Porro Open, Barcelona

I played the Porro Open hat tournament in Barcelona in mid-October. For those who don’t play ultimate, a hat tournament is where the teams are “drawn out of a hat”, although in reality teams are chosen subjectively by the organizers. It can be difficult to get a spot in Porro because it’s so popular and is known for having a great theme party on the Saturday night, so I was really lucky to get in.

Playing on the beach in Spain was a great way to end the season and my team even ended up winning the tournament! The theme of the party this year was “Rubik’s Cube”, where you had to come dressed in the 6 colours of the Rubik’s cube. (And believe me, no one looks very good dressed in 6 different colours including orange, green and yellow together). At one point in the evening, your team is assigned a colour and after a series of manic trading, you are one unified, crazy melange of other people’s stuff, albeit in one colour (see before and after pictures of my team below).

Because I couldn’t find cheap flights on Friday night or Sunday I also took two days vacation to check out the bizarre but fascinating Dali museum in Figures and to see some of renowned Barcelona architect Gaudi’s colourful creations.

The beautiful beach at Castelldefels, just outside of Barcelona.

A hat tournament always has a mix of skill/experience levels. This was Anna’s first tournament and here she’s about to catch her first point in the endzone at a tournament ever.

Rubik’s Cube: before and after

Lalo about to spray our celebratory champagne into the crowd.

Dali Museum, Figures

Gaudi’s Apartment on Paseo de Gracia, Barcelona

Gaudi’s Parc Güell, Barcelona

Prague, Czech Republic

Dev and I had a great time exploring this beautiful (although overly touristy) medieval city. Everywhere you look there are towering dark turrets and buildings from the 10^th to 18^th century (or even the 21^st….I enjoyed Frank Gehry’s “Fred and Ginger” building as well). Charles’ bridge (Karluv most) was beautiful despite being packed with tourists, and I still remember some of the scenes from Mission Impossible which was shot there (the bridge also has a long and glorious history of people being thrown off it by slightly peeved monarchy). I had no idea that Good King Wenceslas was actually Czech (and still have no idea how to really pronounce his name…Czech is a very difficult language for Westerners) although I found it amusing that the plural is [sometimes] formed with the letter ‘y’, for instance “cigarety” for cigarettes.

Cramped night train on the way there:

Confusing house numbers (this is actually quite normal):

Fred and Ginger (supposed to resemble the famous Fred Rogers and Ginger Astaire dancing) by Frank Gehry:

A poster from the Communist-era that I saw in a museum. It's adverstising the Czech immitation of Coke (the terrible capitalist beverage). I think it looks more like Metamucil…

Oktoberfest, Munich

Dev (my brother) came for a visit to Munich during Oktoberfest and to play a hat tournament they have here every year. Last year I was completely out of it, having just arrived in Germany, but this year I got the full experience! Some points of interest:

• Oktoberfest runs for three weeks in September
• The beer “tents” are actually huge buildings (albeit temporary)
• No one in Munich calls it Oktoberfest. People say they’re going “auf die Wies’n” (literally means a grassy field, although any grass that was on the original site is long since dead after almost 200 years of partying [the first Oktoberfest was the king's wedding reception held in 1810])
• Only tourists go to Oktoberfest dressed normally. Real Müncheners wear the traditional "tracht" consisting of a dirndl for women and lederhosen for men. I found out that the equivalent of stuffing one's bra for men in Bavaria is adding inserts to make calves look more muscular. It's all in German, but check out the enhancements for sale at WadlWadl

Yusi (an amazing American ulti player) and I showing off our modest dirndls.


How the servers manage to keep to a smile on their faces is beyond me.

To prove that he was there, Dev hamming it up, although unfortunately all you can see of Frank is the upper half of his lederhosen.

Ultimate nationals, Cologne

German nationals were held in Cologne in August, and my team (the Woodchicas) went with only 8 players (although someone came back from a wedding so we had 9 for the final). Amazingly enough, despite the lack the subs, we won the tournament. The level of women's ultimate in Germany isn't quite the same as in North America, but I still think it's cool to be a "Deutschemeisterin". We also got a set of neon-green wigs for the spirit prize, which we probably won because we all take vodka shots with "Brause" - something resembling jello powder - after every game and like to sing lusty songs.

Well it's hard to believe, but as of today I've been in Germany for one year. My language skills have definitely improved, I know a lot more about Norwegian glaciers, and I have an apartment and a "handy" (German for cell-phone), but I still miss everyone back home and hope to be able to touch base with at least most of the Calgarians at Christmas. Hopefully they'll be a few more posts in the interim though!

Summer in Munich

Hallo everyone. It’s been awhile since my last update, but I’ve had no exciting adventures in foreign countries to report. I recently had some good news though; the German government decided to extend my scholarship for another 12 months. I almost had a heart attack though when I saw the first line of the email [translated]: "Dear Ms. Sharma, We are very sorry...... that it took us so long to get back to you".

