Illesheim Black N' Blue Rugby

Coming to Germany almost 7 months ago I told myself sports leisure would be something I would get back into. My heart has always belonged to the best sport in the world: hockey. However, after learning about the difficulties in getting involved with a hockey club here in Bavaria, I decide to explore all possible options. Soon afterwards I learned about a local rugby team.

After never having played or watched a single game of rugby, I decided I would give it a shot, and to my surprise I fell in love with the sport. Since January 27th I've been heavily involved with the team. Although our season just finished with us hosting the Bavaria 10s Tournament, we're already looking ahead into the future and planning our fall season. Aside from planning our upcoming exhibition schedule, we're also looking into doing a team trip to Normandy, France in September as well as playing a match against a 3rd division French team. Today, our new uniforms came in. I thought I would share this with you all, and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I have. For those of you here in Germany, please come out and support your Black N' Blue! Cheers!

Our team having our cleats checked by the Referee before our match against Bayreuth
(I'm 3rd from the left)

Stretching before our match against Hafenlohr

Me right before being tackled.

A front shot of our new kits.

A close up, with the logo of our local sponsor: Mandarin China Restaurant 

The back of our kits. I chose #10 because of my graduation year and for number tradition also.

A close up. Torito is my nickname since I was a toddler. In spanish in means, "little bull."

The right sleeve dawns the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade patch, the unit we belong to.

The left sleeve commemorates our team's 30th Anniversary participating in the Bavarian League.
In between the US and German flags is the Flag of Bavaria.

Our new team ball. 

One the opposite side is the logo of another local sponsor: Tazmanian Devil Inn Australian Restaurant and Pub

Claiming a little personal independence.

This coming weekend presents me with a total of 4 days off from work. This of course, is all thanks to our OH so great and influential 39 founding fathers over 230 years ago for claiming their independence from a higher power. While I do feel a small but considerate sense of pride and pleasure in being American, the existentialist in me will always focus more on the intra-personal side of me in order to improve my interpersonal.

In order to achieve this, I've been continuing my efforts with Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and exploring more about it. While I'm well aware that I'm, "arrogant," or a "conceited asshole" as some of my friends kindly put it, that doesn't mean there isn't any room for improvement. I genuinely feel that I can continue to be the self-conscious, highly self-esteemed guy that I've evolved into, while still attempting to convey myself in a humble or modest manner. However, conveying and delivering (or the lack thereof) will be one of my main focuses this coming weekend.

For example, I've decided that although I'll have plenty of time for leisure, I will only drink one night out of the four. In addition, after having done some research on the interpersonal, particularly focusing on others and treating others as people of resourceful wisdom and knowledge, I've come up with the following:


1. Aim to 'step into the other person's shoes.' Take a real interest in what makes each person tick/rejoice. In what they like and do not like. In what they fear, enjoy, believe, value, et cetera.
2. Spend the next few weeks asking a lot more questions and making a lot less statements. Turn the Transmit button off – and turn the Receive button on.
3. Use Open rather than Closed questions as they elicit a lot more information.
4. Listen to the answers I get. And utilize the information from these answer in the conversation.

As you can see, my focus will be to build on my newfound connections with people and the interaction as a whole. I'm actually really excited about this as it should be relatively challenging, but only good will come from it.

Friday night I will be attending an exclusive, perhaps pretentious party in Nürnberg to which I was invited through a friend. I haven't decided if this will be the night I 'party.' Also, I'm trying to explore the possibility of CouchSurfing, either there or maybe head to Munich. In any case, I'm forcing myself to be meager in order to save some cash for my trip to Greece on the 17th. On another note, please wish me luck as I will be studying all weekend (while traveling and lounging out in any aesthetic yet peaceful grass covered surface) for my board which is coming up on Wednesday the 6th. I'll update you all next week on my findings from this coming weekend. Thanks for reading everyone :-)

Unexpected relaxation.

A laid-back weekend was just what I needed. Although 4-day weekends only come around once a month for me (and I'm not complaining about it), I often take advantage of them to do some traveling. Nevertheless, with my upcoming plans to visit Greece in a little under a month, and possibly Portugal, these past 4 days presented me with the opportunity to take some much needed rest and save some money too.

Of course my weekend would not be complete without having gone out at least one night, and while I don't regret it, I sure would change a few things. For starters, I told myself I wouldn't drink much, but I did. Secondly, I told myself I would have a relaxing night with friends, but of course I got out of hand. And lastly, I told myself I wouldn't do much spending, but I sure did some damage to my wallet............and then I lost it. Fuck my life and call me Suzy! That set the tone for the remainder of my 4 day break.

