the random ponderings of e. f. danehy

wherein erin discusses writing & young adult fantasy (using much parenthetical commentary & tangential ramblings).

Tag: germany

World Cup fever!

Saturday June 19, 2010

The FIFA World Cup's "fan fest" in Munich's Olympiapark, summer 2006.

I has the World Cup fever. I has it bad.

I was in Germany in June 2006, during the last FIFA World Cup. Having grown up playing sports, the daughter of a sports-obsessed father (rather equal opportunity, actually, in his enthusiasm), it was only natural that being in the host country of the 2006 World Cup, I would get into it in a crazy way. Which I did. I went to the biergartens, where they erected huge screens and displayed the game for hundreds of cheering, happy German (and international!) fans. There is nothing like being surrounded by rabid sports fans full of cheerful enthusiasm. My first experience with München’s famed Hofbräuhaus was to see it filled with folks from every conceivable nation — wearing the identifiable jerseys to go along with the cacophony of varied languages — all arguing (amiably!) with their neighbors about the upcoming matches. It’s a rare event that has the power to bring people from dozens of nations together, happily, and I don’t care if it makes me a nerd to say  I love seeing all of the coverage on ESPN, seeing fans gathering at bars at 7:30 or 9:30am EST for a match. I love it.

My experience with rivalries in sports before this was the Yankess / Red Sox rivalry, where stories tell of angry fans of either team causing trouble for the others. But this international competition was friendly in a way I only associate with the Olympics, but with none of the Olympics’ occasional disparateness. There was unity without spite. I loved that.

Seeing people in New York get excited for the World Cup gets me excited. Seeing an entire bar or restaurant erupt in explosive cheers when a goal is scored — there’s nothing like it. The Superbowl can’t evoke that same sense of national pride, of unity, the way seeing team USA score does. It makes me hope soccer gets a greater foothold here in the US… well, maybe I want to aim lower first. I’d love to see the US advance in the World Cup tournament and make us proud. That’d be wonderful.

Deutschland Superlatives!

Friday September 8, 2006

I figured now that the trip has finished and I’ve had some reasonable amount of time to reflect on my experiences in Europe and Germany in particular, I’d create my own list of weird superlatives (or top-5 or 10 lists) and give you a basic rundown of things I observed that I have never really written about.

 

3 Ways in Which European Men Differ From American Men

3. They have an innate fashion sense. (They wear white pants. And carry man-purses. Or wear Capri pants.)

2. They speak multiple languages. Often fluently. How often do you get that in America?

1. They have no qualms about being very erm, open, with their respective women (or men) on the street, in public parks, on the subway…regardless of the American tourist expressing her wide-eyed shock. (American men largely think that public displays of gorging affection are signs they are “whipped” or something. *rolls eyes heavily*)

 

Best Things About Germany (Europe)

5. The fact that you can drive for two hours and travel through three countries. Drive! Through multiple nations! Overland transportation to worlds of different languages!

4. The history. Geschichte. Whatever word you call it, this place is rich and seeping with ancient history. Each city handles it their own way, but it’s all vastly more interesting and fascinating than America. *looks guiltily around* What? America is cool, but you can’t say there’s a building 800 years old sitting next door, can you? Can you? Hmmmmmm?

3. Trains. U-Bahns. Métros. Whatever you call ’em, they’re doing something right here. City to city transport is fantastic; they’re doing something that Amtrak is seriously lacking in America. Fast, cheap fares? Convenient times? Quick purchases? Group travel? America really needs to get on the ball.

2. Eis. Ice Cream. 70 cents a Kugel. *salivates* Crème di Mascarpone, Hazelnuss, Zimt… *faints from Eis withdrawal*

1. The bread. Pastry, sandwich, pretzel, you name it, Europeans understand and appreciate bread products. (This, in a way, is associated with the beer. The beer was very, very good.)

