4-1, Deutschland *UPDATE*

I have lots of snazzy photos from my trip to Dortmund to see Wednesday night's "friendly" Fußball (yo, that's soccer to you silly Ami's) game between the USA and German national teams, but Shutterfly is being a big, fat turd and not letting me upload anything. So, pics later, description now...

*****UPDATE!! Now with visual aids as of March 31! New text indicated in purple with asterisks because I said so! Also, a major humongous Leipzig update is on the way.*****

Pat and Laura and I spent the 2.5-hour train chatting, and we met Alana in Dortmund. I had packed for an overnight at a friend of Laura's place, but Pat and I decided on solidarity with poor Laura (who had to teach at 8 the next morning) and opted to stay up until the first "morning" train at 2:58am, so I threw my stuff in a locker at the train station. The next stop was Karstadt, a department store, to find red/white/blue wigs to match one Laura bought in Göttingen... because if we're up against the Germans on their own turf, we're darn well gonna stand out anyway! There were none similar to be had, so I improvised with a red and white mohawk with artistically placed sparkly blue scrunchies. Truly fabulous! *May it never be said that I'm one to shy away from a chance to look like a complete and utter doofus for the sake of a good time.*

We walked around town a bit. Dortmund, the 7th-largest German city you've never heard of, is in the western "industrial belt" state of Nord-Rhine-Westfalen (North Rhine-Westphalia), which means LOTS of people and a distinct lack of the old-style architecture I'm spoiled with in Göttingen. Like cows in Chicago, bears in Berlin, and super-creepy humanish figures in St. Louis, Dortmund has its own civic symbol displayed all over town in various "artistic" (read: corporately sponsored) iterations: it's a rhinoceros with wings. That is totally not a joke. *My personal favorite was definitely the shiny silver beastie with head- and tail-lights that blinked with a tug at the door handle on either side!* There were lots of folks already wearing their game colors, and although the vast majority were of course schwarz-rot-gold there were the occasional glimpses of our colors as well.

After a U-bahn hop to the stadium, we hit a concession stand for the requisite beer (Or, in my case, white wine.) There, we gravitated to a small cadre of red-white-blue, donned our wigs and got decently obnoxious, y'know, like loud Americans. We had a great view of folks entering the stadium area. My favorite were the American ex-pats with German families, usually with a kid or two in tow, half of the couple wearing, say, a USA baseball cap and the other half carrying a small German flag... the decorations were always understated, and all the kids I saw had German paraphernalia if anything. But we always got a wave or at least a nod. The couples were always holding hands.

As Pat had gotten two sets of two tickets each from Ebay, Laura and I split off from the group to go get in line. That would be "line" in the loosest sense of the word possible... the German interpretation of "queue" is much closer to "cattle-call crowded mass of bodies." We generally got smiles from those mashed up next to us, since we obviously knew a little of the language (and since the US was pretty much expected to suffer stunning defeat.) We'd hit the crunch a little late, and I definitely got more and more smooshed as game time approached. When they started announcing the players before we got through the gate things got a little more pushy-shovey but once we were through it was fine.

We navigated to our seats and gee, who'da thunk a couple of young American girls in crazy wigs in a sea of Germans would attract attention? Nothing negative, mostly photo-ops with some guys in the row in front of us ("This is going on the internet tomorrow!" only in German.)

Now, I'm not a huge fan of organized sports. The Cards were in the series while I was at college and I didn't watch a single game. When my family got discount tickets for having honor roll kids, I used to bring my chem homework to the ballpark (self-fulfilling prophecy, perhaps?) and I watch the Super Bowl primarily for the commercials. My version of "playing" soccer (aka herdball) as a kid was generally confined to mid-field spectatorship and freelance horticulture. Volleyball consisted of the occasional inadvertant ball-to-face moment... and I couldn't even serve underhand over the net until I'd been playing for a year and a half. Even with the above caveat, I'd argue that the first half was fairly uneventful. Germany scored near the end and Laura is apparently in love with their blonde ape-man goalie Oliver Kahn, so that's something I guess.

*We had a birds-eye view, and aside from a ghostly half-head the composite shot turned out pretty neat.* I did find the crowd pretty entertaining. It was certainly the most concentrated example of national pride I've seen here, ever, hands down. There's quite a bit of historical baggage associated thereto, of course, so in most contexts it's generally avoided as bad form. I find that rather refreshing compared to home, actually. By way of clarification, I do appreciate where I come from. I have veterans in my close family whom I love dearly, but I've always found out-and-out patriotism disconcerting. It may even be tied to my sports apathy... I find competition generally distasteful, and even though I know that the inherent loyalty and camraderie of shared experience can be lots of fun and even accomplish good things, I know enough history to understand that it can be manipulated and turned into something very very ugly. And I just can't stomach that. For me, it's better to deny the former than live with the fear of the latter.

But anyway, there were flags and loud music (almost always in English...) and chants (some may have even had words at some point in their existence!) and everyone in attendance was having a good time. If the first half was low-key, the second half took a turn right away into the realms of "rather embarrasing for the visiting team." Germany scored again pretty quickly, and when we finally got the ball to the correct half of the field to get a shot, Kahn came out of the goal like a steam train to meet our guy... resulting in two men on the ground and the ball blithely rolling into the corner of the net. Seriously, it wasn't even kicked. They couldn't even credit the score to our player on the jumbo-tron.

I guess it's better than a shut-out. Barely.

Folks seemed to know it was as good as over and some left early, missing two more German goals over the rest of the second half. There was a smidge of pretended teasing, but folks in our surrounding area were generally conciliatory. We got a little lost walking out to our meeting point and wound up catching a couple of the guys from before the game and acquiring some new folks, including a pair of brothers in town from Wuppertal (home of Schwebebahn, a suspended train) who were completely astounded to have run into so many actual Americans at the game. *The ride on the U-Bahn was pretty exciting with our newfound chums. Someone from our group had to be informed that smoking on the train was not allowed, but apparently glasses of beer are pretty much expected on board after a game night.*

We ended up going to into town to the Irish pub (actually run by a rather unfriendly Englishman... but apparently you can't have a city in Germany without an Irish pub, so I guess it's a niche) and hanging out until last call. *Pat and Alana, the other half of our foursome caught up with us there (photo).*

We caught our super early and/or late train back and it was a peaceful ride, pretty empty except for straggling fans and some folks heading into work already. I got home and into bed at around 6:30 am and slept until 1:30... I have until Saturday to get my sleep cycle back in order, since I have a morning train to Leipzig! I think I can do it...

The insane thing about meeting Americans over here, particular but not completely isolated to the student population, is that when you meet someone you don't exchange addresses, or even email or phone numbers anymore... The new social currency is membership in internet social networking systems. Now, Facebook existed during my time at Kenyon, and got popular there rather early. I set up an account in 2004 for all of 12 minutes until I deleted it in disgust. Seriously, with my schedule senior year I needed additional procrastination outlets? I had to literally plan in advance to make time for sleeping, eating, and using the bathroom. I glibly mocked my friends who had joined the herd and vowed never ever EVER to go over to the dark side.

Well. Welcome to the dark side. And in a freakin' big way. I'd still rather people read this blog if you want to keep track of me or say hello, but I understand the necessity of putting my name out there, gosh darn it... Ladies and gentlemen, I have been diagnosed with Internet Social Networking Disorder (ISND) and I have it bad. Pray for my eternal soul.

Pictures coming when Shutterfly stops being a humongous turd, and stay tuned for Leipzig/Dresden adventures!