Contract negotiations

The Wall. (Source: (c) dercartoon.de)

So today I just wanted to play football with my nation and went to date and place stated on the homepage. Only there was nobody there ... So I played with some other guys from another nation instead. At least today the Swedes showed a very different approach to football than we did in the last three years. Due to adverse weather conditions they play indoor football most of the time and that is easy to see in their way of playing: Short playing periods, a lot of small small dribbling, hectic back and forth ... Well as goalkeeper you do not mind and although my style is definitely different I think on my usual defensive field position I managed to fit into the system somehow as well. Good enough to win, at least. :) (Actually it does not make much of a difference if an attacker chooses to dribble or to pass the ball at indoor football if you decide to crush everything that approaches the goal you defend closer than 5 meters anyway - you just do not have to run as much with less passing. Well, not crush of course but you know what I mean ;) )

So afterwards I was asked if I wanted to play in their team ... Now what do I do?

The Name of the Wind, the fire and the Sword from Hell

Since I came to Sweden I have been told several times already that my name sounded very Swedish - not too bad to begin with in my new adopted country. :) This made me collect some facts about this (sur)name which I combined with a dash of nordic saga.

Some research on the internet suggests that the name Hellenbrand derives from the old name Hildebrand through sound shift. Hildebrand again consists of the Old High German/Old Nordic words hiltia which means "fight" or "combat" (Old High German dictionary, p. 213) and brant/brand which means "fire" or "sword" (Old High German dictionary p. 252).

Some other sources suggested that Hellenbrandt was one of the most common denotations for hell or a common synonym for the Lord of Darkness. So Sauron and Voldemort can pack their stuff, the only lord of darkness am I! :D (That's why I always tell people about the cookies we have on the dark side ...)

But now let us get to the promised nordic saga ... The name Hildebrand is a very old one. It already appears in the Hildebrandslied - Hildebrand's Tale from the beginning of the ninth century and here I tell a short version of this tale:

Hildebrand left his wife and his son to move to the court of Dietmar von Bern to teach Dietmar's son Dietrich the art of fighting. He seamed to have done a good job as later on Dietrich is one of the few survivors and a later king in the bloody Nibelungenlied. (Advice from my father when I wanted to read the Nibelungenlied some ten years ago: Ah you do not need to read it. At the end everybode is dead. - This is actually a quite accurate summary.) Anyway, when Hildebrand returned to his home country with an army (not with bad intentions as far as I remember) after striking dead Kriemhild with Siegfried's sword (her husband - murdered by Hagen of Tronje some time before) at the end of the Nibelungenlied he meets his son Hadubrand with his army. Hildebrand reveals his identity which Hadubrand does not believe thinking it is an artifice of war and so he challenges his father for a duell. Hildebrand cannot refuse due to the prevailing code of honour and so he tragically strikes his son dead. Afterwards he engraves his son's face into his shield where he engraved all the other 80 opponents' faces he has defeated in combat.

The Tale of Hildebrand's Death tells that Hildebrand was defeated by his half-brother Asmundar later on after his sword broke and - lying on his own shield, his head next to his son's engraved face - asked Asmundar to bury him covered in Asmundar's coat.

This is the (short version of the) tale of Hildebrand, my old namesake. I hope I did not mess up some of the nordic sagas, it has been a while since I read them ...

System of a Tackfest

Two weeks ago I worked at Hallands nation as you might remeber. There is this great system that students just work for free at pubs and clubs just because they want to and just to give others a good time. (Not just at Hallands but at all te nations.) However, they do not work completely for free as (at least at Hallands) there are the so called tackfester ("thank you parties"). One or two weeks after working you can attend one of those. There you get a free meal, half a liter of wine, some snaps and free entry to the club afterwards. And most important you have great company! (Singing is included as well - of course!)

Yesterday I attended my first tackfest and as you might have interpreted from the paragraph before it was great! Met some new people, met some people from before again after some time, in three words: a great evening! (Maybe I should have called the article simply "great" ...)

And as if it was not already clear before I will work at Hallands more often - next time in the pub, I hope! :)

Hell of a testgame!

Very official press release by Hell of a blog! Sports Ressort:

Yesterday the maybe promising midfield talent Markus Hell has been observed by local football clubs. In the first football match in his new adopted country he played on the positions of a defensive midfielder and right/left/centre back as often observed back in Germany. Although he showed his usual relentless defence work he could not that often show his greatest strength - his widely feared headers. Nevertheless he got some numbers of famous local teams and will be in contact with some of the local professional teams in the course of the next week.

The overall of all players consisted of a great variety of international players and funny enough the clichés brought up often in earlier times were quite applicable to the game. Hard-line and fierce tacticians never slowing down on the one hand and rather playful and ... emotional dribblers on the other hand - I will not reveal who came from which compass direction. ;)

Typiskt svensk - kanelbullens dagen

Yes, kanelbullens dagen. It is today and indeed it is the day of the kanelbulle - the day of the cinnamon roll. It might not make sense in the first place but today Sweden celebrates the cinnamon roll. :D By eating loads of it and so did I - of course. The kanelbulle is very typical for Sweden and there is probably almost no fika without it. Fika is very Swedish as well, by the way. It is difficult to translate or explain because it is so special.^^ One might translate it with something like "drinking coffee together" but actually it is more. More about socialising, taking a break, relaxing in all the stress going on, ... typiskt svenskt - very good and essential part of Swedish culture which I have learned. :)

In celebration of the day here is picture of kanelbullar I made a few weeks ago. ;)

(Only the right sugar is missing.)

Swedish music - today: reggae!

Today I finally managed to check out some music a friend of mine told me about: A Swedish reggae band called Kultiration! While reggae is maybe not the typical sound one would expect from Sweden I am already a little flashed by the first song I listened to! :D
There seem to be some traditional Swedish folk elements in the music, as far as I can hear being neither a reggae expert nor a Swedish folk expert and it sounds really great! (Assumption purely based on comparison. ;) ) And at least the guy behind the drums seems to be hell of a musician! (I cannot help checking this with every kind of music. ;) ) My Swedish is not yet good enough to understand the lyrics but I think it is something about a better world ... (Swedes might correct me if I am wrong.) Listen to it yourself!

So it seems that Sweden does not only produce some of the greatest metal bands such as Opeth (full concert as example), Amon Amarth (f*cking awesome Wacken 2012 concert), In Flames (even more f*cking awesome Wacken 2012), ... (insert any none American metal band here - they might well be from Sweden ;) ) and as well some DJs as I have learned recently (as you might know, I do not know anything at all about this kind of exposure to acoustic waves but even I know for example Aviciis Wake me up) but that there are also great reggae bands from this beautiful country! (Sry for the long sentence ;) )

The Hobbit

The Hobbit ... No, that is not me, I mean The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. ;) Why The Hobbit? Today I saw the brand-new trailer and I think it is ... quite ... absolutely AWESOME!

I was just wondering: Why does a book get three movies and "the other" book, about six times as long, gets three movies as well? Meaning: How about 18 Lord of the Rings movies? :D

Nah whatever, just enjoy the trailer!

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - Official Main Trailer by Warner Bros. Pictures