 

Worst (Or, Well, Annoying) Things About Germany (Europe) — Top 5

5. The 2-Euro cent. (Seriously, Europe, WTF, mate?)

4. The University/school system. From what I’ve heard, there are some pieces that are worse than America—and most of this I heard from the parent of a 14 year old. All kids should have the chance to go to Universität, methinks, not just the fortunate or extra-smart ones. Especially in this day and age when (at least in the US) you need a Bachelor’s Degree to do anything. Maybe I didn’t get a full grip on it, but America, for once, is doing something sort of right with its educational system.

3. The lack of screens on windows. I thought this was the best idea ever—Germany has few bugs—until I realized what staying up late reading with a desk lamp can do for a person’s white walls and white bedspread. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwww. Lack of bugs? NO!

2. Bathrooms that charge. (50 cents to use the can? America, don’t you dare capitalize on that!)

1. The fact that Germany is 6,000 miles from America. All of Europe, in fact, is too far. Continental drift must work faster! Faster, I tell you!

 

Things About Germany Which America Needs to Adopt—Immediately.

5. Candy machines that also sell soda and water. Both, in a single machine! Genius!

4. German efficiency. So awesome to come into contact with bureaucratic stuff that takes no time at all.

3. Escalators that change direction. Boo-yah!

2. Fresh produce, everywhere. Fresh! Fresh! Fresh! No frozen, chemical crap. Fresh!

1. The cheap, fresh food found at corner delis. Please, America, start baking real bread and charging 1,40€ for the best sandwich of my life, immediately…Please! PLEASE!

 

Best Churches I’ve Seen

5. Peterskirche, Salzburg. (Too Baroque/Rocco for its own good, but pretty spiffy for all that. It’s clearly a church fit for royalty.)

4. Lorenzkirche, Nürnberg. (Huge. Huge. Gothic. Gothic.)

3. Notre Dame, Paris. (The inside lost it points. So dark and dreary!)

2. Dom St. Maria, Augsburg. (Medieval and Romanesque brillance.)

1. Frauenkirche, München. (Despite being rebuilt, the inside is just take-your-breath-away huge. It’s really one of those places that actually feels undeniably holy, down to its foundations.)

 

Most Embarrasing Moment

3. When, near Karlsplatz, I said to an ice cream man, “Zwei Kugeln, bitte,” over and over, while holding up three fingers. Damn my dyslexic difficulties with “zwei” and “drei”!

2. Discussing and musing critically about a 16 year old who hooked up with some guy here—and realizing that guy was standing behind me. I don’t know him personally, but even so!

1. I actually don’t think I can post it. Hah. Talk to me about it. It’s a story.

 

Weirdest Moment

Getting on the U-Bahn after the Germany-Portugal game from Olympia Park to Marienplatz. The fans were all painted and bedecked in the schwarz-rot-gold and were jumping up and down, rocking the U-Bahn back and forth. The press of bodies was so intense—and the singing! Oktoberfest songs, random cheers…a heady sort of feeling to be among such fervent people. Weird for sure, but fun.

 

Most Painful Moment

I learned the hard way what having two liters of Hofbräu Helles at the Hofbräuhaus, followed by a trip to an Irish Pub, and a Mexican Cantina, can do to a person’s head the next morning. How do German 16 year olds survive their birthdays?

 

Creepiest Moment (tie)

—When the dude came up to us on the train and asked to get on our Schönes-Wochenende ticket.

—When the Haus-Frau nearly killed me for taking back our pot I’d left in the public kitchen. She practically accused me of stealing with the coolest, most frightening glance I’ve ever gotten from a single person. Wow. Scary.

 

Favorite German Phrases

5. “Ich liebe dich!” I love you!

4. “Mein Deutsch ist sehr schlecht. Ich kann verstehen, aber ich kann nicht so gut sprechen.” Literally: My German is very bad. I can understand, but I can not so well speak.

3. “Jawohl.” Indeed/Exactly

2. “Ein bisschen.” A little bit.

