Deutsche Marks

I Thought Pigs' Tails Were Coiled

2007-09-12T07:49:00.000-07:00

I've arrived in Chengdu, a gigantic city in which, I was told by a Chinese guy, everyone hangs out in teahouses and plays mah jong all day, which perhaps explains why in a city of 10 million people I've yet to see a single person wearing a tie, let alone a suit. The Chinese guy—a great lad named Yi, who works for Sports Illustrated China and is kind of our tour guide—also told me that the main industry is tourism, which is interesting given that there's absolutely nothing to see here except the Pandas (more on them later). And it rains all the time.

Chendu is the biggest city in the Sichuan region, which is known for its spicy food. (Apparently it's very humid and that can cause joint discomfort, which the hot food supposedly allays.) The third bite of my first dinner, a chicken dish, was not, as I originally thought, an oddly shaped piece of dark meat. No, it was a chicken foot. They use everything here, Yi told me, about five seconds too late. After dinner last nite, though, a chicken foot would have been welcomed. Dinner was with our photographer, Yi and about six or seven Chinese journalists, who were all lovely guys. Not so lovely was the menu: rabbit, oxen stomach, pig's tails (pictured above, with the oxen stomach), rabbit stomach, pig's foot soup, eel, a chicken dish with no chicken, a duck dish with no duck and a whole fish, which was actually quite good. You dip the stuff into this pepper sauce, which is obscenely hot but almost succeeds in making you forget you're eating rabbit stomach. (Believe it or not, rabbit stomach tastes nothing like oxen stomach.) The only food in my minibar is a Kit Kat, which I dutifully eat every afternoon just as soon as the minibar is refilled. The hotel has an American restaurant called, bizarrely, the Mississippi Grill (I think they threw a dart at an atlas). With my luck it will only serve authentic Mississippi cuisine (i.e., possum).

A Remembrance of Things Past, Fried

2007-09-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

Proust had his madeleine. I've got my donut. When I lived in Ohio we used to get Saturday breakfast from Mister Donut. Aside from the one on Porter Road (I think) in North Olmsted, I had never seen another one. Until I saw one in Seoul. One whiff of the honeydippeds brought back a flood of childhood memories, which I'll spare you.

I went looking for Gogung, the bibimbap place, one last time. No dice. I figured if they wanted my business, they'd do a better job not being invisible. So I went to another place and had a fine dolsat bibimbap, which is your basic bibimbap in a smoking hot stone pot. I didn't catch the name of the place—the sign was only in Korean. I assume the characters translated to Ye Olde Bibimbappery, or somesuch. It was delicious.

I wasn't kidding

2007-09-07T06:34:00.001-07:00

Annyong

2007-09-07T06:10:00.000-07:00

We're back. Or at least I am. It's the World Cup, ladies' style. The flight to China involved a very long layover in Seoul, so I figured I'd make just tack a day on to the trip and see the city. I know one word of Korean: annyong, which means hello, which I only know from Arrested Development.

So the trip was fairly uneventful. Got in very early and was immediately awed by two things: the number of Dunkin Donuts and the number of Korean guys in Sipowicz outfits. Seriously, I thought everyone was on their way to an open casting call for the Korean version of Apollo 13.

The hotel is nice. There's a temple right outside my window. Checked in and there was a monk out there doing his monk stuff. After a little nap I decided to get some lunch. I read up on Korean fare, which strikes me as a very hit-or-miss proposition. The best sounding thing is bibimbap, which is a bowl of meat and vegetables and chili paste with an egg on top. The guide book I have listed a place not too far from my hotel as having the best bibimbap in Seoul, so I figured I'd walk there and take in the neighborhood on the way.

Along the way, I was struck by a third thing: Whoever laid this city out should be caned repeatedly on the back and then offered a giant vat of aloe to soak in—only the vat should be placed across the street. Because, you see, it's physically impossible to cross a street here. Everything is at angles or in a circle, so you can't just go up a block or two or double back. If there's no crosswalk on your side, you might end up walking in the opposite direction you're trying to get and then looping back, which only works if you know where you're going, which you probably don't if you have to loop back in the first place. Jaywalking is out of the question, because there are fences to keep you out of the street, and even if you get past them, there are like 1,000 dudes speeding around on mopeds, and they're all hauling couches on the back. Plus, finding streets is a bit tricky—street signs are rare, and the map I have only has maybe a third of the streets, so I couldn't even count blocks. When I finally found the street that would lead me to the bibimbap, it took me 15 minutes to figure out a way across, and I only made it because there was an underground shopping center I could cut through. Then navigating the side streets became an issue.

Long story short, never found the bibimbap. (How's that for payoff?) I pretty much gave up and started focusing my energy on surreptitiously taking pictures of guys in short-sleeved shirts and ties. Then I looked at some temples from the middle ages (next to a Dunkin Donuts, of course), only the whole thing burned down in 1903 and was rebuilt the next year, so it had a quasi-modern/rustic thing going on that made it look like an Oriental ski lodge. Did some more walking around and then decided to go to a baseball game, which was nice because it was all the way across town, which meant I'd get to see more of the city.

Sad to say, the rest of the city was pretty much without charm as well. Very nice people, though, even though most of them speak no English. (And the subways were lovely.) It's not much of a city for tourists—I've probably seen less than a dozen, and I was the only non-Korean at the baseball game, save for the LG Twins' leftfielder, who I think was called Pedro something. The game was interesting. Very small crowd, but very vocal. They have a stage set up behind the first base dugout where a guy in a uniform (and white gloves) with a whistle leads the crowd in cheers and songs. There's a mike and everything. Between innings they bring out four cheerleaders, all of whom seemed to be lacking rhythm, moves and shame. The fans use those inflatable Thunder Stix, which make an unholy racket. There couldn't have been more than 6,000 people there, but most of them were crammed into that one section. No hot dogs, but very cheap tickets ($6) and beer ($3). The t-shirt selection was interesting. Some odd nicknames for the fellas.

