Christmas holidays, Calgary

Yikes, über belated on this one. Somehow I also didn’t get my act together to get a family photo and so this cozy log fire will have to do for the opening tagline photo. Actually there are a lot of things I didn’t take photos of since I was having so much fun playing board games (Power Grid and Puerto Rico) with the siblings and their significant others, and eating at friends’ houses for lunch and dinner (thanks Becky&Mike, Jeff&Lindsay and Toby&Bridget!). Calgary welcomed me back with pretty much -20 degree and below weather the entire time (I hear the Chinook came the day after I left), but that was a good excuse to stay in and eat more Christmas goodies.

First up are a few shots from a visit with Jeff and Lindsay. I think I’m in love with their cat, although I’m not sure she’s quite so enamored with me.



It must have been 3 years or so since I met up with Engineering buddies May, Rennel and Charles. We went to Spolumbo’s in Inglewood for lunch for tasty deli sandwiches. I was impressed by the news that May and Rennel now have a dog. A golden doodle to be precise. I’d never heard of it, but apparently the Obama family want one too. Half-golden retriever and half-poodle. But where does ‘d’ in doodle come from? Why isn’t it called a golden-roodle? I understand poo-retriever might be off-putting…. Oh, and despite the promise from the breeder apparently they shed. A lot.


In my last few days I took a trip to some natural hotsprings in Radium and Fairmont on the other side of the Rockies where it was a bit warmer. Saw some nice wildlife along the way and got to enjoy a moon rise over Fairmont.


If it had been warmer I could have put my feet in the hotspring creek right here below my feet.

St. Nikolaus Tournament, Nasenbären, Bayreuth

This is a short entry about an indoor tournament I played in December. It was a fun tournament, and I think in the end we seemed to put more effort into our costumes than our play, but it was a nice break from playing super-serious European championships and qualifiers! We went as the Bavarian “Nasenbären” a whole species I had no idea about until this December. In English they are “coati”, a small bear species who lives in Central/South America .

So no, I’m guessing you’ve never heard of them either, although they sure are cute. But basically calling someone a Nasenbär is the same as a “silly goose”. We decided to be extra silly and paint our noses with the chequered Bavarian flag pattern to match our jerseys. I have to say I think they look pretty sharp, although they’re not really meant to be worn while doing heavy physical exercise.

Sandra demonstrates the in-play style of wearing the nose to avoid passing out from toxic paint fumes and lack of breathing holes.



As part of the fun, one team stole another’s mascot on the Saturday evening. Hoping to profit, we wrote a ransom note (demanding tequila and beer) pretending to be the perpetrators. I was pretty impressed with what we came up with using a printout of directions to the tournament and random train/movie tickets people had in their wallets. For glue we used free lollipops from the restaurant where we were having dinner:


In the middle of the day on the Saturday we had a huge break in the afternoon, so we decided to check out the Christmas market in downtown Bayreuth. It’s actually pretty picturesque, although a little chilly and wet on the day we went. Nothing that a little mulled wine at “Santa’s house” (below) couldn’t solve though!

And finally some sans-nose pictures where you can actually see people’s faces!

Hiking near Salzburg, Austria

Happy new year everyone! As usual I’m a little behind here, but I’ll start with a hike I did at the beginning of December near Salzburg with a Munich hiking group. There was surprisingly little snow and we managed to do pretty well without any fancy gear.


The entire day there was fog in the valley which created some beautiful effects from above:


I’d have to say the most disappointing part of the day was cresting the top just before lunch time, coming up over the last hill to see….. a parking lot. All that work and people can just drive up! The good news is because it’s possible to drive there, there was a well-stocked alpine hut with BEvErages and hot cider.


On the way back down we saw this funny sign. “Warning! Tame wild animals!”.

We were also treated to a fiery pink sunset. And to warm ourselves up before heading on the train home we stopped off at the Christmas market for some mulled wine and did a little window shopping. Christmas markets are probably my favourite thing in Germany in December. They are what all those North American malls try to unsuccessfully emulate.



While at the Christmas market we also caught sight of Krampus, Santa’s nasty counterpart in the Alps. Kids in Austria who are bad don’t just get coal in their stockings. They get threatened with being shoved in a bag and carted off by these scary guys (according to some...wikipedia has other versions as well). A whole gang of them were out in force on that evening. They remain totally silent but have big heavy chains which rattle when they walk. If I were six years old I’d be pretty freaked out. Heck, I was scared when I saw them milling around before the parade on the other side of some police tape.

Or à Paris, European Ultimate Club Finals

This year my women’s team, the Woodchicas, won our regionals qualifying ourselves for the European championship in Paris. We brought a larger squad this year (thank goodness; this way people weren’t looking like they were going to throw up after every point) and wanted to defend our title from Basel last year.

However, whoever thought that having an outdoor tournament in Paris in November was a brilliant idea should look at long-term weather trends. As expected, at least for the first two days, the weather was cold, rainy, and muddy. At least on Sunday the sun came out for our final against Iceni (from London), same matchup as last year. It was an exciting final for the admittedly small crowd in the huge stadium. We were down 5-8 at the half, but with some fired-up defence and great hammers from our handlers came back to win it 14-11 in time cap. We can officially call ourselves European Ultimate Club Champions for another year and showed everyone that last year wasn’t just a fluke!

Here are some highlights from (mostly) the tournament official photographer. It’s easy to tell the difference between the games on the mud-pits on Saturday and the beautifully manicured grass on the Sunday. There were some great plays and great catches. On the mud-fields my team is in black, in the final, we’re in red. Any photos with myself are easy to find because of my nearly-fluorescent blue shorts.

Day 1: game against Dogma from Russia:

Freezing in our group photo afterwards:

Before the start of the final. Maybe it’s difficult to read, but they shortened our team name to “Woodchic”.

Shoe foul. This woman literally was standing on the back of my shoe so that it came off when I tried to run.

Other game highlights:

Monster defense by Inga in the last point:

Celebrating after the win! Someone had the forethought to bring champagne.

Unfortunately I missed the medal ceremony because of an early flight, but it was awesome to be part of the team!

Here’s a further summary of the wonderful things that are French and its eccentricities.

• Delicious fresh baguettes
• Suspicious looking men burning fires in garbage bins in (potentially?) stolen shopping carts who were actually selling roasted chestnuts. (sorry no photo)
• The Eiffel tower obscured in fog.

• Taking-in the 360° water lily paintings by Monet.

• Having a bathroom so small that you have to take the toilet paper out to have a shower to avoid dowsing everything. Having a shower so small that the shower curtain shows the full contour of the toilet protruding into the showering space.

• The mudpits that were called “fields” we played on for two games. When you are trying to sprint and your shoe stays behind in the mud because it’s that deep I think it’s time to shut down the fields. Here is one shot of a woman making a bid a little too late and my teammate Valerie after a dive:

• Playing on brand-new velvety-green grass to a crowd of 20,000 …empty seats. No, there were at least a hundred or so spectators and it was cool to hear the “oohs’and “aahs” of the crowd in response to the play.