Amsterdam - Windmill Windup

This past weekend I went to Windmill Windup - "Europe's greatest grass tournament" in Amsterdam. Upon arriving in the city after some massive, annoying and expensive train drama, I wandered around the city. I got food from a FEBO automat, browsed HEMA- a dutch departmentish store (although they website is quite right in stating "HEMA is not a store, it is a discovery") where everything is colorful and they have a beautiful card selection (I found the absolute most perfect one for an upcoming wedding), stopped by Rembrandt's house, but he wasn't there and I found a grocery store. I love grocery stores. This one was very similar to Belgian one that I frequented, but it had this cool logo:

Then I headed to the fields where I was greeted by the elephant pictured at the top of this post. I was picking up with a womens team from London called ISO, but I didn't know what any of them looked like, so I gravitated towards British accents and found Dirty Olive, another London-based womens team that was short on players. They tried to get me to play for them, but I couldn't betray ISO, which was a good call. They were really fun girls - we killed the pub quiz and were 2 and two halves Americans strong for World Cup cheering. We posted up 75 minutes before the kickoff of the USA-England match to ensure good seats in the viewing tipi (see below), which was soon overflowing. The US fans were out numbered like 25 to1, there was lots of cheers and banter all in good fun. The English had proper cheers, whereas the Americans' cheers consisted of "U-S-A U-S-A U-S-A" and of course "America, Fuck Yeah!"

Ultimate-wise we didn't do that great (low numbers {injuries, diarrhea, infection, pregnancy... }, lots of pick-ups - which led to a kind of awkward clash of schools of playing ultimate), but it was still lots of fun and I did some cool stuff . I fell oddly on my knee and finally got to try some of that kinesio tape that is all the rage with trainers these days - it didn't really help- the physio who taped it said she had just learned it yesterday, but at least it matched my water bottle and gave me fun tan lines.

I arrived at ATB Potsdam about 16:30 on Thursday and grabbed a all too short nap, before joining my new colleagues for a cookout, which was nice, but I had slept for like only 6 of the previous 48 hours so I couldn't speak German, so now everyone just speaks to me in english (I understand by now that this is a nice gesture, but I want to up my Germanskillz). Friday I slept in and got a quick tour of the Institut and 6 apparently very important signatures. My phd student invited me to her house for the weekend-long celebration of her husband's 40th birthday with the extended family both sides. I ate lots potatoes and played with her kids & the cousins & hungout with the basically-sister-in-law, who no one seems to like very much. There was also strawberry bowle, which wikipedia says is punch, but I say it is way better. I mean who gets excited about punch? Everybody gets excited about Bowle. (maybe that is because it sometimes gets set on fire)
I thought we were just going for dinner, so I packed in less than a minute and all I forgot was my camera (not bad for a 4 day trip), so internet pictures will have to do.

This is Marius and Hannes. I beat Marius several times at table tennis, but that kid can talk soccer. He wants me to come talk to his class about my super exciting american life. Hannes is always smiling like that (unless of course e his throwing a fit), his hobbies include watering the garden and vacuuming (thanks to the teletubbies or something) and he really likes frogs & computer mouses.

They live in the village of Groß-Klessow, which when combined with Klein-Klessow has a population of 350ish. The only businesses are a hair salon and a bar (there is horse farm on the edge of the village). The sister-in-law took me on a bike tour of the nearby metropol of Lübbenau (pop.12,000). Which has a tourist industry consisting of the famous Spreewald Pickles and folks paddling through the waterways and mosquitos.

In Lübbenau they cut the top thrid off of the soviet-style block housing and gave them pointy roofs to try to disguise them.