Last Weekend of June 2014

An eventful weekend to end the mid-year month of 2014. Friday was the first non-World Cup day in quite a while and so we were afforded a much-needed rest from football. This would be required for the events that would follow. Instead of watching my most recent Bandwagon jump crumble into dust, we went for dinner at an oragnic-local-Bavarian restaurant near us in Haidhausen: Klinglwirt. It was a warm and sunny evening and we sat outside soaking in the rays of sunshine and enjoying home-made Bavarian food and drink.

Saturday was hot in Munich with the temperature reaching 30 degrees. We did a short warm-up run before lunch to make sure the legs were ready for Sunday's 10km Stadtlauf race. After some carb-loading pasta for lunch, we made the trip to Marienplatz and Sportscheck to get our race kits which consisted solely of an orange T-shirt and a shoe chip-timer. We didn't think anything of the fact that there were no race bibs at the time, but once we were on the bus back home it occurred to us: hey! there are no race bibs! Did we miss something? It turns out, however, that this is one of the few races where bibs are not required, but wearing the race T-shirt on race day is. It's good for the sponsors (BMW and SportScheck) and it's a nice effect to have the "sea of orange" (I wonder if the organizers are Dutch supporters...?).

Saturday evening was first the Brazil-Chile match, which was only just barely won by Brazil on penalty kicks, and then more pasta for dinner followed by a German movie: "das Experiment". The movie is based on the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971. It follows what happens when a psychologist does an experiment randomly assigning volunteers the roles of prison guards and prison inmates. In the real experiment, things were shut down after only 6 days of a planned two weeks because things got so out of control. In the movie, they don't shut things down right away and of course things get even more out of hand. A very well done movie that was both entertaining and made you really think about how people internalize roles and what happens with positions of authority, how to enforce it, etc.

The weather on Sunday morning was nothing like the previous two days. 16 degrees and heavy rain all day long. Nevertheless, we met our friends at 10am, gave them our rain jackets, and lined up to start the race. We haven't been running very much at all this year so we didn't expect amazing results but the run was OK; we did not achieve personal-bests, but for our current fitness levels we did fine and it was fun to do a race for the first time in more than a half year. Also, comparatively we did quite well; I was 175th overall and Sandi was 232nd overall out of a total of 6,471 people. So we're both in the 96th-percentile; not bad! Further, Sandi was 2nd in her age-category of 471 people and I was 22nd of 531 people. We just need to each take around 5 minutes off by the Fall. Should be no problem! Here we are together after the run:

And here are our finisher photos:

So Sandi looks like she's actually finishing a race. I am just making sure that my watch works (it seems to).

Following the race, we needed a quick rest because the most important event of the weekend was coming up: Mexico-Netherlands round of 16 match. And wow, that was an experience. While Sandi continued to perfect the German language, I met, along with a couple other friends, with my Mexican friend at THE place where all the Mexicans in Munich go for World Cup games. It was pandemonium! There was more energy and excitement at this place than I've ever experienced for any sporting event anywhere at any time. Even my ardent "Italy is the best place ever and no one does anything better than Italy at anything" friend said that she wanted to come back in her next life as a Mexican "because they really know how to have a good time".

One hour before the game started at 18h local time, the place was buzzing. We were stacked sweat-drenched-person to sweat-drenched-person with Latin music blasting from every corner. Spontaneously we would start shouting chants: MEXICO! <clap, clap, clap> MEXICO! <clap, clap, clap>. A single Dutch person entered the green-sea of jerseys draped in the Netherlands flag and was yelled at by two hundred Mexicans: PUUUUUUUTO! There were beach balls flying in the air, voodoo dolls and rubber chickens sailing across the bar, and sombreros everywhere. When the game finally started the party somehow turned itself up another level. Mexico was playing well. Every great chance gave us all a mainline kick of energy and escalated everything one more notch forward. When Mexico scored on a brilliant play to make it 1-0, the roof came off. Everyone embraced everyone and danced and screamed and swayed like the war had ended or some amazing thing had happened that was so good that you couldn't even describe what it was. I swear the place was electric. Hook some wires up to 35mm Bar on that night and we could have powered the city of Munich. We were unstoppable; we were eight minutes away from Mexico making it out of the round of 16 for the first time in six straight attempts. Every corner kick by the Dutch was first greeted by a Mexican hex that grew to a body-trembling PUUUUUTO! (banned by FIFA in the stadium and enforced by making the Mexican federation pay a huge fine if the practice was kept up). We had it. We had it and it all slipped away thanks to one flying Dutchman's great abilities at not the sport of football, but of this:

Or better yet, this:

Fine. Football is popular enough throughout the world (a "religion") that nothing really needs to change. They don't need the North Americans (in fact they probably don't want us because we'd just perfect it like we did hockey), but if you want to have pride in the thing that you love, put some Integrity in it! The hero of millions of orange-clad little Dutch boys and girls across Holland shows you that play-acting is courageous and respectful. How can it stop? The obvious argument is that the point is to win and because Robben flailed and threw himself through the air and on to the pitch where he could wail like he has so many times before, he allowed his team to win. You may not like it, but that's what works. So why does it work? It shouldn't! Gaaaahhhhhhhhh...

