Surfin’ USA

Party pics

On the last two weekends I hosted/attended two nice parties and I figured I’d share some of the nice nice pics that resulted from it.

The first party, on July 15th, was a joint birthday/graduation/farewell party that I co-hosted with my two good friends Jens and Lars (”Uschi”). We invited several of our friends back from the high school days, some of which I hadn’t seen for quite a while. Moreover my two good friends Kicki and Dain managed to come down from Gothenburg for the weekend, it was great seeing them again as well — thanks a lot guys!

The second party one week later was the farewell party of our pastor and my good friend Jörg, who accepted a new job in another part of Germany and will move away by the end of the month. He is also a passionate musician (as were many of the party guests), so we spent most of the night jamming away one last time, as we had done countless times before — what great fun that was once more…!
Anyway, best of luck for Jörg and his family in their new home, we’ll keep in touch.

World Cup party in Berlin

Last weekend I went on a short journey to Berlin, visiting my Australian mate Andreas, who I studied with in Sweden. He’s currently living in Berlin, learning the language and maybe even trying find a job, so I could stay at his place, which he shares with his girlfriend Renata from Brazil.

I arrived late Friday afternoon, just in time for Germany-Argentina quarter final match. Of course we went to watch it at the main Berlin fan mile with roughly 700,000 other fans. And quite a spectacle it was — I’m not sure if I ever saw that many people in one place before! As you can imagine, the atmosphere was just awesome, with everyone singing and cheering their hearts out — wow! And after our team decided the match in its favor in the penalty shootout, it became pure madness everywhere — the whole city of Berlin seemed to have gone mad! What a night…

We also watched the other matches on this weekend at different locations, and unfortunately for Renata her team was kicked out by France. But she conceded that the Brazilians played well below their potential and that the French were just better that night. (Sadly also Germany meanwhile lost its semifinal to Italy, after a very intense and close match, and will now compete for the 3rd place. Even though the last-minute defeat was terribly painful and made all German supporters awfully sad, everyone in Germany is still very proud of what the team accomplished!)

When we did not watch football, I did some sightseeing, hitting some of the major touristic locations (see pics below). On Sunday afternoon, eventually, I flew back. It was a superb weekend, thanks again to my hosts Renata and Andreas. You’ll be welcome at my place at any time!