On the way home, I failed in my attempt to cross the street, so I had to loop back through the "park" (a round patch of grass in front of a city hall building that must be the smallest of its kind in the world for a town of this size). Something called the Seoul Science Festival was going on. It was a concert-type-thing with some acting and—as if I hadn't seen enough arrhythmic folks tonight—some very bad song-and-dance numbers. If Grease only showed the kids in chem lab and was performed by people who couldn't sing or dance, it would have been a lot like this.

Tomorrow it's off to China, but not until the evening, so I'm going to find the bibimbap if it kills me.

Auf Wiedersehen

2006-07-12T15:03:00.000-07:00

I don't think that fat baker-man from the re-tally post should be the lasting image of this blog, so here are a few farewell shots.

Herr Bechtel attempts to be inconspicuous on the the train to the Nuremberg stadium.

The Boy... has developed a bit of an on-line fan club, so here are a few keepsake moments.

The long-awaited, long-promised haircut. We found a salon in Garmisch-Partenkirchen that charged kids by height. I think this cost about 6 euros, a real deal. I ripped the page on haircuts out of my Rick Steves travel guide, which went pretty much unused otherwise, and was able to communicate with the stylist. She was nice but spoke very little English.

The Boy... loved his little wooden sword, procured at Burg Rheinstein, and had fun fighting imaginary battles on the many train rides through the beautiful German countryside.

Our only major loss of the trip was Lobby, the beloved lobster. I'm sure he's hanging out somewhere in Garmisch with a lovely German ski bunny.

Another train, another planet.

Your humble bloggers

See you all in South Africa in 2010.

The Re-tallied Tally

2006-07-09T05:42:00.000-07:00

Days in Germany: 33

Days until return: 2

Sausages consumed: approximately 20. I might have it in me to eat one more.

Best Meal: After a long, sleepless spell I went to some American-type steakhouse and ate a massive piece of dead cow. They had those chalkboard things on the wall, and written on one of them was: "Teach us delight in simple things--Kipling" I thought, hey, kind of a nice sentiment, I should remember that. Then next to it it said, "Ask the manager for informations." Informations? About what? The manager is a Kipling expert? Or he's the possessor of the secret of finding delight in simple things? At any rate, the steak was good, probably the best thing I ate here, though the grub in Prague was pretty tasty. Lots of kraut.

Games seen: 17 (counting the final, which hasn't happened yet)

Miles traveled by car: 849

Miles traveled by train (counting tomorrow's return to Frankfurt, which hasn't happened yet): 4,702

Total miles traveled: 5,551

Number of times a security person at a stadium tried to deny entrance because he said I didn't look like the picture on my credential because the picture was taken a month ago and I haven't had a haircut since: 1

Number of ridiculous things that have jarred me from much-needed sleep: 2. After spending 13 hours on two trains on Wednesday and not sleeping for something like 30 hours, I crashed at the apartment, which happens to abut a school playground. Occasionally you can hear the kids out there, but it's never been too loud. Until Thursday. I don't know if it was the last day of school or what, but they had a DJ out there and he started making an unholy racket as soon as my head hit the pillow. Then it got weird. They were doing some sort of karaoke--these are like 11-year-old German kids, mind you--to some rather bizarre songs: YMCA, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, I Will Survive, Baby Got Back. It was like a mini-Teutonic wedding reception. Then I get to Berlin, where it's oppressively hot and nothing, as is par for the course, is air conditioned. So I'm laying in bed trying desperately to fall asleep. If I were a pregnant woman, people would say I was "glowing." As I'm not, they'd just say I was sweating profusely. I finally nod off only to be awaken at 4:21 by the loudest birds I've ever heard. (The sun comes up mighty early in these parts. It's daylight for like 17 hours.) They just wouldn't shut up, and they were right outside my window, which I couldn't shut or I would have spontaneously combusted. It was the loudest racket I've ever heard. So it's official: I hate kids and songbirds. I've turned into a 75-year-old man. Call me Gramps.

A Bald Cow Reunion?

2006-07-09T04:55:00.000-07:00

No, it's just a couple guys on the Charles Bridge in Prague. I've always been a sucker for a good washboardist. (It brings to mind a bit Dennis Miller did back when he was funny. He was riffing on the Alabama Symphony: "You laugh, but I'm told when the washboard player stands up to take his solo, there's not a dry eye in the house.")

Prague was nice--and air conditioned. Returned last Wednesday, a six-and-a-half hour train trip to Munich for the France-Portugal game, then I had to catch a train back to Frankfurt after the game. For some reason the S-bahn stopped running at 1:00, so I was suddenly stuck at the stadium and I needed to get to the train station to catch a 1:45 train. Luckily there was a cab there. I shared it with some kid from Loyola (the one in Chicago) who was financing his trip to Europe by asking people for their game ticket stubs (or, failing that, buying them) and then selling them online as souvenirs. Apparently there's quite a market. He does all the big events. In the States he hires kids to hit folks up for the stubs.

