Footy fever

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Dear family and friends

The offer of a trip to Germany - all expenses on work - was too good to pass up, so I signed on for the work soccer team and spent the last weekend in April hiding behind my goalie gloves in Cologne.

Together with a really lovely team of girls from the London, Brussels and Paris offices (pictured), we played against a seriously scary team from Moscow, as well as teams from Bratislava (not a country in itself but actually the capital of Slovakia I discovered....the hard way), Budapest, Madrid and Germany. Whilst we may not be getting any calls to play in the World Cup, we were pretty pleased to come 4th out of 9, especially as we had 4 Aussies in the team who didn't know the rules and I am not exactly the most competent goalie around. After playing through wind, rain and hail, we spent the rest of the weekend enjoying the sights and sounds of Cologne - mainly 90s Europop in the clubs and the odd cathedral.

Then in mid May I headed to Lisbon for our work retreat and stayed on afterwards to soak up some sun (sadly absent in London) with work mates. Again there was lots of 90s Europop, as well as a heart-felt rendition of Land Downunder with fellow Aussie Simone - and some fantastic seafood lunches and dinners sitting out in cobblestone laneways and in terraced restaurants overlooking the water.

At the end of May I headed back to Oz for Sare and Ben's wedding - which was so much fun - and now I'm back in London, trying to readjust to work and missing you all like crazy.

I hope everything's going well back home
lots of love
Ver

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