1. “Genau!” Exactly!

 

Proudest Moments

5. Realizing that I can hold my balance better when climbing up and down slippery rocks and exposed alpine tree roots while carrying a heavy purse—including jumping from rock to rock, ha!—than I can keep my balance walking through a flat, warm house.

4. Seeing six European cities, including all major tourist attractions in them, as well as Linderhof/Neuschwanstein, in a month, and hearing people tell me at the end that they didn’t get to do a third as much, and being disappointed they spent so much time discovering alcohol. (*allows herself a self-satisfied sigh*)

3. Not missing a single day of Goethe Institut class. Not once!

2. Being able to, in German, negotiate a half-off bargain at H&M with the salesgirl respecting me and not speaking a word of English. No awkwardness! (As well as being able to pay at cash registers by hearing the numbers, not seeing them!) I was totally able to carry on passable conversations more than once, albeit awkwardly, but that H&M experience was the only one without embarrassment, only joy!

1. Being prepared more than everyone around me, consistently. [Examples: Being the only person in a group of 3 or more with (a) a map or (b) the knowledge and logical capability to read it and discern the proper orientation and direction of (a) the dorm or (b) the __ tourist site we need to see next; always carrying a compass to easily dispatch arguments of cardinal directionality; bringing a bottle opener/corkscrew when I figured it might come in handy; etc.] So useful to be prepared.

Does it go without saying I’m proud I survived?

 

So there you have it, folks. My trip is over — has been for some time >.> — and I’m home safe and happy. I probably won’t be updating this blog for a while, now, but feel free to email me and talk to me about my trip any time.

Bis bald! Auf Wiedersehen!

Dachau

Monday July 31, 2006

Samstag, 22 Juli

I woke up feeing exhausted and aching all over. Those damned Isar rocks! Smite them all! My knees and legs were cramped from crouching, sitting, kneeling, and squatting by the barbecue all evening, so the thought of being a tourist hurt. (Literally.) The thought of where I was going wasn’t really too thrilling either. Dachau is an ancient medieval/renaissance town in its own right, but where were we going? The only reason why Dachau is infamous. Its concentration camp. Mary and I weren’t exactly bright rays of sunshine when we greeted each other. Nor was anyone else. It was with a rather stiff air that we all made our way to the Deutsche-Bahn and took the suburban train to Dachau. That was my first shock, that it’s a half-hour from München. The bright sun of Bavaria, so near the melancholy cloud of Dachau.

I don’t like to dwell on all that I saw. Like the air of a graveyard, there was a strange stillness or disquiet in the atmosphere, despite the sun, that kept it from being a lovely day. It was terrifically hot, and I later learned that it’s always either hot or cold in Dachau, no real middle ground. When we walked up to the entrance from the bus stop, I was startled to see how simple everything was, including the simple wrought-iron gate. “Arbeit macht frei” it said, in large letters across the gate. I shivered, despite the intense probably 37-grad heat.

We met our tour guide, cheerful and smiling blonde woman, by the main building. She looked about college-age and spoke in a rapid but well-enunciated German such that I could understand a good bit of what she said, especially when I strained for it. (I’m surprised at how much German I can understand audibly. Thank goodness it’s not French, which is impossible!) She explained that the tour would be two and a half hours—and I instantly looked to Mary. Had I heard that right? My German comprehension apparently had been correct. Two and a half hours! I blinked. That’s a long time to be walking in the sun of a dreary graveyard of a museum. Well, I decided, it was 5 € for all of it. Stop griping.