Then it was back to Berlin for the final, which starts in a couple hours. This stadium is eerie. It's hosted some sordid events in its day, and the podium where Hitler would stand is still there. The media center is outside on the grounds where they'd have Hitler Youth rallies with like 200,000 people. Saw the Holocaust Memorial (the Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe is the official name) yesterday. It's a park with 2,700 stone slabs that symbolize nothing--very abstract. Walking through them was pretty serene, and would have been even moreso were it not for a few people who thought it was some sort of topiary maze and were playing hide-and-seek.

The pick for the game: nil-nil, Italy wins on penalties.

Notes on German history

2006-07-07T14:33:00.000-07:00

I had an e-mail exchange just after the trip with the singer from my old band Bald Cow, who posts as Lexington Green on Chicago Boyz and is a devout Anglospheroid. He's a smart guy, disturbingly well-read, and I'd venture to say he knows more about European history than most Windy City lawyers (or Windy City history professors).

Me: "Germany is absolutely beautiful in spots and works very well; too bad it has has besmirched itself for all of history."

LG: "The Germans will put the Third Reich behind them, as they should. The problem is, will they have any babies, or will they turn their immigrants into Germans? If not, there won't be a Germany. And the Germany of musicians and scientists, of 1848, of Adenauer, of the bike paths and clean sidewalks and well-kept lawns -- losing that Germany would be a sad thing indeed."

Me: "Germany looked awfully German to me. Now Paris, on the other hand, felt very different from how it did when I first visited 20 years ago. As I was strolling through the vinyards above Rudesheim one evening after dinner, the gentle hills sloping down toward the Rhine, little villages with their church steeples dotting the landscape and a singing of thousands of birds filling the warm air--nature and civilization in perfect harmony--it was easy to see how the Romantics were moved by this place. And so hard to figure how it all went so wrong."

LG: "A good way to figure out how it all went wrong is to realize that the people who lived in the the beautiful country you described were the losers in an intra-German struggle, and it was the hard, tough, poor, disciplined Prussians from the windswept, sandy-soiled Baltic coast
who took over. And they were not Romantics."

He recommends Robert Citino's book, The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years' War to the Third Reich, which he describes as "absolutely great." He's never steered me wrong on a book recommendation.

Least Sucky

2006-07-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

In the Perfect Timing category, just a few days after returning from Germany I received my e-mail ballot for Honda U.S. Player of the Year, due by July 14. Normally this is a fairly straightforward pick—Landon or DeMarcus or Kasey or Claudio. But none of the usual suspects distinguished themselves in Germany, and more than a few were downright horrible. So this is my ballot, based by process of elimination on who sucked the least at the World Cup.

1. Steve Cherundolo
The only guy who couldn't be faulted at all for his play in Germany.

2. Bobby Convey
Bonus points for helping lead Reading to promotion to the Premier League. If he'd started all three WC games he might have jumped to No. 1.

3. Clint Dempsey
Might have been the best American at the World Cup, but Arena's weird lineups kept him off the pitch too long. Scored our only goal and showed some badassitude.

Dressed for Success

2006-07-06T10:38:00.000-07:00

My wife can't stop commenting on French coach Raymond Domenech's sideline ensemble. I have to admit, he looks better than most other WC coaches.. Even though he has a big AFP stamped on him.

Semifinal Thoughts

2006-07-05T11:58:00.001-07:00

As this baby winds down, I’m going to dump some more photos with some random thoughts from two weeks in Germany.

Watched the Germany-Italy game at home today. A stultifying affair, made worse by the inability of our air conditioners to cool off the apartment after a few days of being off. (An abbreviated beach trip; the second day was cut short by a crash on the Robert Moses bridge that prevented anyone from getting to the shore. We bailed after about a half-hour wait in the sweltering heat.) We did set ourselves up nicely with a minikeg (though it was Grölsch, rather than Warsteiner), which seemed appropriate as they were very popular in Deutschland. As we sat on the grass in K-town before the US-Italy game, a group of guys next to us seemed to have an endless supply of these 5-liter monstrosities and were really enjoying them. They were US fans, too, judging from the small flags they had attached to themselves.

In Kaiserlautern we discovered that the drinking age in Germany is 8, so the Boy… got his first taste of weiss beer. It was going to be a long day.

Can’t say enough about the scene in Kaiserslautern that day. The streets were full of Stars and Stripes, and little stalls all along the way were selling beer and sausages and beer and lots of other things to eat and beer. We never did make it to the US fan meetup spot, because by the time we walked to the end of the Fan Mile and back no one was interested in running that gauntlet again. Instead, we hung out at Fan Fest for awhile, taking advantage of the rest room facilities and the air conditioning in the Help Center. Ran into some Scotsmen, including one guy who looked about 8 enjoying his own beer. The Tartan Army came to party.

After chilling in a small park for a while, we made the long climb up the hill to the stadium in K-town, early enough to see the end of the Czech-Ghana game. I thought it was cool that the Italy team came out about two hours before kickoff and watched the match from midfield.

We did

sing along to Born in the USA, I’m not afraid to admit. And I did forget the words. But it was fun anyway. I belted out the Star Spangled Banner, loudest I’d ever sung it, and had the Italians in front of us looking back in shock and awe. The Boy… asked me not to do it again, so I was a tiny bit more restrained at US-Ghana.

US-Italy tickets were the hardest to get of any of the three US games, and some of the hardest in the entire tournament. So I was puzzled that there were six empty seats around us.

Behind us, some guys got into an argument over flag placement. The Italian lost. In fact, the Italian fans lost the battle in that stadium that night. Yank supporters out-sang and out-shouted them the entire game. One old guy in front of us could do nothing but twist his Italian flag in his hands like the rosary.

This last picture pretty much sums up the emotions of that game. A blur, is all.

