I'm trying to get better about updating more frequently, but mostly I'm failing. However, I'm in the middle of writing and editing reports, and that pretty much stinks. As a result I figured I'd distract myself with an update on the miscellaneous events of Zolling.
Champions League Final:
For those who don't follow football (soccer in the US), it's simple--the top European teams play outside of their national leagues against each other for the Champions League. This tournament is a BIG DEAL--probably one of the biggest in the sport. Anyway, last year the local team, FC Bayern München, missed out on winning during penalty kicks against Chelsea. German teams are known for their penalty shooting, and Chelsea wasn't even supposed to make the final! Anyway, this year FCB was gunning for it, beating Barca (Barcelona) in the semi-final. Meanwhile, major German rival Dortmund beat Real Madrid in the other semi to make it an "all-German" final for the first time ever. I put this in quotes because the players from the respective teams are from all over, so a large portion of each starting line up is from the host country.
Anyway, this was a big deal game, and nobody at school could talk about anything else for weeks it seemed. Gus and I were torn about where to watch it, as FCB is sort of like the Yankees of German football--everyone hates them, including my family. However, it's always fun to root for the local team, particularly if they're the favorite, clearly deserve the title, and had the heartbreak last year. We opted to watch with Katrina and Mark's family (English coverage--yay for Gus, and Michael Ballack did the commentary--yay for me). Mark got invited to watch at the stadium (Allianz Arena), but the rest of us settled in to root for a good game and maybe slightly for Dortmund. Super fun evening! The game was incredibly exciting and fun, pretty evenly matched, and all around fun to watch. Bayern pulled out the win with a VERY late goal. A tiny bit disappointing, but ultimately good! We did skip the public viewing and the ensuing all-night celebrations.
Storms
Is it seriously June? The weather here has been simply awful! Some parts of Germany have even experienced some flooding (not us, though--not to mention that our village is higher and our house is uphill even from the canal and river running through town--so no worries). It's been cold, extremely blustery, wet, grey, and dreary. It stinks--and this after the darkest winter on record. It's also got everyone down, so that's no fun. It's even worse knowing that the weather in Hamburg is actually BETTER than here. Heck, even our Manchester friends were saying that the weather there was better than here. Yes, you heard me--the weather in MANCHESTER is better than in Munich. Ugh. It's supposed to be nice this weekend, though. Ironically they'll be in the UK though, so they may get the next wave of grey and rainy there. It would be pretty ironic. Fingers crossed for good weather this weekend for our next pork shoulder! Yesterday was particularly bad, raining hard all day and soaking me as I walked to school from the bus stop.
Here's a link with pictures of the flooding in other parts of Germany:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/continuous-rain-leads-to-flooding-and-deaths-in-germany-a-903145.html
and in Bavaria:
http://www.merkur-online.de/aktuelles/bayern/ueberschwemmungen-passau-lby-2935238.html
To give you an idea of where the cities mentioned in the article are, Regensburg is about 45 mi NE, Rosenheim is about the same SSE, and Passau is 75 mi almost due east of us. Somehow we've been very lucky here, though our own Amper is also (slightly) over its banks, as is the Isar in Munich/Freising.
Jesus in Jail
I know I've posted photos of the little crucifix at our corner that we've lovingly nicknamed "Jesus in Jail." Well, Thursday was a bank holiday here in Catholic Bavaria (not for those up north, though--ha!). It was Corpus Christi. Please don't ask me what it actually is as I'm not Catholic, but it has something to do with the body of Christ and a celebration of the Eucharist (communion). Anyway, we slept in a bit, and we were slowly puttering around the house when we realized something was going on at the corner. We went out onto the balcony and listened in as the microphoned priest led prayer, liturgical chanting, and some singing. It was a surprisingly large crowd gathered around our little intersection. We're not really sure why it was there in the street given that there's a nice church a block away and that it was so chilly. At least it wasn't raining! ;)
Hanging out with friends
We've been doing a bit more of this lately as our schedules have relaxed a bit. A few weeks ago we attended the school play--Kafka's The Trial--and afterwards went out to the Adriatic, one of Haimhausen's two restaurants, for dinner. Wednesday we went out with all the first year at BIS teachers for dinner at Il Fagiano, the Italian restaurant by campus and the other Haimhausen eatery. We had our pork shoulder day last week and another group of friends next week. Last night we met some folks at a Mexican place in Munich for dinner--awesome, as we hadn't had Mexican food in months! We'll probably try to host one last get together the first weekend of summer to say goodbye to everyone. :( We truly have met some awesome people here!