We moved from place to place to stand in front of signs as the tour guide explained the history and significance of certain sights. Dachau was started in 1933 as a camp for political prisoners and outcasts—“asocials” and political prisoners and homosexuals and gypsies—and was more of a work camp and a sort of trial-by-error example of a camp than any of the others. In the mid-1930s, when the Nazis were more of a political party than anything, the propaganda of the camp in the German news was rather… frightening. To justify the existence of such a camp, the newspaper articles explained about the rehabilitative nature of the camp and how they would routinely release prisoners who did show improvement or a change in attitude. (And they actually did, early on.) The nature of the persuasive propaganda put me in the frame of mind of Wicked, the musical, in which the Wizard of Oz uses the media and the idea of manipulative propaganda to make the people of Oz believe what he wants them to believe. Why is that story so strongly affective? Because stuff like it actually happened.

Our tour guide brought us to the gate and gestured at the inscription in iron. Our tour guide gestured to it and said, in German and English, “Es sagt, ‘Arbeit macht frei,’ oder in Englisch, ‘Work makes you free.’ Which is, excuse my French, bullshit.” (She did indeed say the last part in English.) As we came to see as the tour progressed, Dachau was a very interesting place… if you look at it in a detached, completely unemotional sort of way. (It’s very easy to get severely depressed by just looking around. I attempted to get into detached Historian mode.) For instance, it was at Dachau where the head guy of Auschwitz was trained. It was at Dachau where they pioneered methods that would be used elsewhere. Creepy as heck, but it puts some things into perspective, a little bit.

After we’d been walking for far too long in the hot sun, our tour guide asked, rather genially, if we’d like to see the crematorium. Mary and I looked at each other. I supposed that unless she kept a somewhat upbeat attitude, her job would be pretty miserable. We all decided, sure, why the heck not, let’s go see the crematorium, and we set off toward a tree-lined square, where rusted barbed wire was the only last surviving artifact showing that the beautifully shaded and quaint little square around a squat and unassuming building was actually a place for death. It was, literally, pretty, because of the memorials set up around the building. It did not look like anything other than a small brick house, with a rather large set of chimneys. Then we walked inside.

I don’t think I’ve ever walked so quickly through a museum in my life. Because it was a museum. But I’d had no idea, none, that there were gas chambers in said museum, as well as ovens. Somehow the word “crematorium” seemed to conjure something that did not mean “site of mass murder.” I have no idea what I was actually expecting.

No one said anything as we exited. If anyone met anyone’s eyes, they averted their own quickly. We all thanked our tour guide after that, but that was all any of us really said on the long walk back to the bus stop, and throughout the train ride back to the Hauptbahnhof. We all agreed to see each other tomorrow at Goethe for Neuschwanstein, but it was with a strange air that we all parted.

I immediately headed back to my room, getting a few things at the Tengelmann’s, and sat sort of detachedly on my window sill. I grabbed the first of Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy, Assassin’s Apprentice, and stared out at the Kinder Garten down below. I severely needed a book as distraction. Needless to say, reading all 480 pages of it—British typesettings and spellings and all—took me only a few hours, and I was happily distracted by the time I fell into an exhausted sleep.

Grillabend!

Monday July 31, 2006

(I am still attempting to play post-catch-up. Here’s a new one!)

Freitag, 21 Juli

We all met at Goethe at 5:45 to head over to the Isar River together as a group. Mary and I had met at 4:45 to go to Tengelmann’s, the grocery store, to purchase steaks and wine. We found some delicious cuts for 3 Euro each, and bought a bottle of red and white—one for the brie and baguette we had, the other for the meat—and set off for Goethe. There were a lot of people—more than I’ve ever seen assembled for a Goethe event. As a result, it took quite a while for us all to get on the right subway, but once we got out into the sunlight near the München Zoo, we were supposedly going in the right direction. When we walked over toward the river, I was surprised. The Isar (pronounced “Eeee-zar”) is—small. Very shallow and swift-moving, easy to ford with a pair of shorts. There are faster and deeper places, of varying temperatures, and this was apparently the leisurely, swim-able part of it. For the most part it’s clear blue-green water, and the entire river basin is filled with round and smooth gray rocks.