After miraculously making our train back to the little town of Enkenbach that night (crammed with U.S. supporters), we got a ride back into K-town the next morning from Herr Koltzsch, the proprietor of our apartment. Neither he nor his wife spoke any English, the only Germans we encountered on the entire trip who didn’t. Finally he explained that he was born in the DDR. No English being taught in the DDR back in the day, apparently. I was very pleased that I could carry on a conversation with him and his wife in my admittedly rudimentary German. On that drive to K-town we skirted the giant US army base and saw a baseball field, the only one we saw in all of Europe. Next to us on the platform heading out of Kaiserslautern were two American kids who looked maybe 18 (though maybe 16 too). They had spent the night in the campground set up by the K-town organizers. 15 euros for a space in a tent with a couple dozen other fans. They were funny about it; said it was a very cold night but they were glad to have somewhere to crash. I heard a story that one journalist had to wait until 5 a.m. for a taxi back to his hotel outside the city after the game.

* While watching the end of the Portugal-Mexico match at an outdoor café in Munich, we turned a German kid against the Mexies. At first he didn’t understand when we told him we were fans of the U.S.A., but when I gave him the German pronunciation—Oooh-Ess-Aaah—his eyes lit up. We somehow convinced him of the evils of El Tri and by the end of our little encounter he was saying “Oooh-Ess-Aaah” with a thumbs-up sign and then sticking his thumb into his rear-end while saying “Mex-i-ko.” Every little bit counts.

'Cos Everybody Hates a Tourist

2006-07-03T08:11:00.000-07:00

I had some time in Berlin to act the tourist. If you're ever there, the German History Museum is amazing, particularly the exhibit on the 20th century, from the rise of Nazism to the fall of the Wall. You've got to hand it to them--they tried to take over the world and launched one of the ugliest episodes in the history of the planet, but they're up front about it. Also very nice is the building itself: there's an old classical-looking building in the front connected to a new wing designed by I.M. Pei in the back. Also checked out the Reichstag, but have yet to make it to the top (you can climb the glass dome). The Reichstag is on the Spree River, which, when Berlin was divided, was one of the borders of the east and west. The bridge over the river that leads into what's now the subway station used to be used as an exchange point for captured spies. Right across the Reichstag is the new, very modern-looking, home of the German parliament. If you walk down the steps from the Reichstag, there's a handful of crosses on the river bank marking people who were killed trying to swim to the west.

After the Germany-Argentina game, which I didn't get to see, I went back to Frankfurt for the France-Brazil game. Then we had our first extended break, so I decided to drop into the Prague, by way of Dresden. I had about two hours there, and was amazed at how much survived the bombing and the fires. Tons of churches, plus the Zwinger, which is a big Baroque compound of galleries surrounding a huge courtyard. It's odd, though. As with many things in Dresden, it abuts vacant lots. The reconstruction of the city is clearly an ongoing process.

Got into Prague last night. Saw more of the city than I planned on my walk from the train station to the hotel. I used to have a phenomenal sense of direction. It was largely innate. In the days before the internet and Mapquest, I could fly into a city and have no idea where my hotel was (other than its address) and find it with not trouble. Now, though--it took me 25 minutes to find an exit at the train station. Then I walked almost to Slovakia before I figured out where I was going. I'm near the Old Town Square. It's all tourists, exccept for the pickpockets and the guys who try to scam you out of your money by getting you to make change for a counterfeit bill.

At dinner (al fresco in the square), I got a fantastic idea of why everyone hates Americans. I was sitting next to a guy wearing a Harvard t-shirt and a Czech woman who spoke almost no English. He was wearing shorts, white socks and brown shoes. She was blonde and tattooed. I thought it was an episode of Blind Date: Eastern Europe, but the absence of cameras confirmed what it really was: some sort of mail-order bride tryout. She spoke virtually no English, but it didn't stop this guy from doing things like correcting her pronunciation of Athens ("You have a problem with TH," he told her), trying to make her understand what he did for a living (he was a VP at an investment brokerage house--I was an econ major in college and I have no idea what that entails) and asking her things like, "Have you ever heard of California?" Look, pal, if you're going to go to a foreign land and buy their women, at least don't patronize them within an inch of their lives, OK?

Today I visited the very large Jewish cemetery, strolled through the Old Town and seen Wenceslas Square. (Turns out he was a good king.) This evening I'm seeing some classical music at the Municipal House. (Included on the bill: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, one of the few pieces I can actually say I know and like. I especially like the title: A Little Night Music. I can imagine Mozart saying to the crowd by way of introduction, "Now I'm gonna drop a little night music on y'all.") Aside from a stop at this pub owned by the son of SI's Lester Munson (it has free internet), I've been very highbrow today. Tomorrow is a different story: I'm going to try some absinthe, and then I'm watching the Italy-Germany semifinal in an English bar.

What, No Rock You Like a Hurricane?

