Busy Days

Well, it has been a combination of busy days and the WM at night keeping me from updating this blog. Spain just lost to Chile in a very interesting game after the Netherlands beat Australia! Now Chile and the Netherlands are guaranteed in to the bracket play, while Spain has been eliminated. My host family is psyched about this because Christa is from the Netherlands.

I haven't written anything since Sunday, so there is much to catch up on!

The crowd was huge

On Monday we had class, but then directly afterwards we took off to Fanmeile to join the crowd watching the Germany v Portugal game. Fanmeile occurs on the street between the Victory Column and the Brandenburg Gate. Basically the city sets up tons of huge TVs and lots of vendors show up, and tons of Germans watch the game there. It was a great atmosphere, and I picked some some fun Germany gear as well. Germany won, which made it even better, although I would have preferred a better game. They do this for every Germany group game, and every quarter, semi and final after that, so I will have another chance to go, if I want.

Half of the Deutsch-swag I got

On Tuesday after class, I went to practice with the ultimate team here, Wall City. On Tuesdays the second team (which I am "on") plays the first team. This was a ton of fun, and I played very well, though my quads tightened up and I stopped 2/3 of the way through the game because I didn't want to strain anything. We ended up winning the game, which I found very odd, seeing as that must imply the second team is about the same caliber as the first team. People were really trying to, so I am a bit confused about the team dynamic here. What was very fun was they actually use what is called the "German offense" (in the States) as a play...and it works great! I played very well the first couple of points until I put it a bit on the back burners because of my legs. Sadly I won't be able to play another game like this because I am not going to any of the tournaments. The team wants to keep these Tuesday practices for only full members of the team. I will still go on the Fridays when I can though.

Hamburger Bahnhof

Today we visited the Hamburger Bahnhof, which is a train station that has been converted into a modern art gallery. Now, I know that I am not much of an art person, but it is REALLY tough to know what is going on when you are looking at some of these pieces.

I spent 10 minutes with a classmate trying to figure out
if this was a chair or an art piece. Still don't know.

I mostly enjoyed the exhibits, though a couple really freaked me out. After the museum we went to a great Indonesian-Thai place and had a huge lunch for only about 6 Euros (although I added on some Guave nectar because it tastes amazing, so that brought me up to 11). After that I went to a fitness studio here and signed up for a 2 month contract. This was the only one that I could find that allowed me to do a contract less than one year, and they look good. They have some odd things going on though: As with all German fitness places, they have a sauna and shower that the people can use. HOWEVER, even though they have a sauna, it would cost me 10 euros more a month to use the TAP FOR WATER. It literally has a key that you need to use to use the tap. UNBELIEVABLE. I think they are including some personal training sessions and developing a plan with the price though, so all in all I really don't understand German fitness places. Very expensive, but very odd with what they are giving out.

This one was sort of cool, but the title was
"I think this was a pine tree." Artists are odd creatures

Friday is my  midterm, so I will be preparing for that tomorrow, but I am meeting with the fitness studio to do a physical (yeah, they wanted to do that too) after school on Friday, so that will be interesting. It is at 6, so depending on how long it takes, I might go to ultimate afterwards.