The last thing I remember from my night on Thursday was ripping up the screen of my window and climbing through it in order to get into my room. Terrible hangovers and I have become well-acquainted throughout the years, and somehow they never cease to amaze me how much of a fucking pain in the ass (and head) they truly are. This happened to be even more of a pain as I had to go into work for 2 hours on Friday in order to put the finishing touches on a project I had been working on for the previous two weeks. Upon completing this, my boy Tony and I made our way to Neustadt to try and find my phone, keys, cigarette case (the second one I lose!), wallet and all the things inside of it including: room key, all forms of identification, 2 credit cards, 1 bank card, driver's license, and a few work-related items. Mission not accomplished, I successfully failed.

The following 3 days consisted of random and sporadic little happenings of minimal importance. However, after canceling all of my monetary access cards, I found myself restrained to the confines of this AMAZING place called Illesheim, but most importantly my room. Even though I may sound sarcastic and completely apathetic about it, I actually accomplished much. I spent countless hours conducting German language courses on Rosetta Stone, surfing the web and reading up on interpersonal communications, catching up with friends and family back home, and being a bum playing video games and watching films. One of the things that I spoke about with Eugene while catching up was doing things in certain moderation. While traveling and living my life at a fast pace is often how I function, it was certainly refreshing to kick back and spend time on my own.

I've also made a list of newfound short-term goals for myself. Back in December before arriving here in Germany I  made a list of things I wanted to accomplished, and many of those things I've successfully achieved. Some of the ones I need to brush up on, and WILL accomplish are getting into the physical shape I should be in, but that shouldn't be too much of a stressor. I will continue practicing and finessing my limited German, concentrate on being more amicable to those close to me here, as well as immerse myself into areas outside of my comfort zone. The last part goes hand-in-hand with creating new connections of meaningful proportions with non-Americans. Many of these things, and others that I did not mention WILL be accomplished and obtained by the end of July.

That is all for now. I felt like jotting down all the thoughts (and certain goals) that were running through my mind while cleaning my place for the past hour and a half. I sure feel spanish after all that cleaning. Anyways, I'm done. Thanks for reading everyone :-)

Blogging at work...

How unconvential this is. The way I see it: 1552 on a Thursday before a 4-day weekend, everyone is bullshitting around, so will I. This week has been very busy to say the least, but honestly I'm not complaining. For the first time since I've been working here, I finally feel as though I'm getting to do the job I signed up for. In any case, let me not focus on work because that's honestly not fun for anyone so let's move on to the bigger and better subjects of my life.

Tonight I will be attending my first English Stammtisch in Nuremberg. This idea all started about 10 years ago when a local Bavarian company sought to improve its employee's literacy and speaking skills in English. In order to make this happen, they began hosting after-work happy hours for their employees to socialize in foreign languages and they invited other local English speakers to assist them. With a little bit of word of mouth, the English Stammtich gained popularity and in recent years it has evolved into a much bigger gathering. These days, every last Thursday of the month anyone and everyone that speaks any kind of foreign language is invited to join in order to socialize and network with other people in the greater Nuremberg area. I found out about this through a CouchSurfing group about 2 months ago, but due to work-related oblilgations I have never been able to attend. It's opportune that I have tomorrow off, as I will be attending a beach-party theme they're throwing at a few local bars. This week they're hosting an extra one since it's summer time and the Stammtisch seems to be very popular. It's people from all around the world, an eclectic collection of languages...and BOOZE! Should be fun :-)

Also, before making my way to Nuremberg tonight, Victor, Tony, and I will be booking our trip to Greece for next month. I spent my 2 hour lunch break today (isn't that fucking sweet?!) planning out our logistics, and after a little bit of hard work, I've worked it out so that our round trip transportation (flight and ferry) will run us about 150 euro each. Not too shabby! The best part of it all is that I get to amalgamate the likes of my newfound friendships with my already established ones from home/college. We'll be meeting up with Eugene and several other of my friends in Mykonos for 5 days in mid-July. It goes without saying, but an island vacation is juuuuuuuust about what I need right now.

There are many other things I've been meaning to share with you all, but again, the fact that I'm at work keeps me from gathering my thoughts. I'll be sure to fill you all in on other happenings in my life in the near future. Thanks for reading!

