Happy Birthday Tim!!!

July 26.......

In the German culture you host your own birthday party (for adult birthdays). If you don't host the party/reception yourself it is assumed you don't want one.  The adidas tradition is that you bring in your own cake, cookies, muffins, cheese/crackers.  Basically anything that you want.  So Tim wanted to bring in good old chocolate chip cookies, as homemade cookies are not something that you find very often in the local Backerei's (bakery's).

The started off as a normal regular day.  Tim biked to work, with a panier full of wonderful chocolate chip cookies (wonderful, cuz I made them).  And by 1000 hrs they are mostly gone.  A good sign and an interesting too, because German's don't eat sweets for breakfast or in the morning.  A typical German breakfast (Frühstück) falls somewhere between what we would call a deli platter and a continental breakfast. Cold meats (including their famous sausages) and cheeses are served along side a variety of breads and sweet toppings like jam, marmalade and honey. Soft-boiled eggs, cereal and fruit would round out a large breakfast.

I biked out to Tim's office and joined him for lunch, on the adidas 'campus' and brought him a lovely kirsch (cherry) strudel with a candle on it (so cute).

At the end of the work day, Tim hopped on the adidas bus.....

and was driven down to easy-Credit Stadium in Nurnberg to take part (along with 199 other Team adidas runners) in the B2RUN Nurnberg 2012 race.  It is a business 6.2 km run with 15,000 runners, from 550 companies.


easy-Credit Stadium holds 50,000 people!!

 Major sponsor for the event (and other B2RUN's around Germany) is Erdinger - worlds largest wheat beer brewery founded in 1886.  Yes brewery (see more info below).

Erdinger beer can be purchased in Canada,
but I am pretty sure the alcohol free beer can't - too bad!

Start time 1930 hrs (7:30 pm) with a temperature of 32 C

Tim's colleagues - Volker, Sebastian, Sophie and Tim





The Start!
If you look closely, at the bottom left hand corner you will see a group
of people wearing bright orange shirts with 3 (adidas) yellow stripes
on the arms.  In the front row, wearing the baseball cap is Tim!!!



Tim coming into the stadium - the last 100 m!



The Finish Line!



Sophie high fiving Tim at the finish line!

 Interesting enough, the fastest woman in the race was from adidas and the fastest man was from rival Puma!


Tim and Volker.
It looks like they are drinking beer.  They are!
but it is non-alcoholic beer (alkoholfrei bier).
Erdinger, a local brewery sponsors the event all across Germany.
Non-alcoholic beer is seen, in Germany, as a sports drink.
It has no preservatives.....

 German drunk-driving laws are extremely strict and rigidly enforced. The legal limit for blood alcohol is 0.5 parts per million. Penalties for driving while intoxicated are severe. In addition, modern Germans, like most people nowadays, generally try to reduce their caloric intake. For these reasons, virtually every common German beer style is now available in a non-alcohol version as well.  As a result, it has to be good.  And it is.  You wouldn't even know it was alcohol free.  This is the problem in Canada - the alcohol free beers are not good, not good at all.  Maybe one day the Canadian (and American) breweries will wake up and smell the....yeast.

Read this......

Non-Alcoholic Beer
and Your Health

In spite of its its alcohol content of up to 0.5% vol.—an amount which can occur naturally even in fruit juices—non-alcoholic beers have no alcoholic effect on the body. In fact, all carbohydrate-containing food forms small amounts of alcohol in your stomach.

Because of the diluting effect of the relatively high water content of non-alcoholic beers, their concentration of particles (such as minerals and trace elements) corresponds roughly to that of human blood. Therefore, these particles are taken up much faster by the body than is the case with other beverages. This makes non-alcohoilic beers ideal electrolytes and mineral-rich, regenerative beverages especially after strenuous activities such as a work-out or mowing a lawn on a hot day.

Tim and his medal.
(everyone gets a medal, but don't tell him that)



Tim and Bernd.
Bernd is a retired pro basketball player
just completing his MBA and doing
a doing a 3 month coop at adidas.




Tim and Sebastian.



And everyone sang Happy Birthday to Tim.
This will be a birthday not to be forgotten!



The crowd, in the stadium, as we were leaving.

 Happy Birthday Tim!!!!

A WEEKEND IN PRAGUE

What a wonderful city!

(Prague - home to 1.3 million people, but the metropolitan area has a population of around 2.0 million)

Tim had some business to do in Prague for a day, so I decided to tag along and then we stayed on for three more days.  It was great.  But…..the temperature was a record 38 C everyday.  As you know, that didn’t slow us down.  We did, though, throughout the day go back to the hotel to cool down, have a shower, change and head out again.

Since 1992, the extensive historic center of Prague has been included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.  What is amazing is that Prague was not attacked and bombed during the Second World War - everything is original.  In 2011, Prague was the sixth most visited city in Europe!!!

