definitely seen and enjoyed. But I was highly confused about the title, which I decided to photograph for posterity.

How the hell does Made in Dagenham turn into We Want Sex?!?!

It amuses me because Made in Dagenham is a movie about women undergoing industrial action in 60s England in the fight for equal pay. Okay, there's a brief sex scene in a car but people looking for women in red dresses on the prowl will be sorely disappointed!

Just sharing the love.

Public Transport Hotties.

The men of Munich, I'll give them this - they can be pretty good looking. I think it's due to being at the border of Northern and Southern Europe, so they have the German Teutonic-ness with some North Italian contamination. This results in tall, dark haired guys - exactly my type. Okay, they're a bit personality deficient and they don't hold doors open for women (WTF! Women's Lib has gone too far!) but they're nice to look at. 

My place and work are not too far away from the BMW head offices so I and my friends get to see lots of nice looking men in suits. The other day I saw a hot Silver Fox while I was waiting for the bus. Alas, I did not take a photo and Pooey told me off, pointing out that there is an entire website devoted to hotties on the Tube. After spending Friday in a haze, we decided that I should also try to snap u-bahn hotties. 


And so, here is my attempt to start the craze

Clearly it's meant to be the guy in the suit.

Thoughts?

I think it's time I got a new bf...

...because I was looking at my most played tracks on iTunes and the top 10 are pretty much break-up songs. Of course, it probably doesn't help that I've pretty much been playing Adele's 21 on repeat since I got it.  For the curious, the songs (in order) are...

(yes, I apparently love Taylor Swift - at 11 was *You Belong With Me*)

Moar shopping!

After I went shopping on the weekend and trawling the Zara website so show people what I'd bought, me and some other girls from the lab decided we should ALL go shopping together! 

Naturally, I got another dress :D 

Although I now kinda wish I didn't buy the one I got on the weekend

I happened to be wearing these stilettos while trying on the dress and we were all pleasantly pleased with the contrast of the green vs. the pink. Or at least, the females were. There was a male in the change room and he kept saying *The shoes don't match! They don't match!* 

Das Wetter

So Fruehling has turned into Sommer and it has occurred to me that the weather here is pretty much like in Melbs.


Stay with me for a bit.


Okay, so it snows in Winter and it doesn't quite hit the heights of Melb temps but this past week I experienced nice bright sunny days to the extent that I wore my Melb sundresses. These days turned dry which then resulted in elevated pollen levels leading everyone to the sniffles. The dryness turned into humidity and then the dark clouds rolled in. The temperature dropped about 10 degrees and we got huge lightning storms and massive downpours. 


Sound familiar? :D 

Shopping!

So I've pretty much been clothes shopping-free in Munich thanks to their trading hour laws, which has been both a blessing and a curse. I'm not sure at what point I decided I was going to try and get more clothes but its been creeping up slowly, but after finding myself with a rare free Saturday afternoon, I decided it was time to hit Zara and look for some more summer clothes! Excuse the poor quality of the photos - the lighting in my new place isn't fantastic.

Piece 1 - Turquoise mini skirt! It has pockets woohoo! I may need to get a crisp white shirt to wear this, 50s style.

Piece 2 - Coral strapless dress. Possibly a bit young but so long as I'm not looking mutton dressed as lamb. 

Ferrero Garden

 

One of the best things about moving to Germany is all the different sweeties that are now available to me. For example, Haribo gummis are advertised as being a *World of Haribo* but in Australia is usually limited to things like bears and other basic things. When Boodle came and visited, she observed that, unlike in Australia, the range is huge in Europe to the extent that it actually lived up to the advertising!

Ferrero is one those companies whose range is drastically reduced in Australia but is huge in Germany. I became aware of this when visiting Anya and she forced me to take back a box of Ferrero Kusschen. These are her favourites which she found to be criminally unavailable in Aus. The box was duly devoured by the lab in less than a day. The other day, I was doing some shopping when I saw a Ferrero product I had never seen before – Ferrero Garden.

Is this a completely new product or something I just never noticed before? I don’t know. What I do know is that Ferrero Garden needs to be sold in Australia. The packaging makes it look like a pink version of Ferrero Rocher, 

 

and after unwrapping, it seemed this was the case. 

But biting into it...

 

oh! It’s filled with strawberry-flavoured creamy stuff! 

It’s utterly delicious!I gobbled the first one completely before I realised that I should have been recording this for blog posterity! If you see some, get them. They’re worth it.

Reversal of situation.

So people who've been reading this blog for a while will know that I started off this year by living in places that had internet but me with no computer. Well now that I've moved apartments, I've got two functioning computers...but no internet. 

I'm not sure how long this situation will continue for. My flatmate (Fabi) has an internet stick but he says it drops in and out in our apartment so he'll investigate whether it's worth me getting a stick or if we should just invest in wireless for the apartment. Otherwise I'll be either writing at work (err.....) or paying visits to the local net cafe down the street until then!

Back at work :(

The title of this entry says it all. 
*sigh* 
But at least its now sunny and I've moved into my new apartment. Yay. 

Le Bon Anniversaire Weekend - Day 3....at PARC ASTERIX!!!