Having gotten the scholarship, I then had to go through the rigmarole of renewing my Aufenthaltserlaubnistitel (residency permit title), made more complicated by the fact that whoever registered me originally made a mistake and entered me as a man. I know my German was poor in October but was it really that bad?

But despite the bureaucracy Munich is a wonderful place in the summer thanks to Biergartens. These are wonderful, shaded outdoor pubs where you can bring your own food if you don’t fancy pigs knuckles and other pork products and where you can often only buy beer by the litre. I think this concept should be exported to North America.

Friends Alexia and Marianne enjoying the relaxed Munich Biergarten atmosphere:

World Cup

The craziness began last week with the start of the World Cup here in Germany, although here it’s actually the “Weltmeisterschaft” or WM for short (I understand why no one in the English-speaking world calls it the WC though).

Friends of mine actually got tickets to the opening game in Munich. Here they are with the Allianz arena in the background. More pics can be found on Joce and Frank’s blog.

I saw the Germany-Poland game last night which was pretty exciting, lots of shots on goal, one red card going to the Poles, and finally a score by the Germans in the last minute of play. The guy next to me was so excited he dumped his entire beer on my pants. And he didn’t even feel the need to say sorry. That’s how seriously Germans take their Fußball.

Bayreuth, Germany

I attended a conference last weekend in Bayreuth connected with my scholarship. It was a great experience interacting with 500-plus students from 89 different countries. Have you ever met someone from Uzbekistan? I hadn’t before last Saturday. There were also a disproportionately large number of students from Brazil (maybe some of them made their academic decisions based on the location of the World Cup?). For Saturday night the conference organizers rented out a community hall for a dinner/dance. I had a great time teaching lonely-looking Syrian and Egyptian students the actions to Y-M-C-A.

We also had time for a little sight-seeing including the famous Wagner opera house, open only 5 weeks a year for the Wagner festival and which shows exclusively his works, and the Hermitage, a huge Baroque garden.

Wagner's residence in Bayreuth (1871-1882), where "Wahnfried" roughly translated means freedom from madness.



Hermitage

Strasbourg, France

Being in Bavaria is great because they have lots of extra holidays we just don’t have in North America. Over a long weekend at the beginning of June I travelled with a few American students to Strasbourg, home of the European Parliament, a giant cathedral, and an area with pretty narrow houses and canals (“Petite-France”). The Strasbourg/Alsace region isn’t too exciting, but very picturesque. We also explored some villages in the area and found a new favourite word: “Winstub” (pronounced Veen-Schtoob). It’s kind of like a Biergarten but with wine! So we spent a lot of time lounging around in Winstubs sipping on the local pinot gris.

Petite France

European Parliament

The European Parliament was the last place I expected to find an Inuit inukshuk. Apparently it was a gift from the Canadian government in the seventies.

Eating French baked goods and reading glacier articles is a great way to help pass the time on the train.

Dresden, Germany

In mid-May I attended a radar conference in Dresden, giving my first conference presentation. It was well worth it and I had the opportunity to speak with many of the big names in my field, but I was pretty exhausted socializing and jumping between 5 parallel sessions for 4 days.

Dresden has a great collection of baroque architecture and I can see why some consider it to be one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. Although it was carpet bombed and nearly completely destroyed by the allies during WWII, since reunification increased funding has allowed many of the monuments to be rebuilt, including the famous Frauenkirche (“Church of our Lady”). Note the mix of original (blackened) and new stone. If you’re interested, wikipedia has a nice write up.

Frauenkirche

Mural along the main pedestrian zone downtown

Semperoper (Opera house)

Campania, Italy

Over Easter Brit and I headed to the Amalfi Coast which lies a few hours south of Naples. We had/saw/experienced lots of sun, pizza, lemon groves, ruins, terribly late buses, trains and ferries, and old men talking wildly with their hands. Credit goes to Brit for most of these pics.

Amalfi

Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius

Coliseum at Pompeii. Can you imagine people walking down this ramp to the roars of the crowds thinking that today might be their last?



Parking in Naples

Starkbierfest, Munich

“Starkbierfest” literally means “strong beer festival”, where the “starkbier” is a strong beer consumed during Lent (although “strong” refers not the alcohol content, but to all the starch, sugars and proteins dissolved in the beer). Back in the day, drinking liquids didn’t break the monks fasting rules, and I’m sure having a few starkbiers certainly helped pass the time until Easter.

The Starbierfest itself is very similar to Oktoberfest, but with better, stronger and tastier beer (7.5%), the festival is smaller (so you can actually run into people you know) and with fewer tourists. The picture is a little blurry, but maybe it makes it a little more realistic :)

Teneriffa, Canary Islands

I got my first taste of beach ultimate this March playing a tournament on the island of Teneriffa. Nothing beats leaving Munich winter weather behind to play some ultimate in the sun, eat paella and fresh dates on the beach, and party with teams from twelve different countries. This is a shot of the Swiss vs. US game.