There is a park on the Isar, some of which is still connected with the Englisher Garten, and there were Germans everywhere, many with small barbecues and picnic blankets and bikes—on the rocks. The “beach” was very rocky, and then the shallow area between the forks in the rivers were even more rocky. It was on one of these rocky areas we set up camp. The guys who had brought Frisbees looked at each other incredulously. Where were they supposed to run? The girls in bikinis looked warily at the water. This was not exactly as we’d anticipated. And—most importantly for Mary, myself, and our slowly warming steaks—where was the barbecue?

I love barbecuing. Grilling. What have you. And I was eager to have my first steak in ages—it’s been wurst, fruit, cheese, and on occasion potato-something since I’ve been here, not to mention the oddest assortment of beverages (Apfel Schorle, or apple soda, is the weirdest by far). I was in the mood for a classic and ancient-seeming dinner. The Romans definitely had their bread, cheese, steak, and wine—and I was going to have mine on a river they might have forded, oh, two thousand years ago? I was beyond determined.

Mary and I sat on her tiny towel and opened the white, using the glasses she’d borrowed from her Haus-Mutti’s kitchen. We figured we might as well eat the baguette and cheese as we waited. Of course, not everyone was so patient.

Ian and Zeb came over, and all the warning I had (so I will claim) is Ian dumping a bag about a foot and a half away from me on the rocks. I glanced over to see both he and Zeb looking pleased with themselves. And at last, I saw why. There might have been a drumroll for the anticipation.

An aluminum portable barbecue. I blinked. Several times. Portable…barbecue…with charcoal…that you throw out after a single use? Ingenious! The best idea ever! I immediately wanted to hug the collective Germany for creating such a product. What innovation—and this coming from a girl from the land of bite-sized, travel-fitted, mobile, on-the-go everything. America, I wanted to scream, wake up and design this!

Out of the bag came champagne, a few beers, three packages of wursts of various kinds, a package of cups, plates, and knives. “We could only afford one kind of utensil,” Zeb explained, half-laughing. “We figured that’d be the most important one.” He had a point, naturally. I was prepared to eat my steak with my hands, of course, but I wasn’t about to show them that. I am a lady. I think. Somewhere. I was wearing a skirt, so naturally I had to be well-behaved. I have the worst luck with the one skirt I brought. I always seem to wear it to places where it’s totally wrong and awkward—like the outdoor Opera. Or the Olympia Turm. Or the Eiffel Tower. (Admittedly, it was much more behaved on the Eiffel Tower than on the Olympia Turm!) I always at least have worn my sensible shoes (so much for bringing my heels, I never went clubbing) but of course I was sitting on the gray, dusty rocks with Mary’s towel barely hiding the bruises I knew were forming on every part of my lower body, in that skirt. I took Ian’s sudden entrance as my perfect opportunity to be distracted from my complaints, moving to a stand.

Ian unwrapped it and attempted to read the directions, puzzled over the German, and set them aside. Boys, I immediately thought, because while I never read directions myself, I always am able to figure it out. (*looks around to see if anyone will call her on that*) It took Ian a few minutes to realize he ought to look at the directions. While he was busy, Zeb and I fixed the rocks, and I propped the aluminum pan on its base, grinning to myself. Easy! Now how to get them to let me use their grill…

Zeb pulled out a lighter. He explained they’d taken it from the girl at the counter, but they hadn’t paid for it because she probably thought they were going to be bringing it back. Zeb couldn’t stop laughing. He handed over the lighter and pulled out another item from their shopping excursion. Zulu Fire Sauce. The others who had gathered around—a few people I didn’t know, but who were all friendly and easy to laugh—immediately looked askance, or at least amused, at Zeb. They passed the bottle around to sniff it and dismissed it as a red curry sort of sauce. Ian managed in the meanwhile to get the lighting paper of the thing to light, which immediately erupted into quiet flames, setting aflame the charcoal.

