World Cup musings.

Since my return from London, my days and nights have been filled with a cycle of going to work and then leaving work to go watch the world cup before going home, or going to work, going to German class, then going to watch the world cup before going home. This is the first time I've been surrounded by so many different people with vested interests in their team and the actions of others. Here are some of my thoughts on this so far: 

Spain played so badly. I understand all things must pass but I don't think everyone expected it to pass so suddenly. 

On the other hand, Australia was better than expected!

Brazilians, such as Carlinho here, have little happy dances that they perform after Brazil wins. 

Luis Suarez has serious problems, but he is comedy gold!

 Joachim (Jogi) Loew, coach of Germany, is sexy says everybody

Actually, soccer coaches in general are better than American football coaches.

Also, given the amount of alcohol I've ingested during this world cup and the time spent watching matches instead of sleeping...I'm going to have to learn to moderate myself better because, good lord, there's still at week left!

Champions League :/

Well, the joyous celebrations from last year will not be repeated.

I actually had German class on Tuesday and I didn't make it to a biergarten to watch the match until 30 minutes into the match...and when I got there I think my first words were, "Well, this match is over." I hung around because you never know when they might score five goals, but alas, it was not meant to be.

So in conclusion, I would like to say, "Atleti for the win!"

A jump into the grey...

Many, many months after wanting to do it at Balaton and many, many months after receiving a voucher to do this for my birthday, I finally went bungee jumping! It was an absolutely filthy and cold day which basically stopped me from doing more than one jump (I really didn't want to stand in the drizzle or force my audience to hang around longer than necessary), but it didn't dampen my enthusiasm one iota!

Check out the massive smile on my face! It was noted that while I was bouncing around in excitement, many others were standing around in terror.

My tiny harness. A minimum allowed weight was specified which I just scraped into. This scraping meant that I had to wear the smallest harness they had :D

Still smiling on my way up! Funny moment - the wind blew during the ascent and I was shifting a bit so one of the two guys in the cherry picker had to hold onto my harness so that I didn't prematurely fall out.

50m in the sky...HERE WE GO!!!!

YEAH!!!!

You'll note I was cheering as I bounced back up - that was actually the best part because of the weightless feeling. It was also noted that my cheers sounded as though I was having fun instead of crapping myself like others. 

I was later told that the operators said to each other, "Okay, we should probably let her down now," as though they let me bounce around longer than usual since I was enjoying myself so much. HAHAHAHAH

Hehehehe.

And at the end, I was handed a certificate and a card stating 50% for the next two times I jump...AND THE FOURTH JUMP IS FREE!!! WHO'S IN WITH ME?!?!

Grainau day 1

So yeah, a few days after arriving back from North Rhine-Westphalia, I was packing my bags again to head off to Grainau, right in the south of Bavaria at the foot of the Wetterstein Alps, for a work retreat. As you know, I'm a notorious outdoors-hater and with our hotel set at the base of Waxenstein, everyone was joking that I'd be forced to climb the mountain. But you know what?

Damn me if it wasn't totally beautiful!

Like, really! All that snow I complained about last week was doing it's thang.

And the mountain range was just sitting there going "Hell yeah!"

Also, this was the view from my room. Yep.

Walking into our hotel, I noticed that the hotel...is listed in the Michelin guide?!?! Were we going to be receiving awesome food? Yes we did!

Creamy mushroon soup made from locally picked mushrooms. I wished that bowl was larger.

Grilled salmon with crispy potato crust. Very nice.

Following lunch, we were supposed to get to work in various workshop groups but...we decided instead to hike around the forest!

And admire the mountain again.

Argh! It's almost too much!!!

 

When I asked Markus what the piles of stones meant, he said it was probably something city people did to confuse other city people.

If you look carefully, the side parts of the seat on the porch of this hut are shaped like people!

Autumn colours being pretty.

You don't really want to know about what work things we talked about (I got some good feedback though); you really want to know what we ate for dinner!

The green stuff = herbed butter. The grey stuff = SCHMALZ!!!

Appetiser = beetroot soup.

