So I’m in Portugal. Its hot, sunny and windy. Barcelona and the bus ride here were very cool. I needed a bit of rest and basically followed the fun crowd till we got here. Tent is up, I saw Patrick and Sofia and some other early arrivals. Tomorrow things should really hot up. Excitement.
This feels somewhat of an anticlimax. Since I left Munich in March and was only here for a few days, the fact that today is my last day here for the foreseeable future doesn’t have the shock value I guess I was expecting. Tonight I get on a plane to Barcelona, there’s quite a few loose ends and I still need to send off my Abmeldungsformular (deregister my residence). mmm I should get off the Internet and do them.
The index to my photos site now lists all albums and hit counters so you can pick and choose what to look at without browsing through the heirarchy or reading what I write here.
Instead of doing some things I should have been doing, I’ve posted recent photos from Helsinki, the Baltics and WUGC04, which are mainly people shots and not Ultimate. I’ve got some sound bytes of the South African’s famous singing which need to go up at some point.
There’s also some older ones from Spain, which I never mentioned here and few people have looked at.
Enjoy.
I saw this quote on a card in Helsinki:
Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne
So much for keeping up. Even worse, I left my PDA stylus lying around somewhere in Finland so its not like I have lots of material waiting to be copy and pasted here. Must have been bad karma from people who think I write too much.
I�m now back in rainy munich after a whirlwind tour post the Ultimate Frisbee world championships in Turku. Sorry about my lack of reporting from Worlds, but there seems to have been quite good coverage. The day after I lost my wallet on a bus in Turku as I was about to depart. Un-Finnish someone seems to have taken advantage and pocketed it. So I stayed back the extra day trying to get it back, chasing down bus #1 and getting back to the hotel. Since I had passport, airplane ticket and an Australian credit card separate, it wasn�t too bad. Thanks Stoffel for shooting me some money, which I then bank transferred back in Munich. Thanks also to the US Junior chaperone Mike, as well as the Matt and Brad from Brazil for the beer tasting session after my unfruitful search. The biggest upshot was bumping into Hayden and some NZers the night before they left for St Petersburg and catching up on some time we should have found during the tournament.
Ari, my flatmate from Granada was now in Helsinki, where I�d missed him before the tournament due to a trip to Belgium. So I headed to his place (sorry, I mean Tiina�s place) where we spent a great day. We had some lunch and headed out to Suomenlinna (an island in the harbour), picking up Wes (Ultimate player based in Graz, Austria) on the way. Evening back in Helsinki, Tarja and a friend of Ari�s joined us to give me a more authentic Finnish ambience. They spell the game Yahtzee, ‘Yahtzy’ in Finland.
The next day I headed off to Tallinn, Estonia, a 90 minute boat ride away. Finding accomodation wasn�t as easy or as cheap as I�d have liked, but thats what I got for seat of my pants planning. Tallinn was beautiful and the weather continued to be perfect after the first couple days of the tournament. I bumped into quite a few Ultimate players in Tallinn, most just doing a day trip. A whim turned into the plan, so instead of exploring the surroundings more thoroughly I took the five and a half hour bus to Riga. Arriving late afternoon, staying in an Australian run hostel right near the bus station I was sorted in no time and took to exploring. I met lots of cool people here, including a surprisingly large number of Australians (aren�t there always).
The next day was spent with an Australia mixed frisbee player’s neighbour. (Keah’s neighbour Jeremy). After some faffing where I forgot where the place “Blinoff” was where I wanted to have breakfast, we eventually headed out to Sigulda. I found the ‘Switzerland of Latvia’ a bit dissapointing truth be told. Riga seemed like a fantastic city (when the weather is good) and you can eat really well for around �5. This place is changing too fast. Go soon.
Night bus to Tallinn, arrive 05:00, 08:00 ferry to Helsinki, shop for souvenier/presents that I never quite found what I wanted and then flew back to Munich. It would be nice to head back there with more time. And visit South America. And New Zealand. And friends in the States. And Costa Rica. But I�m only here till Friday and then it goes Barcelona, Portugal, Australia.
Australia?
I told you there�d been too little blogging.
Plans went out the window and I’ve bust a gut post Turku through Helsinki, Tallinn, Estonia and now Riga, Latvia where my grandmother was born. If you think I’m going to write a longer blog entry with the sunshine I’m having, you’d be wrong.