(WHERE THERE'S A LINK TO A RIDE, I RECOMMEND CLICKING BECAUSE THERE ARE VIDEOS TO JOIN IN ON THE ROLLER COASTERING!!!)

Despite the large alcohol intake the night before, me and Pooey got up (relatively) early to catch the TGV to L'Aeroport Charles de Gaulle to catch a shuttlebus to....PARC ASTERIX!!!! Despite never reading any of the books even though I've borrowed them all at various intervals, Pooey had been dying to visit since she discovered it existed and finding out that they had rollercoasters! 

We dropped Gnoudesavanes off at Chatelet (he declared he was tired and going to take a nap, Pooey said "I'm 7 years older than you and I'm fine!") and jumped on our RER on the way to Ancient Gaul!!!

Looking pritti damn happy!!!

Yep, looks like I've stepped back in time

We're so happy we can't close our mouths!

A giant Asterix on top of a mountain overlooks everything.

Now entering Ancient Gaul!!!

Upon entry to the Parc, we grabbed a map from an employee but had no idea which rides to go on so we jumped on the second one we saw, a boat ride where we got to see various characters from the comics.

Heheheheh

Making sure I met the height requirement

Watch out for sunken pirates!!!

Clockwise from top left - Characters from Asterix and the Magic Carpet (India), Asterix and Cleopatra, Asterix and Caesar's Gift, and Asterix in Switzerland.

Owls!!!

Codfix, villain of Asterix and the Great Divide *booo, hisss!!!!* 

It also went through a tunnel where we saw the characters from Asterix in Spain, Getafix cooking up some magic potion, and a wild boar hiding from Obelix.

And then we saw the small and big guys themselves!

Cute as this ride was, lets face it, it was for kids. So we decided to prioritise our rides from then on - starting off with the big rollercoasters before lunch and then doing any water rides afterwards (don't want to spend the entire day wet, you know). 

Walking through Ancient Gaul, we came across a long queue for La Trace de Hourra and we joined in. 

In the queue, it became apparent that we were travelling through time into the prehistoric ages! Look, cave paintings!

Waiting in the queue, Pooey observed, "Hey, this ride has no tracks!" It was a sort of giant bobsled ride with tracks taking us to the top of a high point...which then dropped us and it used the momentum for the rest of the ride.

Here we are on the climb. A lot of the rest of the ride had Pooey screaming "This is so unsafe! This is SO UNSAFE!!!" (in a good way!)

Nearby was the much smaller Periferix a more traditional and smaller roller coaster. It was actually more for little kids than us big kids but the queue was short so we joined in. 

The entrance to the ride.

Everything is also written in Asterix font

Yep, this ride has tracks!

But the most impressive thing about Periferix was that we saw the staff actually enforce the height limit! What's with parents wasting time in queues trying to get their toddlers/kids onto rides? There were plenty of signs saying kids must be over 1m!

We then went through time to the other part of the park to get to the two real biggies of Parc Asterix, Goudurix and Le Tonnerre de Zeus. 

It's a happy castle!

We didn't ride on this but you could sit inside Obelix on the carousel!

Goudurix is a classic coaster with loops, corkscrews, and jerking about. The queue was surprisingly short - we think it was because it was lunchtime. Well, if people are going to take lunch breaks then we'll take advantage of the situation!

Ooh yeah!

Hehehehe

Feeling a bit disorientated and sore after the ride, me and Pooey stumbled over to Ancient Greece to ride Le Tonnerre de Zeus. 

Zeus at the start of the queue. You have to walk under him to get to the ride.

What's that?!?

Zeus likes to wear floral undies!!!

The temple entrance

The ride is built on a wooden track and you could see the supports move a bit when the carriages jerked! Errrr.....

Now this ride was a bastard! Although it had no loops, it was rough! I think I bruised my spine a little bit after the first climb and descent! But no matter, we bought a magnet showing me and Pooey screaming (in fun and terror) and then decided to go the real fairground experience and buy some hotdogs for lunch.

It naturally came in a cute Asterix themed bag so we took our bag and dogs to Le Village!

And we saw the little guy and the big guy!!!

 

But they were behind a little fence and the kids who went in to get a photo with them were then herded through the cottage so we only managed to take these unofficial photos with Asterix and Obelix in the background.

We did however see a pair of druids going about their business - photo time!

And went to Obelix's place to see what it's like to be the big guy

Wild boar roasting on the open fire!

And Dogmatix's kennel. Awwww. 

We then went to Asterix's place and understood how small he really is (kiddie sized)

Looked at Unhygienix's *fresh* fish of the day

And experienced what it's like to be the chieftan of an indomitable village.

Pooey unfortunately spilled a bit of tomato sauce on her outfit so we decided it was time to get on a water ride to try and get it out. For this, we chose Le Grand Splatch.

Waiting in the queue....

more queuing...

And we were finally treated to a happy concoction of a great view over the park, shooting water jets, and bien sur, a grand splatch at the end. We also got the humourous sight of the pre-prepared woman in front of us who brought a plastic poncho to keep the water off. Hehehehe. 

We were fairly exhausted by now and with deep regret that we couldn't go on all the rides, we decided it was time to take the shuttle back to CDG.   

And so we waved Asterix goodbye and thanks for all the fun! These Romans are crazy!