Our first Valentine's Day together was a special occasion, as we were finally reunited after one-and-a-half months of separation. We exchanged gifts: I got her a teddy bear dressed in lederhosen from Kitzbühel, which she named Hans, and she got me a cuddly toy tiger, which I christened Figaro Jr.
I thank God that our relationship continues to grow steadily as we get to know each other better. In March, I finally had the opportunity to meet Vanessa's older brother, Myles, and his fiancée, Huong. Thankfully it seems that they have accepted me, because not long afterward I received the formal invitation to their wedding in Dunedin in December this year. Even though Vanessa had told me about it last year, I dared not assume I would be invited just because I was her boyfriend.
Then we had the chance to celebrate our birthdays, mine in April and Vanessa's in May. My 28th birthday was easily the best since my 21st back in 2007. While it was fantastic to celebrate over dinner with close friends and family at Svago Ristorante and receive some very nice presents, I could not have guessed the surprise that my girlfriend had in store. She had asked one of her friends, who is a professional cake maker (click here for more info), to make a birthday cake for me in the shape of a red panda, one of my favourite animals. When it came out after dinner, I squealed like a woman on Oprah, it was so adorable!
For Vanessa's birthday in May, I got my idea for her present thanks to a double date we had a few weeks prior with Andrew, my old school friend who got married last year, and his lovely wife Amanda. They introduced us to Claude, the Kitchen Companion, a cute tablet / cookbook holder. Their one is blue, but since Vanessa's favourite colour is burgundy, I got her a red Claude, since that was the closest colour they had. Thankfully she was very happy with her present, and I hope she gets a lot out of it. May was a busy month for our family, and I will save explanations for my next post.
As I said in my post yesterday, I was at a German teacher colleague's house this morning with her family for the much-anticipated World Cup semifinal showdown between Brazil and Germany. As my colleague is Brazilian, she was of course supporting her home country, while I did my best at the start to remain neutral. But my reaction to the first German goal from Thomas Müller betrayed my real sentiments: I jumped up and yelled GOOOOOOOOOALLLL!! But never in my wildest dreams could I, nor anyone else for that matter, have foreseen what would happen next.
In six minutes of mayhem which would shake Brazilian football to the core, from the 23rd to 29th minute, the score suddenly blew out to 5-0, thanks to a combination of Brazil's inept defence (and even that is probably too nice a description!) and Germany's clinical finishing. I had said before the game that I wouldn't be surprised if Germany won, provided they came out to play with a ruthless attitude, and that is EXACTLY what they did. The final score had to be seen to be believed: 7-1! It was a result that set numerous records, among them the first time a team had scored 7 goals in a semifinal, as well as Brazil's heaviest loss in its football history.
I had read in the day leading up to the game that a Brazilian voodoo priest was planning to place a curse on one of the German players. As a disciple of Jesus, I know (and now understand why) black magic is a strictly off-limits area, and that those who dabble in it do so at great personal risk. So I thank God for causing the curse to backfire, in dramatic fashion, on the Brazilians.
Now I am about to head off to bed to try and get some sleep before watching the second semifinal to see who Germany's opponents will be. I hope you enjoy the match between Argentina and the Netherlands. I am almost certain it will be a closer game than the carnage we saw this morning.
Cheers and God bless!
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