BUT, being a sucker I am in Berlin instead, where riding my bike aimlessly around town (obviously naked to the waist with the ol’ torso painted red, white and blue) and singing the Star Spangled Banner in a lustily off-key tenor will get me more funny looks than high fives. If only there was some sort of massive month-long cultural event to distract me from my patriotic Heimweh (homesickness, literally “home pain”)…
OH THAT’S RITE the World Cup is happening! WHOOOOO WORLD CUP SOCCER WHOOOOOO.
Here is a little background for those of you living in places where soccer is not the sole topic of conversation all the time. 64 teams that started the tournament, and after all kinds of running and kicking we’ve whittled it down to 6: Uruguay, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Argentina, Spain, and Germany. Yesterday Uruguay and the Netherlands beat (and eliminated) Ghana and Brazil, respectively, to earn spots in the semifinals; and today we’ve got Paraguay v. Spain and Germany v. Argentina. The semis will go down Tuesday and Wednesday next week, with the championship game taking place on Sunday, the eleventh of July. Sorry if this is hard to follow, this sort of information is much better conveyed by an image—here, just look at this nifty bracket instead.
The German team is young and inexperienced, and their captain (and arguably best player) Michael Ballack is out with a broken foot, but they’ve looked sharp and occasionally dominant—heck, they’re just two wins away from a spot in the final. I thought the people of Berlin were pumped when the tournament started, but as the team has piled up victories the city has started to sort of vibrate with excitement. Enthusiasm over soccer is crazily widespread and thorough; just about everybody, young and old, male and female, homeless and wealthy, is very much into it. It’s like everybody’s team is playing in the Superbowl and the World Series for a month straight.
I have more thoughts on soccer in Germany and sports fandom in general but I don’t think I have time to articulate them properly on this lovely summer afternoon. That can wait ‘til after the game. For now I will show you some pictures of my experience watching last week’s German victory.
I walked down to the Kulturbrauerei (Culture Brewery), a former brewery that is now full of theatres, clubs, bars, and two large public viewing beer gardens. There were a hundred people where I watched:
The pressing, primal need to see the game leads to a collective television watching culture that I find very strange. These rental flatscreens are transformed into like holy portals to something unbelievably great and important—huge groups fan out around them, jostling for spots, climbing things, working to squeeze out any kind of unobstructed view of the spectacle. Bars and restaurants do brisk business selling overpriced beer to the folks who really just want a spot to watch the game.
Being a poor student, I had to get a bit creative. I showed up a bit early and scored a fine spot just outside of the expensive beer zone where I could lean against a fence and drink a couple of cheap beers I’d brought along. This bum and I watched the game together:
He kept talking to me and I responded as well as I could—I only understood about three out of every ten words he said, but we still high fived on the goals. He had ancient, faded tattoos all over his arms and little cuts around his eyes. I saw him sleeping in Mauerpark the next day.I’ll spare you an extensive description of the game: the important part is that Germany beat England 4:1. My Sprachpartner (speaking partner—we get together once a week to talk German) Jenny tells me Germany-England is a huge rivalry, so I think the Berliners were particularly excited about this win.
After the victory I wandered down to the Eberswalder train station, a huge intersection that hosts a huge spontaneous party after every game. There weren’t any fences or roadblocks or authorities or anything—thousands of people just poured out of the hundreds of neighborhood bars and started going crazy in the middle of the street. In about 5 minutes the situation developed from this:
To this:
See how everybody’s sitting down? There was some sort of weird rally thing where everybody sat down in the street and chanted some slogans for a while, then stood up en masse and went all insane again:
I liked the little kid on his dad’s shoulders, draped with the flag.Here is a crazy English fan standing on a street light and whipping around a Union Jack.
The Germans were in such a good mood after the victory that they didn’t even care.That will have to suffice for now—I need to eat, buy and install a new front reflector on my bike, then trip on down to the Kulturbrauerei to watch the big game. I think I’ll lean against the same fence. Hopefully my bum friend will show up and chatter some nonsense at me.
I’ll write more here soon. Have a great 4th of July!
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