And the winner is

I know I’m kind of late but my mood yesterday evening was just disastrous. However, today, I can cheerfully announce that Spain Austria carries away the victory and therefore Belgian chocolates.

After making all my predictions in favour of Germany, my luck left me in the last game while zugaldia finished with a nice little sprint. Probably it’s just a fair outcome – Spain wins the real cup, Austria the chocolate, the participating penguins my respect for their football knowledge and I had the pleasure of organising all this.

Watch this space in Spring 2010 – there is a world cup coming up. And my revenge.

La puce

Advertisement

Innocent

It seems that yesterday’s anger against the BBC was completely unjustified as it was the signal of the UEFA being disturbed. Following this article of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, all broadcasts worldwide, except Swiss TV and Al-Dschasira, suffered from the transmission break. So: BBC is great, UEFA is crap.

Germans!

The evening already started badly. Both, the represenation of Westphalia and of Baden-Württemberg were closed for an “on invitation only” event. The representation of Bavaria did not even bother to open. Probably they did not think that Germany would make it up to the semifinal final and were obviously not flexible enough to change their planning. Stupid idiots bureaucrats.

Then the game itself. In the first 20 minutes, one single lost shot by the Germans while Turkey was clearly making the game. The Turkish goal was a logic merit for the team dominating the game. This in return was apparently what the Germans needed to wake up and start playing which improved the game sensibly. Though, all their efforts were just enough to equal the score and defend it up to the half time.

In the second half a fighting and running German team and ………..

emptiness. BBC had technical problems cutting the channel twice. Twice!! Over 10 minutes. How bloody stupid are these guys over there? Maybe they have great documentations. Who cares? We missed the goal of Klose. If ever I was a fan of BBC – it’s history.

However, the game was far from being finished. Turkey made very clear through its game that it would not give up until the very last second was over and consequently balanced the score again. 86 minutes played – leaving me with a huge doubt if the extra time would do any good to the German team. But while I was still pondering, they did what they are supposed to do: They scored!

The final whistle blow wasn’t coming any minute to early finally releasing everybody in the pub from the tension and thus paving the way for exuberant celebrations.

If football wouldn’t be so exhausting to watch, the cup could last the whole summer.

Schtroumpf, schtroumpf

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of visiting the Smurf (un Schtroumpf, der Schlumpf) exhibition here in Brussels. It is of course of utmost importance to my host country that the Smurfs are not American but Belgian comic strip figures which appeared for the first time 50 years ago. After this very enlightening experience, I’m now able to answer a few fundamental questions regarding the Smurfs.

What’s the size of a Smurf?

They say 3 apples tall. I think that these would be rather tiny apples.

Do Smurfs live in a democracy?

Definitely, and they all vote for themselves.

What do the Smurfs eat?

Cute little baby dragons. They are vegetarian.

Speak all Smurfs the same language?

It depends. In one story, the Smurfs separate their village along a rather arbitrary linguistic frontier – North/South and nearly start to fight each other. No reference to any existing country…

What does a Smurf look like without his hat?

I know that this is a shocking picture and I apologize for any feelings hurt. Though I’m not sure if it would be a better sight if their heads had the shape of the hat as a friend of mine suggested.

Ca schtroumpf ça!

Faith

It is strange to come in a place full of fans supporting the same team as you and to realise that except two or three crazy bastards loyal supporters no one believes in the victory. I had such a strange moment yesterday evening when I went to watch the German game in the representation of NRW*.

Though I must admit that I was hesitating a lot yesterday before entering my predictions for the game. But finally, even if it would maybe been a more rational bet, I just couldn’t predict anything against Germany.  After the two games against Croatia and Austria the only argument I could hang on was the victory in the game for place 3 during the world cup 2006. What I remembered from this game was a Portuguese team that may play football which is nice to look it but which did not have the physical resistance to win against us.

There was hope, only a bit, but hope. I wanted, I needed to believe that they can make it. And I wasn’t disappointed – I was just wondering where the hell this German team was before.

* Westphalia

Intermediate results – end of first round

The quarter finals, semi finales and the final can be filled in now!!

Mission possible

After a long, fruitless and slightly desperating search last weekend, I managed to buy a …..

dress for a wedding! Thanks to a very patient friend who not only showed me a shop I would never ever have found on my own but also persuaded me that the dress I was kind of fancying was actually the one I wanted. It’s good to that at least some people know what I want.

Germans

It’s better to play bad and to win than to play well and to loose.

If we play like this against Portugal, we gonna loose 5:0, at least.

Eat parade

As the answer to the question who will win the chocolate for the best Euro2008 prediction is still far from being given, here a small culinary passe-temps Mr. Pingouin invited me to:

1. A dish I really don’t like
   Though I basically like and eat everything, I think I would have problems swallowing a celery stew with bockwurst and chocolate topping. Or, diced meat salad with mayonnaise on tea-cake…
2. My three favourite dishes
   Tartiflette, Ravioles, and many other things I only fancy so much because there is no way of buying them here.
3. My prefered recipe
   is the one where I take a cooking book and point on all the recipes I want to taste, which are then prepared for me. And I don’t have to do anything, not even the dishes. But maybe that’s just a dream.
4. The most awesome drink
   Water, simple fresh water. Anytime, anywhere. In case of doubt all I’d need in life (in terms of drinks). There is a reason why it’s called Gänsewein (goose wine, vin d’oie).
5. The dish I dream to cook
   This fantastic sweet-bitter tarte aux endives (Chicoree, chicory) I tasted at a friends birthday. No clue how she did it.

6. The culinary highlight of my life
   Actually, every time I visit my family and they let me choose what I want to eat. And then I go for dishes I wouldn’t cook myself though I could because I don’t have the necessary ingredients or it’s just the kind of meal you have to cook for at least 4 people to make it taste right. Coming home is wonderful – not only in culinary terms.

Though I should now invite 6 other people to cook fill in the same questionnaire, I’m going be disobedient and will just let it sit here. Whoever wants to add his or her mustard, is warmly welcome to do so.

Smakelijk, la puce

Word of the day

Puddle
=
Flaque
Pfütze

The best was this three year old boy with his rubber boots jumping with visible pleasure into every single one on his way. Though, his mum was slightly less amused.