The bad news is I’m looking at a night bus to Tallinn tomorrow, Friday morning ferry to Helsinki and flight to Munich in the afternoon. Time is precious, photos good.
I can’t believe we only have one game more to play. I can believe we have only scored like 17 points. Tomorrow we play our last game for the wooden spoon or cellar or whatever you want to call it.
The weather has turned fantastic and I know the Zulu (Xhosa) words we sing better now. Unfortunately I�m only typing one-handed since my left arm just got immobilized when I wanted pain killers for a shoulder that just got a lot worse in a 4-17 loss to Hungary/Austria. I�d been playing with a pulled muscle (somewher between shoulder and back) since the Spain game, but it may now be a tear and tomorrow is looking dodgy. No idea of our chances against Belarus.
look here for results
the links seem to have heaps of general info, sorry this is so short. Buses were late or didn�t show the couple times I planned some time to write. One thing you won�t find elsewhere, we got industrious and have been buying extra crates of beer and doing good trade, subsidising our own consumption. yay south africa!
So Internet usage isn�t as easy and frequent as I�d maybe like, so here the little bit I can get down now.
First up, its great to be at Worlds. Frisbee people everywhere. The logistics here are hopeless. Fields and hotels spread all over the place and no organised parties. Its practically impossible to spectate and properly catch up with friends. And Internet. The bus timetable is awfully scarce and they don�t always turn up, meaning you lose time getting anywhere. Hopefully that will get better or we�ll find ways around it.
The opening ceremony involved meeting at Cathedral square where it proceded to piss down in buckets. Everybody wet. By this time I�d met some of the South Africans and the Xhosa players (mainly juniors) responded in voice, singing, stomping (dancing) and smiling in the torrential rain. The other teams loved it. The finnish dancers in white tshirts on the stairs got both wet and photographed. After a walk to the stadium and an uneventful (from where I was) opening ceremony, Australia took on Finland. Hopefully there is lots about this on the links on the left column. The Aussies made mistakes and fell behind, but two stretches of fantastic defense, brought them back and put them ahead to win 17-15. Pottsy played a HUGE first half and great game. YES AUSTRALIA. I split my time between South African and Australian contingents meeting the first and making reunions in the second, even if Mel came back with “I don�t know who you are”. Ooops. She got it eventually.
Our first game against Canada, went to 1-1. Wow. It ended 2-17. Their offense wasn�t working, but we don�t actually have one. This was a fun game. They handed out some presents for Male MVP (the other Brad (Swimmer)), Female MVP (Abby) and gave me Most Spirited Player which was nice. GB on the muddies and squishiest pitch ever also went 2-17. Voodoo unfortunately rested this one and Tina took a while to see me. Mud smelt shitty. I laid out repeatedly. I played as a handler and in a zone (we played a weak version of huck and zone, but its not at all windy) I played deep-deep. Ummm… I shouldn�t really be doing that at Worlds. Its all good.
Nighttime hassles with buses and a �15 taxi later, dinner was eaten (Bolognese) and South Africa went for Beers and dancing on a boat on the river. It was good. These people are fantastic. The walk home wasn�t.
Today we only had one game against the French and I was a bit surprised, but unfortunately we�re excellent at achieveing 2-17 scorelines. Before that we did some drills and things, with enough beginners on the team that they are learning simple things like run a deep and a short cut.
I eventually got to see the Australians play Germany in the mixed division, where Oz did not bringe their A-game and I had to watch my friends beat them convincingly. I only knew 3 of the Australians, but watched with Broken leg Sacha and Mel. Kel presented me with T-shirt and CD for Portugal. Yeah Australia. Sch�n gespielt Fruende.
Back to the main fields, failed to get washing in (tomorrow the bus for 9am game leaves at 7:50 and the washing arrives at 8), dinnered (curry and rice) and showered with the Germans and their Vodka. German Ultimate has its positive sides and they only held it a little against me that I�d cheared against them (but for them as individuals…)
Other results that I picked up, Oz juniors (male) are 2-2, Mixed beat Switzerland convincingly (after losing in Zurich pretournament), Canada women beat USA including an 8-1 run (I caught the start of the game and said “Aaron said I should say Hi Gwen”), USA crushed Australia (Open) where apparently they didn�t bring their game.
I hope the results are up in more detail on the WUGC website.
cya,
brad