2006-07-01T08:49:00.000-07:00

On the train to Berlin for two days of hanging out with our other writer and Simon the English photog, I composed this playlist, which I listened to on the trip down. (Germany played Argentina; we only had one credential, so I gave it up thinking I'd watch the game with the the masses at Fan Fest, but a million people beat me to it. You can read about it here.) Anyhoo, it’s the official World Cup 2006 playlist--mostly songs that bring to mind Germany. It’s available on a two-CD set for $24.99 wherever fine albums are sold.
1. “Symphony No. 9 (Ode to Joy)” Beethoven. I know he spent most of his adult life in Vienna, but he was German by birth.
2. “Blitzkrieg Bop” The Ramones
3. “Holidays in the Sun” The Sex Pistols
4. “Heroes” David Bowie
5. “Zoo Station” U2. Alas, Zoo Station is no longer the main long-distance train station in Berlin, so I won’t be stopping there.
6. “Seven Nation Army” White Stripes. For some reason, Italian fans have made this the theme song of Francesco Totti. When he takes the field, the chant the Dum-da-dum-dum-da-dum-dum riff. It’s pretty cool.
7. “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand” The Beatles
8. “Clampdown” The Clash
9. “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg” The Ramones. Supposedly Joey, who was a staunchly pro-Reagan conservative, would only do this song if they released it with a different title (My Brain is Hanging Upside Down).
10. “I’m in Love with a German Film Star” Foo Fighters
11. “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)” U2. Shares its name (and plot) with a horrible Wim Wenders film, which was the sequel to a great Wim Wenders film, which was made into a horrible Meg Ryan movie.
12. “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” Wilco. Faux Kraut rock.
13. “Trans Europa Express” Kraftwerk. Real Kraut rock.
14. “Sie Liebt Dich” The Beatles
15. “Airbag” Radiohead. There’s a school of thought that the song is a metaphor for German reunification. I don’t think it is, but it does conjure up images of screaming down the Autobahn.
16. “V-2 Schneider” David Bowie
17. “Berlin” Lou Reed
18. “Harborcoat” REM
19. “Born to Die in Berlin” The Ramones
20. “Zooropa” U2
21. “All Around the World” Oasis. They play this a lot at the stadiums.
22. “All Together Now” Atomic Kitten. An annoying bubblegum pop song that they play before and after every game. It gets in your head and won’t go away. I’ve caught myself humming it on the S-bahn (subway). When they play it at the stadium, it accompanies a video that tells the story of Goleo, the World Cup’s leonine mascot, and his sidekick, a weird soccer ball called Pille. The video raises several questions: For starters, Why is Goleo is already wearing a shirt with 06 on the front before he even knows about the World Cup? How do a lion and a soccer ball become friends? (It appears from conversations with these two that they air at games that Goleo speaks English and Pille speaks German—do they even understand each other?) If Goleo can take giant steps from continent to continent, why does he need an airplane? Where did he learn to fly a plane? (Never mind that it’s a WWII-era prop plane.) How does Pille activate his parachute? And doesn’t Pille get sick of being kicked around by a lion who’s supposed to be his friend?
23. “Love Generation” Bob Sinclair. This is another stadium song, a poppy reggae number that, I must confess, I find pretty catchy.
24. “Stand Up!” Patrizio Buanne. The song that is played at the conclusion of each and every game: “Stand Uuuupppppp for the champions….” It’s supposed to be an inspiring, regal, operatic number, but really it’s terrible. English fans often chant a modified version of the song when they play Germany: “Stand uuuuuuppppp if you won the war….”
25. “Three Lions” The Lightning Seeds. It was England’s official song at the 1996 European Championships, which were held in England. When they bombed out of that, they redid it for the 1998 World Cup. They’ve been playing it a lot here, but it’s much better when the England fans sing it. (“It’s coming home, it’s coming home, it’s coming, FOOTBALL’S COMING HOME.”) As boorish as the English fans are—and they are very boorish—you’ve got to hand it to them: They sing about ten times louder than any other group of supporters. Especially God Save the Queen, which is weird, because you would think a bunch of blue-collar tattooed yobs with shaved heads would have no use for the monarchy. But they do. It’s cool: they sing the first few lines pretty loud (“God save our gracious queen, Long live our noble queen, God save the queen”) then they really ratchet it up with a little instrumental flourish (“da-dum-da-dum SEND HER VICTORIOUS, HAPPY AND GLORIOUS….” If the notion of worshipping a talentless family of inbreds whose extravagant lifestyle is paid for by the hardworking masses wasn’t so off-putting that we rebelled against it 230 years ago, it would be hard not to sing along.
26. “Brandenburg Concerto No. 3” Bach

Announcers, Again

2006-06-29T17:05:00.000-07:00

I sent this note to si.com media critic Richard Deitsch, but figured it was a perfectly good blog entry as well.

If you're going to talk about the American announcers, I bid you compare ESPN's top team with this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnOGx7DL-CQ

Listen to the Brit announcer on Argentina's 24-pass goal. This is what a knowledgeable soccer announcer sounds like.

Here's a transcript, beginning at around pass 12 of the sequence:
"This is where Argentina can be very patient indeed. I've watched their youth teams do this, just play the ball endlessly around the edges of their opponent's penalty area, then suddenly break with devastating consequences...Saviola...Cambiasso...CAMBIASSO! They've done it! They've done it, and scored a fantastic goal! How many passes did they put together there? You'd need a calculator. The interpassing here was just devastating. Have you ever seen a better-crafted goal at the World Cup finals? This will be shown in training manuals all around the world."

ESPN's lead broadcaster had NEVER CALLED A SOCCER GAME before this year. Do you think he'd been watching Argentina's youth team? Do you think he has the background and context to relate that this was a goal of historic beauty? Do you think a baseball guy would have been able to anticipate that goal so perfectly? I continue to argue that even the casual fan is better served--better "entertained", to use ESPN's language--by announcers who know the game.

Notice, too, the one-man annoucing booth.

Beautiful Country

2006-06-29T11:56:00.000-07:00

Outside of the cities, Germany is green and lovely. We spent time exploring castles on the Rhine and hiking, biking and swimming around Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the Alps The entire country appears to be criss-crossed with well-maintained and well-marked trails for walking and cycling. It would be cool to spend three months touring the country by bike.

