BUM (Beach Ultimate Mitte)

"Yeah, I am pretty stoked for the upcoming beach tournament in Berlin."
"Lori, you do know that there isn't actually a beach in Berlin, right?" My friend, Matt, kindly pointed that out to me a few weeks ago, a fact which I clearly knew. Berlin may be land locked with no big lakes, but they do like their sand volleyball in the middle of the city. This past weekend was a long weekend in Berlin, again, and got to play some Frisbee on the sand.

The weekend actually started on Thursday, when I caught the train into the city and went to Rob's. We had a good chat and made icing. It was then time for me to meet Dean at the airport, woo! It was his birthday, and what a great present. That night, the three of us went out and got some delicious, American style cheeseburgers. They were huge, and I was even able to get it cooked medium rare (they like to cook all meet to well done here). When we walked in, I asked if the kitchen was still open, in German, but after sitting down, I heard the waitress speaking English with a typical American accent. Almost everyone in the place was a native English speaker. But I don't care, because it has been over 8 months since I have had a decent burger.

We slept in the next day, lounging around and enjoying the quiet morning. But we were still able to get out the door by 1pm to do our small walking tour of Berlin. We went to the basic sites, Alexanderplatz, where the TV tower is, down the Brandenburg gate, and then the Reichstag. That walk, with stops all over the place ending up being about seven hours, but it was sunny the whole time and I was wearing shorts!

After a terrible night's sleep, because we opted to stay in the gym, it was time to play some ultimate. Dean met up with his pick-up team, and they were all a bunch of really great guys, and I met up with Dresden women's team. It was their second tournament as a women's team, and I think they are going to be great after some training and getting some more girls. We were 10-11 players all weekend, which is a great number for the beach. We weren't expecting all that much, but we ended up winning 3 games, but also getting demolished in two others. I handled a lot more than I would prefer, but it is good for my playing, just keep getting better at everything.

The sun was out the whole weekend, which really makes a beach tournament. We met a lot of new people. I took Dean, Robert (another Fulbrighter) and his friend Sebastian out to the great Viatnamese place. That had been my 5th (and final) time there, but because of the specials, it was still spectacular! The Sunday night party was great, some dancing and a lot of socializing. I didn't spend as much time with the team as I normally like, but I don't regret that. Katy was also there, which is always a fun time. We spent a little bit of time with the Frankfurt team on Sunday night, and they brought their own freeze master hat, and I am pretty sure we freaked out the women running the ice cream stand. But what would you think if about 10 people just stopped moving/talking in front of your kiosk?

Dean and I watched the open final together (oh Monday, it was a 3 day tourney), and we were just sitting there, watching frisbee and playing fantasy frisbee (I lost pretty badly) with the sun shining down on us, perfect.