So another disappointment in the beautiful game. How I would have loved Mexico to have beaten those rotten Dutch, and how disappointing it is that they really should have. In any case, tonight it continues. The momentum doesn't stop and wait for anyone and your emotions just have to cling on to the train as it rushes on by. France-Nigeria tonight (go France); and then the big one: Germany-Algeria (obviously go Germany). Then, no rest for the wicked, tomorrow night Argentina-Switzerland (go Argentina), and Belgium-USA (go United States of America!).

My friend's girlfriend is Spanish and she told me that 4 years ago when Spain won the World Cup it really felt like the country would be on vacation forever. I guess that's why I have to keep going for Germany...

George Pemulis's Guide to Living Righteously; part 1

For years this one incident would find itself floating into my mind at the most adventitious of moments. So often does it come up even now that I am thoroughly convinced that, along with having been calamitously plagued by jealous and all-around bad/talentless school teachers, this ridiculous decision and string of events has played an overly strong role in the shaping of my character and disposition. December, 198x. My older brother Michael and I had been taken to see a shopping mall Santa by our mother Avril's college-time friend Lorraine. The beginning of the memory has always been rather spotty; we both presumably sat on Santa's knee, told him we wanted this and that, and then received -- and I can't even be sure of this -- a plastic Star Wars figure. What's important is that post-Santa-visit, we each had similar, but different (very important) plastic toys of some kind. For whatever ridiculous reasons that children have I seem to have been convinced that mine was severely lacking in quality compared to Michael's, and as 5, 6, 7, or 8 year-old spoiled brats are wont to do, I screamed and cried and wailed that I didn't want my crappy plastic toy because it was so clearly not nearly as good as my older brother's. I can hope that perhaps that consumerist-to-be overindulged little shit was put in his place with a swift swat to the head, but more than likely I just got told to get over it or some such thing. I failed to take that advice, however, (even to this day it seems), and to reinforce how useless my Star Wars toy was, I -- and now the memory becomes crystal clear -- walked down an aisle in Eaton's and dropped that no-good toy behind a cardboard box never to be found again. Was the purpose to make a point? To prove that it was really so inferior to my brother's that I would rather have nothing? Perhaps it was in the spoiled delirium of a middle-class Western child that if that one was gone I would receive another, better version of the lost thing. Whatever it was, I'm sure that none of the outcomes fit any of the hopes that my younger self might have envisioned. Later -- and now we're back to fuzzy memories -- I was surely reprimanded; "where is your XXXXX toy?"; "did you throw it away?"; etc. And then, and this may very well be a coping-based formed memory, we went back to where I thought I may have disposed of said toy to find it, but it was, of course, nowhere to be found. And why has the loss, by my own hand, of a worthless plastic toy that by my own claim was vastly inferior to another worthless plastic toy left such an indelible mark on my mind for a continuous period of nearly thirty years? Was this part of where I first learned that you only miss the sun when it starts to snow, only know you love her when you let her go, etc...? And so for a long time this incident would come into my mind and I would feel sadness and I would wonder, "why did I throw that away?".

Lesson #1: Don't throw toys away in department stores given to you by shopping mall Santas just because you don't think they're as good as someone else's. You'll regret it for the rest of your life.

Tune in next time when we discuss taking the 4 minutes to sign up for a frequent flyer card!

4-0

"So we'll see you there tomorrow, George?"
"Yes," I said. "I'll be there around 6:15 after work. You'll be outside then?"
"Yes, if the weather is okay."

I walked down Franziskanerstrasse in the evening sunshine and took the S-Bahn to Marienplatz and then the U3 to Sendlinger Tor after having left the office at precisely six o'clock. The Sendlinger Tor square was filled with people standing and sitting, gathered around several large TVs. It was 6:15 PM. The tables and people were arranged in four clusters around four TVs in front of Kennedy's and it took me two passes before I noticed Tom waving in my direction. I joined him and Jack at the table where they had been saving me a seat.
"You're lucky you arrived now," Tom said. "I had to fight for your seat."