The waiting of the next fifteen minutes was hilarious. Mary and I drank our white, and Ian, Zeb and the others tackled their champagne. “Where did you get all of this stuff?” asked a kid who came over at the smell of charcoal. Alex, I recalled. I’d met him the day before on the way to Schloss Nymphenburg; he grew up in Pittsburgh but goes to the University of Michigan, so we had discussed Pittsburgh briefly. “At the Zoo,” Zeb replied, and cracked up. Everyone else did, too. Apparently up the hill at the München Zoo, they have a shop of motley things, including things like wurst and a portable grill. As you can imagine, the torrent of animal jokes—the zoo, selling a barbecue, haha—abounded. I can’t even repeat them here. I was laughing myself, though.

Ian was impatient to get to grilling, especially when we saw Peter the Zivi coming down the rocks with Maximiliano, each carrying a heavy metal gas grill. “You have to wait for the flames to burn down,” Alex said. “At least another ten minutes,” Zeb put in. “You want the coals to be more gray than black,” I added. I had inadvertently taken up protective residence by the grill—to claim second dibs, I told Zeb—and alternately crouched and knelt by the coals, bruising my knees with the dull hardness of the rocks. “You really wanna grill your steaks, don’t you, Newark?” Zeb asked, laughing.

Zeb calls me Newark. I told him that was where I was flying into the first time we met, and so somehow he decided it’d be amusing to call a native New Yorker “Newark.” Obviously it’s because he knows the last thing a true native New Yorker wants is for someone to think they’re from New Jersey. (New Jersey is the armpit of America, so we all know where we stand with that. *nods*) They’re not truly as cool as New York or Pennsylvania, and so they’re just the inessential connective neighbor. And they smell. I explained this to Jeff one time, and he just dismissed it as bitter jealousy of the fantastic state that is New Jersey. Ah, good times.

Zeb and Ian talked about the Zulus and the British, inspired by the sauce. Zeb teasing Ian and by extension the British, Ian teasing Zeb and by extension Americans. It was amusing to speak to someone from Britain about the empire on which the sun never set—which is now, ostensibly, separate, though its influence of course lives on—and also to speak about America so casually ourselves. Zeb and I—and the other Americans at Goethe, we’ve noticed—share no especially deep love of America, merely a connection with it. It’s a country, where we and our families live, where life is good, but it’s not some deep-swelling pride of country and duty and all of that. We’re intellectuals and businesspeople and explorers, and thinking that all of the world is America is much to naïve a notion with which we can live. We don’t disillusion ourselves with the idea that America is any better than any other country, because, at least for me, on whose scale are we judging that? Ah, I sense a deeper tangent. I shall tiptoe around it.

Finally the coals were done and it was time for some grillin’ action. We grilled the wurst first, and it took longer than we expected, but when they were done, I immediately moved our steaks on. The others were experimenting with the Zulu sauce. It was amusing to watch them attempt to keep it on their wurst like ketchup or mustard, instead more often than not spilling it on the rocks or their plates. Mary was happily giddy from the wine, and I was intent on seeing my steak perfectly grilled. I had—I think I still possess it, to some degree—a sense of knowing when a steak is just at that point of being perfectly well-done without being dry. As long as I’ve been cooking it. But I was impatient, and so was Mary. “It’s going to be just medium-well,” I told her when she asked for her steak. I knew mine would be just shy of exactly perfect (for me) with the barest hint of pink tingeing the center. Of course, most people would think that’s perfect. She cut her steak and was surprised to find me correct. It was good, for all of my complaining, though. I melted a few remaining brie chunks to go along with it. Savory.

As the sun set and our food was slowly eaten, it became apparent that it was time to make our independent ways home and prepare for the morrow. Ian and a few others had the “Certificate Deutsch” to take—the national exam in Germany certifying a certain level of proficiency with the language—and Mary, Steven, and I had to prepare for Dachau. We wrapped up our trash and headed up the hill to the U-Bahn. What an interesting BBQ.

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