Freak Flags

2006-06-28T06:25:00.000-07:00

See what happens when you're out of the country for two weeks? Who would have known that the Senate was debating a Constitutional amendment to ban "flag desecration"? Thankfully, it failed--by one measly vote--yesterday. Now, the Boy... would have had little to worry about over in Germany, and I guess the thousands of fans throughout Deutscheland draped in the Stars and Stripes would have been safe. Just don't let that baby touch the ground!

But what of the nice girl at the FanFest in Kaiserslautern with the full-on nude spray-paint flag job? Does that count as desecration? Or possibly the highest form of consecration? How about the girl in the flag tube-top begging for "Ching"? (She was Hawaiian.) Thankfully the Supreme Court won't have to rule on those issues anytime soon.

And then, of course, there are the diaper boys. I'll never get tired of looking at this picture. These guys got up on the morning of the US-Ghana game and thought, "How best to express our love of team and country?" I admire them. The Boy... was especially impressed by the detail work on the guy on the right. (You can click on the picture for a bigger version.) Notice, for instance, the star-painted nipples. The Senate be damned. That's patriotism!

View from the Couch

2006-06-27T19:23:00.000-07:00

Brazil got absolutely smoked today. By 1860 Munich. On Xbox. We've become fans of 1860 after stumbling upon their fan store near the Hofbrauhaus. As we walked in I explained to the Boy... that this was Munich's other team and heard a sigh from the guy behind the counter. I'm sure he's heard it a million times. It must be hard not for the folks there to have an inferiority complex, especially with the competition's store right across the street. So we loaded up on gear--I got a T-shirt, the Girl... got a tank top and the Mom... got a cool zip-up sweatshirt. The Boy... got his mini-Jules Rimet trophy (pictured a few entries below, being flashed at Bechtel) here too. 1860 plays in the 2nd Bundesliga, but with our support promotion next year is a near-certainty. I say "near" because they've signed Gregg "the General" Berhalter for next season. "We are convinced that he represents a significant reinforcement for our defense," 1860 manager Stefan Reuter said. As long as they're not playing Brazil.

In fact, we saw very little of Munich, as we were there for less than 24 hours, just enough time to check into the Holiday Inn, visit the Marienplatz and head to the much-ballyhooed Allianz Arena for the Serbia-Ivory Coast game on the 21st. Even with that abbreviated schedule, I got a good taste of Munchen life, dragging the Boy... to the Hofbrauhaus so I could sample a one-liter beer. He refused to eat a sausage or even a pretzel and pretended to doze on the table while I sipped genteelly from an oil drum. A group of guys from the New Jersey Brigade--some of whom were pictured in this memorable shot of the U.S. fan support in Guatemala City for a 2006 qualifier--were sitting at the next table. They took shots of the boy fake-dozing and promised to have them up on their site at some point. The Boy... perked up noticeably after a trip to the Marienplatz McDonald's, where he chowed down on a Big Tasty. (Not to be confused with the Royale from the McD's at Charles de Gaulle Airport.)

After all the hype surrounding Munich's new stadium, I was unimpressed. Possibly because we arrived in a downpour, possibly because the famed light show was not on display. After years of talk about the marvelous ability to light up the entire outer skin of the stadium in various colors, the decision-makers opted to leave the lights off for a World Cup game. Maybe they figured the game didn't matter--both teams had been knocked out. But it was a good one--five goals, a red card, mad Serbs and crazed Ivorians. Ran into Llosa at the game, and he obligingly accompanied us back to the hotel after the game to recharge his cellphone before heading off into the night, the international man of mystery. Who knows where he'd turn up next?

You might be wondering why I'm blogging this now, nearly a week later. It's because the Holiday Inn Munich's in-room internet service wasn't working. What's more, they wanted 17.50 euros for breakfast. That's in the early running for crime of the 21st century.

More thoughts on Germany to come, from the couch.

Kickin' Ice Cream

2006-06-27T06:19:00.000-07:00

After Australia got hosed by the ref last night, I took a train loaded with irate Aussies from Kaiserslautern back to Frankfurt. We pulled into the station around 11:25, and as I worked my way toward the exit I noticed a couple hundred people milling around the Haagen-Dazs. You learn somethng new every day, I thought to myself. After a hard day of travel, those Aussies love nothing more than to settle down with some designer ice cream. Turns out the Haagen-Dazs has the only two TVs in the train station, and the Switzerland-Ukraine game was just going to penalty kicks. When the first Swiss guy missed, everyone kind of moaned. When the second missed, it was louder. By the time the third guy missed, ending the game, people were so into it that a pretty big roar issued forth. Then everyone kind of shrugged and went home. And no one bought any ice cream.

Just Like Home

2006-06-27T06:01:00.001-07:00

Good to know that they've got just about everything in Munich that we've got in New York: Sprite Zero, Pink stores, English-language newspapers, Falun Gong. The only difference is that over here the Falun Gong demonstrators do more than stand perfectly still on crowded sidewalks, making it impossible to get through Times Square. In Munich, they stand perfectly still in tourist places (this is near the Marienplatz) while re-enacting organ harvests. The sign accuses the Chinese governement of killing Falun Gong members and then stealing their vitals. To drive the point home, they had a guy dressed as a surgeon standing over a woman on an operating table (I thought they were dummies at first, but they're real; not the most enviable gigs in the Munich thespian community, especially for the patient). Nice thing to see before breakfast.

The Tally

2006-06-25T06:36:00.000-07:00

Days in Germany: 18

Days until return: 17

Sausages consumed: 16. Fifty was an unreasonable goal, apparently.