Entree of speck-wrapped plums with celery, citrus, and pear salad and roasted almonds.

Main of angus beef fillet (medium rare) with root vegetables and red wine jus. Yes.

Dessert of banana in caramel sauce with sorbet. To be honest, I was disappointed in this. Reading the description, I thought the banana was going to be caramelised :(

We then reconvened to the hotel bar and drank schnapps and port wine, hijacking the sound system to play music from our phones (seriously, bad hotel bar music), while the staff wondered how it was possible for scientists to be raucous drunks and waited for us to go to bed so they could go home :D

Football's coming HOAM

After last year's confidence followed by a swift heartbreak...everything was (almost) forgotten for this year's Champions League final against Borussia Dortmund! And FCB had won the Bundesliga with over 25 points from these very same opponents, so the trophy was in the bag, right? Right?! Anyway, I managed to achieve something that I couldn't last year - I got tickets to watch the game at the Allianz Arena! The match wasn't being played there (it was at Wembley), but they would show the match on the arena's large screens and we could act as though we were at the match proper.

My companion for the match - Jara from Mehico, who isn't actually that interested in football

The Arena!

The trophy!

Woohoo!

And they're off!

Believe it or not, watching it in the stadium did kind of make you feel like you actually were there. Particularly the reaction of the crowd when a goal was scored

Like when this guy took off his shirt, even though it was like..10C

Or when this guy let off a flare. I'll admit to leaping to my feet with my bier in hand and accidentally giving someone a bierdusche (beer shower).

Before I threw the bier over someone.

Best of all, we won!!! So we furiously got out of seats to try to make it back to the city in order to join the celebrations!

But took some time out for celebratory shots outside the stadium, which was lit up in red because Bayern were playing (it's blue when 1860 play and white for the national team)

And then, I don't know...I guess the best way to describe the celebrations is that Munich lost its rag.

Despite it being a great party, the problem with these spontaneous parties a lack of access to getting drinks and an even more dire lack of access to the toilets. I was dancing at an u-bahn station when Jara pointed out that at the wall behind us, 4 guys were lined up because the world is their urinal. Despite that, I look forward to celebrating when the bus makes its way down Leopoldstr.!

JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mia san Meister!

Dahveed and I decided to go out and do something that doesn't exist in Melbs and something he never did while in Alicante/Barcelona/Madrid - we went to see FC Bayern Munich present the Bundesliga trophy to adoring fans in Marienplatz. The team requested that we rock up in tracht and that FREE BIER would be available! SOLD!!!

As you might be able to tell from the sky, it was a pretty shitty day. 

This meant I chose not to rock up in my dirndl and even though we came relatively late, there was still enough space to get a view of the Rathaus balcony. The bad news is that we were still too late to get the free bier.

Although because everyone is so damn tall, this was my actual view. 

Some guys struggled to hang the FCB flag from a flagpole on their balcony. I could have used that position.

Success!

These enterprising people also got a pretty nifty location!

It was a pretty interesting experience. FCB were playing a match at the Allianz Arena and then they were going to take a bus down Leopoldstr. and make their way to the Marienhof and then Marienplatz. This took HOURS. We ended up standing in Marienplatz for over 3 hours. During this time, a 'comedian' entertained the crowd by singing popular songs with words substituted to reflect different players - and the crowd sang along! Dahveed and I looked at each other and whispered, "This is a bit weird..."

I was too short to see it, but this giant screen here showed us the progress of the team on their journey to the Rathaus.

And everyone, such as this security guy got their cameras and phones ready.

HOORAY!!!

Although, my photos are so blurry, I can't really make out who some of the players are. 

I think this was Alaba.

I know this is Neuer

I think the guy in the front in the dark grey jacker is Mueller

And the blond leaning over the balcony is Tymoschuk

The players return the photo taking

BIERDUSCHE!!!!

And finally, Jupp with the Bundeliga shield. 

Despite the cold (and it did get quite cold once the sun set), it was a fun experience. I don't think I'll do it again though - but we've agreed that if Bayern win the Champions League, we'll go to Leopoldstr and cheer there.