King of Beer

The long awaited beer night finally took place last weekend in one of Ålidhem’s local residence halls. The main purpose with the evening was (apart from having a great time) to give the guests something they hadn't experienced before, good tasting (and expensive) beer. I had, to make the experience even better, prepared something to eat to every beer. The highlight in the food department must have been the meatballs and I’m glad that they went down well considering the hard labouring hours behind the carefully handmade delicacies. It wasn’t exactly a four course meal, but there were plenty to eat so even my hungry brother could satisfy his empty stomach.

Three out of four were ale and they were really appreciated among the guest, I hade also bought a normal lager beer which has a can that titillates itself as world champion 17 years ago…anyway it was interesting to compare the different types of beer and also detect how they smelled even if it was hard to distinguish the faint and subtle smell of coffee from one of the beer’s.

This wasn’t only an opportunity to enjoy good tasting beer and food together with good friends it was also a cultural event since I had set out to cultivate my guests regarding the history of the beer and also give them interesting facts about the golden liquid that were served. It wasn’t exactly a history lesson but my enlightened guests can now impress other people when they tell them about the legend of the hobgoblin, how the prohibition in America affected the breweries and also that people has been brewing beer for more than 12 000 years.

One of my friends had prepared a quiz competition with 9 cunning questions, I teamed up with my brother and we managed to get 7 out of 9 which is quite impressive but we failed to nail the last tie-breaking question…”how many birches are there in Umeå?” his girlfriend got it perfectly right with 3 000 threes. (I’m not a big fan of conspiracy theories but is it just a coincidence that he choose a tree question when his girlfriend is…a tree expert…? I don’t know if the truth ever will be told but the candy bar that she and her competitor won looked damn tasty…)

I do think that the beer night was appreciated and that it was worth the 60 kr you had to pay for good tasting beer and food.

9 km of pain

I have never been very keen on running; the “magic” flow people are talking about has never helped me…

Anyway, I have during April and the first half of May been preparing for a charity race around Umeå’s only lake. One thing which is of crucial importance when you are to run 9 km is preparation. I did prepare, I have for example done some swimming and cycling at the gym and two football matchers can be added to the list. But hey…weren’t you supposed to run a race shouldn’t you have done some running too? Of course, it was top priority for more than a month but I couldn’t find (in some strange way) time for it until it was two days before the race. Smart move Markus, I was cursing my unwise decision when I, on the race day, was walking on legs full of aches towards the lake.

Anyhow, I teamed up with my brother during more than half of the race but he must have taken some painkillers before the race as he seemed untroubled with the more than real pain. I was, in the end beaten with 25 seconds and I’m not looking forward to see the photographs of the finish since I must have looked like a person who had lost his ability to walk and run for that matter and also someone who performed the least graceful finish ever.

I must mention that the race when it comes to arrangement was a huge success, all cred to the people involved in it!