When I arrived at a quarter past six it was already 1-0 for Germany on a penalty kick by Müller. I ordered a beer from the waiter who was responsible for our cluster. Tom and Jack held up their glasses to show that they wanted refills as well. It was warm out and when the beer arrived it was cold and the glass was frosty. We clinked our glasses and said "prost" and the cold beer woke me up.

There was a girl at our table that had taken an empty seat before I arrived and Jack was trying to talk to her. Tom was turned to me, away from the TV, explaining why the Pepe red card was legitimate when Germany scored again in the thirty-second minute. The crowd cheered but no one yelled "Goal!", to my disappointment. With no strong attachment to either team I usually choose to go against the crowd, so 2-0 and a red card already was unfortunate for Portugal and for me.

Just before half time the waiter came by again and I asked for "ein Helles" and some snacks. Müller then scored again in extra time to make it 3-0 with just half of the game having been played. I was tired from work, and from the weekend, and I tuned out Jack's attempts with the girl. Tom made conversation about work and I watched the people around us eating fried foods and drinking beer and waiting for the start of the second half.

An Englishman at our table said "you're cheering for Portugal to give the US a better chance." I said no. When he spoke German I could understand him better than when he spoke English.
"Who does the US play tonight?" he asked.
"Who cares?" I responded, having previously explained my non-Americanism.
Our food and our beers arrived and we ate breaded, fried jalapeños filled with pink cheese and washed it down with more cold beer.

The crowd was jubilant in the second half. The game was a foregone conclusion and now the people were simply there to enjoy themselves. I took a picture to try to capture the excitement of the moment, but it only looked like a normal street café of people enjoying a summer evening. The closest subject in the picture was a man who had made the "peace" sign. I deleted the photo.

The girls at the table beside ours were drinking pink cocktails from shot glasses. They smoked thin, all-white cigarettes and were the only ones not watching the TVs at all. A fat man at a table behind us who had made the peace sign in my picture ate nachos with melted cheese and smoked Lucky Strike cigarettes. In the seventy-eighth minute Germany scored again to make the blowout 4-0.

Photo Bomb

It's the time of year again for the GrenobleWMD bi-yearly photo bomb post. Enjoy!

Surfer Babe in the English Garden

Neuschwanstein in June

The Sound of Music in Salzburg

Pizzesco Wine

Nockherberg Paulaner Beer

Lake Starnberg

German Attempt at Dessert

Back at Nockherberg Watching a guy try to park his car...

BBQing along the Isar

BBQing (x2)

This friendly character ("Johnny") was very interested in our BBQ

BBQing by Head-Lamp

Drinking Beer by Head-Lamp

Drinking Beer by Sun-Light

Munich, riverside.

Surfing Dudes

Surfing Dudette

Surfers

Munich Activity

German Castles

Neuschwanstein

Neuschwanstein (x2)

This Lebanese Choir serenaded the other tourists on the bridge by the castle

Another small friend

Castles, castles, castles...

Salzburg!

Salzburg Garden

Austria also has rivers and mountains and castles

See?

And here

Nice hot sunny day

Great place this Austria

And here is what happens if you win the lottery in Salzburg

The beautiful Italian city of Munich

Hofbräuhaus Cheering on Spain! Woo! 1-0 already!!!

Hofbräuhaus pretending that we were never cheering for Spain...

My next car

Or maybe this one??

Never mind. No car. THIS is my next vehicle! ("Look ma! No hands!!" -- J.C.)

From the Olympic Tower

And finally, BMW World, or, as I call it, Beamer World

Thanks for watching!!!

Real Åsa Story

Last Thursday morning the alarm went off at 5am sharp to get us ready for a 4-day trip to the land of Vikings-past: Sweden. Thursday was the day of Ascension here in Germany and so the good people of the government saw it fit to give us that day off work, gratis. We scooped up this opportunity by also booking off the Friday to tie together a nice little package of 4 days in a row away from the daily grind and the possibility to return to our favourite Scandinavian country to race Ironmans in for a mini-getaway.

The last time we graced the shores of the kingdom, as most regular readers of GWMD should remember, was the great Ironman Kalmar inaugural race of August 2012. It goes without saying, then, that this trip was to be less stressful both in our activities and in the transportation process. Rather than spending a couple of days disassembling and meticulously packing up our racing bikes into flimsy cardboard boxes held together with TV-packaging styrofoam and discarded plastic, we threw various clothing items into small luggages minutes before de-apartmenting and then hit the S-Bahn.