This was Tim’s first time to Prague but my third.  My first visit was during a European trip after I graduated university – and yes, that would have been prior to the anti-communist revolution and the fall of the Iron Curtain.  It was much different back then.  I remember that we had to convert a certain amount of money into the Czech korunas and we weren’t allowed to convert it back or take any out.  The problem was, was that we couldn’t find anything to spend our money on, except food and drink (that was okay, I was 23 yrs old).  Oh, I think I bought a crappy wooden beer mug with a lid.  The second time was about six years ago when I accompanied my Mum on a river cruise down the Danube.  The tour started in Prague and then we were bused to Nurnberg where we boarded our boat.

So this time, my visit to Prague was with my wonderful husband.  What was nice, is that we saw many different sights that I hadn't seen before.  I know, that when we come again, we will see other different interesting sights too.

Here are some of the sights we saw……

This is Petr (Peter), he works for EyeLevel, a retail consulting firm in Prague
that is working with Tim at adidas.  He is an Architect and took us
around the Old Town and to a wonderful brewery where the
tourists don't go.




Of course, an adidas store and the trademark three stripes
 down the centre of the store.
Need to plug adidas, as we are on a business trip!

 

Wenceslas Square!
I was looking for a square, but not so much, more like a boulevard.
It is about 750 m long, sloping downhill from the
grand neoclassical National Museum (see next pic)

Wenceslas Square is one of the main city squares and the centre of the business and cultural communities in the New Town of Prague. Many historical events occurred there, and it is a traditional setting for demonstrations, celebrations, and other public gatherings.




Looking uphill toward the National Museum in Wenceslas Square.



The National Museum and King Wenceslas Statue at night.



Monument to Jan Palach and Jan Zajic.
Palach, as student of history and political economy committed suicide in Jan. 1969, as a political protest.
A symbolic event that is often taken to be central to the events that led to the fall of the Iron Curtain.
Zajic, at aged 19, also committed suicide, in April of the same year, also as a political protest against Communism.




Lovely fountain in front of the National Museum.

 


 King Wenceslas riding his upsidedown horse!
This is a large statue hanging from the ceiling in
an arcade which is in one of the several  alley type shopping centres
that are all around Prague.
The locals use these arcades and various alleys and squares
to get around Prague to avoid the crowded streets during tourist season.

 



We stayed in a hotel, but maybe on our next visit
we will stay in this lovely Botel - floating hotel on
Vltava River which runs through Prague.

 

Tim - relaxing already?  We just started!



An amazing monument in a little park beside the river.
It looks like a steeple off of a church.





This is where we were heading on our first day.
Prague Castle and Saint Vitus' Cathedral.



But first we must cross the famous St Charles Bridge (Karluv Most in Czech).



T & J at one end of the bridge!





Everyday artists and craftspeople set up booths to sell their art!



You can even go up one of towers that are located
at either end of the bridge.  If you can get by this guy  ;)





The climb up to Prague Castle.





A view from the top!



The Castle!

Nice Tim.
He couldn't be a guard!



We got up to the Castle just in time to
see the changing of the guards.








Inside St. Vitas' Cathedral



Just an ordinary (!!) light standard - Not!



Little did we know that on the Castle grounds, is the oldest vineyard in the Czech Republic.







It was beautiful up there!!



We went for a walk in the Castle's moat
(St Vitas' Cathedral in the background).



A tunnel in the moat!  Old meets new.



Wallenstein Palace.  Built in the years 1623-30 for Albrecht von Wallenstein.
He only lived in the castle for one year before being assinated in 1634.
The palace stayed in the Wallenstein family until 1945.
After WWII it became Czechoslovak state property and
currently is home to the Czech Senate.

The gardens of Wallenstein Palace.



A most unusual feature of the Gardens is The Grotesquery or Dripstone Wall.
It is intended to look like a limestone cave.
It runs for at least 50 m.





The Astrological Clock (and some tourists)





Some of the amazing architecture.





Of course, we came across a market.....

Take a close look at the back of this guys van.  Just behind him there are taps......



Yes, you are seeing correctly.  These are taps for wine.
You just bring your own container(s) and he will fill it(them) up!!
How civilized is that !





Beautiful bread (not as good as German bread though)



The market is held on the walkway / promanade along the river which is about 10 m below the road.  Under the road there are many nooks that they have made.  At around lunch time they open up and become bars.  Just like that!!!!

Again, quite civilized!  No fences to keep people in.



We always seem to come across a wedding!

 

 

Look how big they are!





More art...... St Charles Bridge in the background.



A parking garage!



In Prague, unlike Toronto, they are restoring their streetcars.
They are beautiful.





(love my new camera)





View from our hotel room.





We bid adieu from beautiful Prague.

 We will be coming back here for sure.  Perhaps it will be with you, if you come and visit us in Germany.  It is only a 3 hour drive.  A great 'city break' (as they call it here in Europe).