This won’t fit in the status update box...

My 6 month internship is coming to an end in July and the next part of my first year in Munich is about to get a spin. For those who follow me on BeerFeed you’re aware of my mini trips to Bamberg and most recently Köln. We have a long weekend in Amsterdam just before we head home to Canada for a few weeks. The good thing about working in Germany is definitely the amount of holidays you get.

Morale is up and I don’t really feel homesick, I miss the casual hangouts with good friends and I used to miss hoppy beers but I recently found some niche stores that have more hops than I can dream of. I’m slowly getting used to the daily life and it’s not so different than the life in Canada. I got to meet some really nice people from around the world (mostly Europe), my geography is getting slightly better and so is my Deutsch.

I’m signing up for some intensive Deutsch courses over the months of September and October. After several comments about how difficult it is to work full-time and then go to class for 3 hours in the evening to learn a new language, I decided it was in my best interest to take morning classes and focus on learning Deutsch without any other distractions for two months.

So far, I was offered to be on a television show, I've made some friends from the four corners of the planet, I've traveled to 2 countries I've never been before and I learned a whole lot about beer. Until my next status update I welcome your questions and comments.

Ambassador Mat 

The History of the World Cup: Canadian Edition

In the coming days eBay and Amazon will see their profits rise from the purchase of football jerseys all over the world. Employers will see more and more employees with saggy eyes reeking of booze from last night's victory. For a Canadian living in Munich I'm being asked the same question over and over "Who are you going to cheer for?" Clearly not Canada is my answer. This pushed me to learn a bit more about the Canadian's place in the history of the prestigious, world unifying tournament.

The year was 1986, Mexico

Canada made their way to Group C with the Soviet Union, France and Hungary. This was the only year Canada ever participated in the World Cup. Although they didn't manage to score a single goal, they held the French until the end and Mike Sweeney got a red card, one can only assume he apologized for this.

Sweeney was sent off in the second game against Hungary,^[4] making him the only Canadian player ever to be dismissed at a World Cup Finals tournament.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FIFA_World_Cup

Special mentions

Diego Maradona from Argentina got himself 5 goals and the Golden Ball that year, Argentina won.

Also Sons of Andrew and band out of Edmonton, Alberta made a song dedicated to the unique Canadian squad.

There's a documentary on Canadian Journey to the World cup on Youtube called:
The Journey - 1986 Canada Soccer Documentary (pretty interesting, TSN)

If you're a collector, these are the ones you're looking for:

The Weekend Beer Haul (Franconia's Franky's)

First and foremost here's the beer haul from this weekend:

They have these store's named Orterer, Franky's and Fristo where they usually sell anything that comes in a bottle. The problem is there's no way of telling which brands they carry. The outcome is that "kid in a candystore feeling". I got my friend a case of gluten free beer and a mixed variety for me. Have you ever heard of these?

Munich Monster Bash 2014

Here's a fun one, you know that guy at the concert that's constantly pulling out his state of the art iPhone 4 or Samsung Galaxy to take very high quality pictures from 50 ft away? He's the same guy who's scrambling to take a video of the "new" song or "song we've never played before" from that obscure band and post that masterpiece on Youtube.

I chose to be that guy just to show you that we sort of lost the feeling of what going to a show is all about, the event, the excitement, the exclusivity of it is tossed by the shitty pics and videos that will be archived in our phone and never shown to anyone.

The concert was on a Saturday starting early in the afternoon and like any other concerts it took way too long to get our wristbands and we missed the first band all together.

If you want to check out the place: http://www.zenith-muenchen.de/

 


 Here's a few from the pit, you can't get any closer but if you've ever been in a mosh pit, you know that no image stabilizer in the world will make these pics look good!

 And a bonus picture from this guy wearing some Mute gear (Québec is present in Munich).

Ignite video here.

The Good, The Bad and the Different: Die Musik

The Good

For starters, Spotify is available in Germany and I've been enjoying the hell out of it, it's interface is similar to iTunes and it's free, with occasional ads. The paid version gives you no ads and an unlimited amount of music across several devices for an annual price tag of 120$.

The Bad

Can't torrent, whether you're a firm believer in file sharing or an advocate of copyright protection in Germany you no torrent! A handful of law firms are partnering up with ISPs all over Germany and are sending out letters threatening to fine you for life. Settle or fight it, you will have to fork out some Euros to resolve that piece of mail.

The quality of the internets in some areas are very low quality, if your building is not equipped with fiber optic you're stuck on DSL along with all of your neighbors and their neighbors. Static and interference prevail! Streaming movies and tv shows is a painful activity for most, we have better luck with music files which require less resources but not without interruptions.

If you read my article on GEMA you already know that a fair amount of Youtube videos are blocked as well.

The Different

The best and most reliable source is still the cd player! We own one and I use it! This piece has likely lost 90% of it's original monetary value but in my heart it will forever remain a loyal friend.