After a few days of much needed time at home, we flew on Saturday morning to Munich to play for our team, Munich 1836 (you can follow their tweets here). When we landed back in Doncaster from Amsterdam/Wijk Gawain needed a few days of R&R after such a long tournament. It’s impressive how your body is able not to get sick while you are working and once it realises it’s OK now to be ill, it can collapse. Unfortunately for Ga, he hasn’t quite gotten over his cold and the worst of it was on Sunday when we had our game to play.
Our friend Mike Kwan unfortunately fell ill and wasn’t able to be his usually hospitable self and so we met up with our teammate IM Milos Lapcevic and we dragged him to the Aussie/Irish pub to watch the 6 Nations. I’ve set up a fantasy rugby team and am pleased to say I’m currently beating Gawain and most of the girls at my new rugby club Sheffield RFC! There are still quite a few games to go, including this weekend. I’ve now switched my European support to England to win the 6 nations but I wouldn’t be disappointed if they drew one game, so that the Number 1 team in the world, the All Blacks, can keep their record breaking 18 wins. Milos was a good sport watching most of the rugby with us (as it’s not popular in Serbia) and it was not so easy for me to explain all the rules. After the rugby we ventured to find some food and the first Thai place we tried was fully booked. The waiter gave us directions towards another Asian food outlet but we got lost. I made an executive decision to eat in a dodgy looking Asian eatery but the food was so delicious and very cheap!
I play in the Regionalliga Sud-West (5th Division) and Gawain in the Oberliga (3rd). The games start early at 10am and I don’t think my body woke up in time. I had to catch the U Bahn (very easy and convenient) with my team mates towards the club. Unfortunately the second team doesn’t play with the first team. We tend to head to our home club after the match and meet up with our clubmates. As usual we had a delicious dinner at the local Italian before heading back to the airport for the late night flight. We both drew this weekend but Gawain was lost in his game for most of it and was lucky his opponent chose to repeat. I also had a repetition after a slightly dodgy opening (as usual) by me.
Our flight home was eventful. There were 3 males in the back of the plane harassing the attendants who politely asked them to tone down and to keep quiet. When we landed the pilot apologized but said due to some disruptive passengers the police had been called. It was the first time that I’ve been on a flight where the police had to come on board! Everyone waited very patiently and eventually we got home around 1am.