Things lost: 3. My jacket (left on a train), my sunglasses (if I knew, they wouldn't be lost), my appetite for sausages.

Games seen: 10

Miles traveled by car: 849

Miles traveled by train: 1,923

Total miles traveled (not counting foot or subway): 2,772

Apple products that broke: 2. Computer and iPod

Apple products that miraculously returned from the dead: 1. iPod.

Bottles of shampoo purchased: 3. The saga of bottle one was related in an earlier post. After all that work, the stuff smelled (and looked) like Windex, so I got another bottle at the train station, which is sort of like our mall. Last night I was in Munich, my second night away from the lovely Frankfurt Westend Residenz (or, as the rappers call it, Frankfurt Westend Residenzzz). I ended up in some sort of near-hostel (damn you and your misleading pictures, Orbitz). There was no shampoo, and I hadn't lugged either bottle, so I had to go out in search of more. I have no idea what part of Munich I was in, but it quickly became apparent that it wasn't what the locals might call the HairCareProducktPlatz. There was nothing open, so I just kept walking down the street the hotel was on until I saw life--in the form of a bunch (at least 100) of bikers standing outside of a biker bar located next to an adult bookstore. (I don't know which is more frightening: German bikers or German porn. The prospect of each rattles me.) I couldn't exactly sashay up and ask if they knew where a fella could get a good bottle of shampoo, one that wasn't going to dry his hair out or give him split ends. So I put my head down and walked past. Luckily, there was a gas station right there and they had some. The only bottle was very feminine looking. The only word I recognized on the bottle was Schwarzkopf, which makes me wonder if the biggest ass-kicking American of the late 20th century has a name that means "hair that is feathered like the wings of a majestic bird." (That's been the hardest thing vis-a-vis the language barrier: reading things. People, you can make understand. Machines and packaging, not so. I had no idea how to do my laundry, or even how to buy the right kind of detergent. For all I know I washed my clothes in pure bleach, or rat poison, or shinola. The reason I don't know is because I don't think the machine ever took swooshed the detergent out of the compartment and into the wash. So my clothes aren't exactly clean.) Anyhoo, then it was back to the hotel to watch the end of the Argentina-Mexico game in the "lounge," which was five chairs in the lobby right next to the check-in desk. Half of the desk was for checking in, the other half served as a bar. Always nice to say to the guy who's handing you your room key, "Can I get a beer with that?" I had little choice, since my mini-room had a mini-TV.

Pounds lost due to sweating in oppressive Teutonic heat: Approximately 45

Pounds gained due to sausage and beer consumption: Approximately 55

Night Train to Paris

2006-06-24T18:20:00.000-07:00

June 22-23: After the debacle in Nuremberg, there was nothing left for us but to head home. It promised to be a long trip. Nuremberg was the first place to get the postgame trains right. They came frequently, filled up quickly and left promptly. As a result, we had about an hour and a half to kill in the Nuremberg station. Americans, flag-draped and face-painted, milled about disconsolately. I got a latte and the B… a hot chocolate. We availed ourselved of the McClean (60 cents for No. 1, 1.10 Euros for No. 2) and discovered the world’s most elaborate vending machine. Diaper wipes, ketchup, a pound of spaghetti—pretty much anything you could think of, all at the drop of a few eurodimes.

We shared a first-class compartment to Stuttgart with a family from Denver and a Swiss sportswriter. The Denverites were Rapids season-ticket holders and big soccer fans (Dad plays, son refs, mom’s a groupie) who’ve been to see Chelsea and Juventus games. We talked knowledgably and in detail about the U.S. team and about how American soccer stacks up against the world. I think the Swiss guy was impressed. (Oh, yeah, and they hated longtime Rapid Marcelo Balboa too, as an announcer and a human being.)

Another hour and half wait in the Stuttgart station. I watched Brazil beat Japan as the Boy… played Cartoon Network games at an internet café. Thankfully, our night train left before the Aussie fans got back from the Stuttgart stadium, where they tied Croatia to assure advancement. Our first-class (thanks Eurailpass!) sleeper was an ingenious contraption that packed an entire hotel room into the space of a walk-in closet. The bathroom included a shower whose head could slide down and serve as a faucet for the sink, which pivoted back into the shower stall when not in use. We got on at 11:30 and were both rocked into slumber by the rolling of the train. But not before the boy took the opportunity to smell his feet.

That shower came in handy in the morning, as we rumbled through the French countryside toward Paris. We pulled into the Gare du Nord on time at 6:58 a.m., leaving us a mere 11 hours until our flight to JFK.

In contrast to Germany, Paris was chilly. After a fruitless half-hour attempting to log in to the Gare du Nord wifi from a café there—you needed to have a French cellphone account to get in, despite indications to the contrary—we made a quick stop at the McClean so the the Boy… could change into long pants, and dropped our bags in the lockers. I pumped up one of the soccer balls and we metroed to the Tuileries to kick back and kickabout. We strolled through the park and across the river, gave some tourists directions, and found our way to the Army Museum, where I’d promised lots of guns and swords. Unfortunately, many of the best exhibits—the Empire era and the First and Second World War—were closed for renovations. We saw the Plans-Relief room, containing massive scale models of French towns and fortresses that were made in the 17th and 18th centuries, then walked through the Arms and Armor rooms, which while impressive were not much more so than those at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Louis XIII’s childhood armor was cool.