Oh yeah! I forgot to mention this....I fucking LOVE Germany!

The last two weeks in retrospect.

The last time I set foot on a rugby pitch was easily about a month ago. It goes without saying, but practicing for the first time tonight  really made me feel the difference a few weeks make. Nevertheless, it was a blast being out there joking around with the boys, getting muddy, and continuing my learning curve for a game I've come to love. This coming Saturday, our team will be hosting the Illesheim 10s Tournament in which we  expect to have a total of 12 teams competing, ourselves included. Should be fun to get that first hit in again :-D

There are several reasons why I've been out of the loop with many things as of late. Aside from rugby, as some of you may now I had a very small but precautionary surgery administered about 3 weeks ago. While it was nothing major, it was still imperative for me to recover from it expeditiously in order to carry on with my many hobbies and responsibilities. Included in these are: the aforementioned rugby, work, working out/conducting ruck marches, drinking haha, and most importantly traveling. I have also been exceptionally busier at work and this may be a result from having eyes zoned in closer on me after being selected for the board I'll be competing in July. I wrote about it HERE. Furthermore, I've been expecting a promotion soon, and as people often say, "with rank comes responsibility" so my bosses have been giving me a heavier load with higher expectations, but only because they know I can handle it...and I'm happy to do so.

About a week and a half ago, I met with one of my best friends named Jackie and her fiancé Anthony in Dublin, Ireland. Jackie and I have been close friends since the latter half of high school even though we've known each other since the 6th grade. After college, she relocated to Manchester, England and we decided it was a must for us to meet up somewhere since we were both living in Europe. While I was admittedly eager to see them both and catch up, I wasn't particularly thrilled about visiting Ireland. Sure, Ireland is one of those European countries one HAS to visit (especially if you're American), but quite honestly I had never been inclined to explore it. Either way, after a few logistical mishaps and miscommunications, Dublin it was and I was determined to make the best of it.

Upon arrival, a certain epiphany came over me and I came up with the magnificent idea of walking from the Dublin airport all the way downtown to my place of accommodation in order to see more of the city. Magnificent I told myself...HA! A walk that should have taken about 2 hour's time suddenly turned into a dreadful treck spanning about 5 hours of non-stop walking after the directions I carried in my back pocket fell out while inattentive. Although I did get to see many thing I probably wouldn't have from an airport shuttle, it's fair to say I was burned out beyond belief by the end of the night, so I stayed in. The following day, Jackie's flight was delayed by a day and consequently, a trip in which we would have been together for 3 days devolved into just 1 day. Again, I was determined to make the best of it, and I did. I visited many attractions during the day, and at night I partied Jay Martinez style, met many great individuals, and genuinely made it a great time. As expected, my time with Jackie and Tony was nothing short of a sensational time, but I was surely ready to go home. Final verdict: Dublin is a great place with lots to do and see, but please fuck my life if it's ever easy to  find good looking people there, what the fuck Ireland???

Conversely, this past weekend I stayed local here in Bavaria and visited a nearby city named Würzburg. After reading about it in-depth, I found myself in sheer excitement for visiting one of southern Germany's most storied cities and decided to coerce my good friend Victor and a few others into exploring it along with me. Things I learned about it during my time there: it's truly a beautiful college town with a really nice river that runs through it (I have a thing for hanging out at rivers), the people there are extremely nice and beautiful with a particularly young crowd due to its university, there is certainly a plethora of sights to visit such as The Residence which is a UNESCO World Heritage Sight, but the best part of it all was that I enjoyed so much of it and saw so little of it in just as much time. Something tells me that because it's so accessible to me, I'll be spending copious amounts of time there in the near future.

The great things and amazing people in my life remain constant, my family is in good health, and I'm thoroughly enjoying every aspect of life thus far. The upcoming month promises to present me with various new experiences, experiments, and delightful progressions. In July I will be taking about 10 days of vacation to travel Portugal and meet up with  Eugene and friends of ours in Greece. Certainly I don't need to elaborate on that :-) I want to apologize for being a little out of touch as of late, but at the same time I'm really grateful that some of you continue reading these blogs even when I haven't posted anything new. You guys all rock! I leave you all with a little footage for you to poke fun at me for. On Sunday, Victor, Tony, and myself spent the afternoon along the river in Würzburg basking in the sun and naturally we had music. What do you think would happen if you provide me with great aesthetics and great music?

This would: