After we got back from Paris we had a full 3 days of roller derby to watch! I was very excited - we were here for the first official European roller derby tournament. It was held at Arena and outside there are these weird walls with like people built into the brick. Interesting.
The roller derby was amazing! 10 teams from all over Europe were playing and it was just so much fun. All of the teams are very closely matched so the bouts were sooo close! Well all except London who has been around a lot longer and is on a higher level of play - they blew everyone away. We got there and got a program and the one team had the following for their team photos:
Auld Reekie has pony power!! Well of course I had to root for them after Berlin. Luckily they didn't meet up so my loyalties wouldn't have to be split. They almost had to battle it out for 3rd place, but luckily it didn't happen so I could fully support the pony power and not feel bad. Man the derby was sooo good. There was the one bout between Berlin and Stockholm and whoever lost had to play Auld Reekie for 3rd place, the winner was in the finals. Well it kept going back and forth and then near the end I was just like this is it - Berlin is not going to come back and win it. They needed like 10 points, but Stockholm kept matching them and it was down to the final jam - the time had run out on the clock so it was just till the end of the 2 minutes and with 3 seconds left on the jam clock they scored the points they needed to win! It was incredible - they won by 1 point with 3 seconds left. Incredible. And so much fun to be there watching - everyone going crazy cheering and yeah. There were not a lot of bouts quite that close, down to the last seconds, but there were a lot that were very close and back and forth and so exciting. I cannot wait for the next tournament! Way better than nationals so I am glad we went. Oh and I almost forgot - I love that they use reusable cups at the venue. You have to pay a 1 euro deposit for the cup then pay for your beverage, then when you take the cup back you get your euro back (you also pay the deposit for bottles as well and get it back when you return them). I love it. No tons of plastic cups in the garbage. Perfect. Another plus.
The week after the roller derby tournament was Thanksgiving! I made a tofurkey, cornbread casserole, a green and white bean casserole, roasted brussel sprouts, mashed potatoes and gravy, and homemade stuffing. It was delicious! I also made a caramel apple pie. Now I don't really like apple pie that much, it is alright but not something I normally make. Really I don't like apples that much. I had found the recipe while looking for a good dessert and the blogger said how she doesn't like apple pie either, but this was amazing and changed her mind about apple pie. Really with a review like that how could I not try it? She was right - it was amazing! Like best pie ever. Seriously. So good.
The Saturday following Thanksgiving some of Raymond's coworkers had a thanksgiving dinner party where they made turkey and everything and wanted people to bring something so I made one of the caramel apple pies. It was a lot of fun. And everyone loved the pie - seriously best pie ever! It was fun as there were 4 of us from the US and everyone else was from other countries. By the time they were done everyone was saying how full they were and how much food they had eaten, but really I don't think they ate as much as we always did on Thanksgiving. Which...well I know I didn't eat as much this year. I was very disappointed in myself on our Paris trip as I could not eat as much as I normally could while Raymond could eat a ton. It was like we switched roles. This is not good - how will we eat at 10 different places in one day on our food vacations if I can't eat very much? Better get training for our next trip...speaking of food Raymond commented the other day how they really like their cakes and sweet here, but why isn't everyone overweight? I don't know. I guess they just don't eat as much in general or they are more active in general. I mean biking is huge when it is nice, people walk places and just do things. There is so much delicious junk food here, but somehow people are not incredibly overweight. They also drink a lot so....I don't know. Well I guess I will sign off now. Next post about snow and magic Christmas markets as soon as I can get everything uploaded. Christmas time here has been even better than I had imagined - just another reason why I love Berlin!
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