Other things made this trip up north more relaxing. Not only did we have minimal belongings, but instead of having to take the airport bus with bike box, wetsuit, helmet, running shoes, two-week supply of clothes, &c. to within a few kilometres of destination and then walk to said destination, we were greeted and chauffeured from the airport to home from not just Thony himself but one of the new additions to his family: the young (4-month-old) baby Sigrid. Furthermore, rather than attempting sleep on an inflatable floor-placed mattress in inner-city-condo, we were visiting in style in a guest room at Villa Thony: a cottage-like-mansion that sits on the crystalline shores of Åsa, a seaside resort town thirty minutes from Gothenburg that Thony, Sigrid, Sigrid's mom Linda, and Bobby the family dog now call home.

To my list of life accomplishments that already included attending Tom & Jenn's wedding (event of the year, 2007); breaking up a drunken fight outside of a Quebec city bar between a 7-foot-tall 230lbs friend and his unknown adversary; and not being ashamed of having a subscription to Vanity Fair magazine; I now have added swimming in the North Sea in Sweden in early June right near the top (but below completing Space Quest III for Amiga).

Besides nearly stopping my heart from the shock of North Sea water temperatures in Sweden in early June, we also did some jogs along the shore and in the woods, lay on the beach in the sun, ate burgers and drank beer at the beach bar, I read "On the Road" (but you already knew that if you read this blog in chronological order), we watched part of The Talented Mr. Ripley on television until the satellite went out, had a BBQ, played cards, and all manner of other general cottage-related activities that one might participate in at a cottage-like-mansion on the sea in Åsa.

On Saturday we ventured into our old stomping grounds in Gothenburg and since there are hardly any places to eat there (the population is only half a million) Thony took us to the same place we went two summers ago. We also went to the "best café in Gothenburg" and walked through the Pride festival but unfortunately we missed the parade. We went to the famous market and Thony asked the guy how much fresh shrimp he'd need to buy for a dinner for 4 (Siggy is still strictly a liquid kinda gal I believe). Apparently the guy said 500g per person for a total of 2kg of shrimp. We ate maybe 20% that night before we were full. They're going to be enjoying shrimp for a while, methinks.

Although we were essentially at the southern tip of the country (well, pretty much) it was quite crazy to experience the long days. When we went to bed around midnight it wasn't bright out but it sure wasn't dark. It was, however, fairly bright when the sun greeted me through the window around 3:30! This is why people get sad there in the winter time.

Linda is a fitness expert and put everyone (except me because I opted out due to health reasons) through a vigorous workout routine on Saturday morning following the BBQ party with the neighbours. During this time I explored the shore and did my best to avoid a ticket for public urination (I succeeded in avoiding said ticket).

Wine is expensive in Sweden if you want the real thing. Kind of like Germany in a way. We managed to sneak a bottle of Canadian Club in though so no harm no foul.

Good night!

Åsa

I first met Markus not long after the law and I split up. It was a warm Fall day at a grocer on du Parc in Montreal when he came up to us as we were loading the cart with beer for the festivities that lay ahead that evening. It was 10% off for students Monday and we were getting ready to celebrate another warm October night. The coming of Markus was what you might describe as the beginning of my Sweden life. Markus had arrived in Montreal weeks before to study law and he approached me that day to ask me a question about that day's lecture. Classes were the furthest thing from my mind right then but Markus had the energy and we saw it right away. Before long he was helping us cart the beers down Main and over to our walk-up in the Plateau and after that sitting on the back balcony listening to records and chasing the sun and the beer to the horizon.

Markus took straight to Montreal life. We drank Ginger Ale and Crown Royal when we were flush and Wiser's when we weren't; bartered down to $20 Habs tickets and booed the referees from the Molson Ex section; in Winter, when Coffee House was closing up and the walk to Mile End felt too cold, we'd hit the Couche Tard at Dr. Pen & Stanley, get a case of Molson Dry, and ring on Carolina's buzzer who was always up for taking a break from the books and joining the party. His French Canadian girl Yvette couldn't stand our crew but she stuck by him and his Swedish blonde curls. Markus got the whole gang hooked on Caviar paste and we ordered our drinks at the pubs on Bishop in Swedish slang. Markus liked Abba as all Swedish people do and that was the one thing we'd bother him about that actually seemed to get to him.

This blog post is the most forced thing ever but you've gotta play with style and format my friend or you're never gonna evolve. Even Dean Moriarty knew that.