This Used To Be My Playground

My weekend was just dandy. Went out for drinks on Friday night at our new secret location gathering point. They were discussing where everyone could meet up and go this Friday. As mentioned 50 times, we're (well, not sure if I'll partake this Friday) "meeting up first at Steven and Karsten's and then walking over to the new location." Got it? Good.

On Saturday, I hopped on a train to Stuttgart and spent the day there. Whereas I was there for the German National Gymnastics Championships, basically everyone else in the city was attending the Germany-Ireland soccer match which was taking place in the stadium right next to the other sports arenas. Didn't they just finish the World Cup? Sheesh, give it a rest already. It seems a bit early to already start qualifiying rounds for EM 2008. But what do I know? Needless to say, the place was abuzz with both German and Irish fussball fans, groups chanting in the streets, etc. And the beer was flowing. Clearly the gymnastics championships weren't the hot ticket in town, and the turnout reflected that. But this worked out in my favor. Bought tickets at the door and got great seats - 4th row for the women in the afternoon and first row for the men! Nobody even sitting directly next to me…Must have decided to open up a new section and put me there. Had it all to myself!

Anywho, I thoroughly enjoyed myself as it had been a few years since I last attended a larger scale gymnastics event. It was a good day. And during the two hours I had free in between sessions, I walked over and found a mall (which aren't that common here!) and dropped a few Euros. That's always fun. I think I bought 6 shirts total.

To wrap up my weekend, I met up with Mario in town on Sunday for an ice cream and we walked around the park. I didn't know we had a mini zoo here in the city. Craziness. And I mean mini. There was also a mini monkey in the window, running around the office. I have to go back and snap a picture of him. I finished off the day watching Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." Interesting. And scary. It's inevitable that this world will have to make some changes in how things are done. It's obvious we're tearing up this planet and the effects are revealing themselves at an increasing rate. We're all responsible!

Of course, my mind now is already looking forward to the coming weekend. Still nothing planned, though. But I'll figure out something. I must. Maybe I''ll break into the zoo and steal mini monkey...