After a stop in the café for a couple baguette sandwiches, we made the obligatory pilgrimage to Napoleon’s tomb, inside Les Invalides. On this visit the place seemed to me little more than a shrine to dictatorship. The garden out front, however, offered the perfect spot for dad to sit and relax and the younger member of the party to have another kickabout. This was the best soccer of the trip. The Boy… found the remains of a dead bird that was being picked at by a crow. He chased the scavenger off and made his own shrine, surrounding the body of the bird with sticks and placing a small stone where its head should have been. Then it was one last train to Charles de Gaulle, the Boy… dozing in the afternoon sun.

Home Team

2006-06-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

I promised Bechtel I’d keep going even after returning from Germany so he wouldn’t have to blog solo. There’s certainly plenty to catch up on and lots of lovely photos to share (see left: Bechtel, the Boy... and Jonah showing the Spirit of '76 in K-town). And finally, from an apartment in New York, I’ve got untrammeled internet access, no trains to catch and only the usual street freaks outside the window, rather than sodden soccer fans and German lounge bands.

It took about two minutes of listening to Dave O’Brien and Marcelo Balboa announcing the Germany-Sweden game on ABC to drive me over to Univision. First, they’ve got some huge panel across the top of the television that blots out 20% of the screen. Then there are those announcers. O’Brien spouted his usual banalities, then Balboa took over with his analysis. After a harmless foul, ‘Celo praised the ref for not flashing a yellow card, promised “That’s all I’m going to say about the officiating… for now,” then explained that these two teams would be feeling each other out for the first 15 or 20 minutes. I switched channels. Thirty seconds later Germany was up 1-0. A few minutes later it was 2-0. Well said, Marcelo.

But I don’t want to paint the entire ESPN/ABC effort as a disaster. JP Dellacamera sounded pretty good for the two minutes I heard him doing Argentina-Mexico. But the kids want to watch cartoons, so I’m exiled to the bedroom, where we don’t get ESPN. So Univision it is. Chilavert is doing color commentary. He sounds better than Balboa, and I don’t understand a word he’s saying.

Postgame

2006-06-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

First decent internet acceess in a week comes at the airport in Paris. We've got about an hour until our flight home. Unless we want to go to Antannaiariirviara, the capital of Madagascar. We could get on right now.

I know you're all dying for some insight into the US's performance in Nuremberg. This guy had it nailed before the game even began.

I'm guessing Coach Arena consulted these guys when devising his lineup.

But it wasn't all poopoo and Kaka yesterday. As we headed to the stadium we caught a glimpse of Fox Soccer chick Michelle Lissel (who has her own set of overly devoted fans) atop the Hitler podium. Something incongruous there. The site of the old Nazi rallies was being used as a parking lot.

The highlight of the day was running into a guy in a Frankie Hejduk jersey in line for beer. It turned out to be Frankie Hejduk.

More postgame when I'm back in NYC.

Menu Fun

2006-06-22T05:53:00.000-07:00

They're quite literal about things over here.

And they're not afraid to editorialize.

They're known for their sausages in Nuremberg--little ones, though. This is where Jimmy Dean would live if he were German.

The Boy...'s Hair

2006-06-22T05:44:00.000-07:00

Worry not, Mravic and The Boy... are alive and well. I saw them first hand in Nuremberg [insert own joke about what a trial it was to kill three hours with them in Nuremberg]. The Boy... finally got his hair cut, and now he's a dead ringer for U.S. midfielder Clint Dempsey.

Black Hole

2006-06-21T15:25:00.000-07:00

I've been out of internet touch since Thursday, and even here at the Holiday Inn Munich the access isn't working in my room. Since this is costing about 3 euros a minute, I'm going to just try to blow out a blog later, with pictures and everything. Stay tuned, readers!

A Riotous Time

2006-06-21T07:18:00.001-07:00

With no games to go to today, I had lunch in the old part of Frankfurt with the English SI photographers (Simon and Bob), plus a shooter from the Guardian (we were very briefly joined by the excellent Guardian writer Richard Williams). Lovely walk there, across a footbridge that affords a nice view of the ferris wheel they've erected for the Fan Fest, as well as what appears to be a giant church (I'm a little behind in my tourism). Anyhoo, I navigated a phalanx of Dutch supporters (they play Argentina in Frankfurt tonight), all of whom were decked out in orange and many of whom were wearing strange looking dungaree tiger trousers. Yes, tiger trousers. They were made by a Dutch beer company--they come with pockets for stashing beers, as well as a tiger tail (some sort of Dutch national symbol), meaning that everyone who wears them looks like a drunker, slighty more jaundiced Bert Lahr. If the Dutch lose, you half-expect to see the fans using the tail to wipe away their tears. That is, so long as they're not in the stadium--because the folks running the tournament are very protective of their sponsors. Since the Dutch beer company (Bavaria) isn't a sponsor, FIFA, claiming they were protecting Budweiser from ambush marketing, made Dutch fans at their last game take off the offending pants and watch the game in their skivvies.

Once I got past the Dutch, I got to the restaurant and we sat down, only to notice a disturbance on the bridge up the road. Slightly more than a disturbance. It was some kind of demonstration (that had nothing to do with football) that got out of hand. There were choppers overhead, and every couple minutes a van filled with cops in riot gear would go screaming by. We were a little concerned that the rioters might descend upon us--and what do you do then? Say, "Uh, excuse us, we're trying to eat our Cobb salads al fresco. Would you mind keeping it down?" Luckily, the masses turned up a side street, and we ate in peace.

K-Town

2006-06-19T15:29:00.000-07:00

What does one do on gameday in Kaiserslautern, you ask. Well, there was a giant fussball table. There was a store that sold flags; The Boy... purchased one. There were several places that offered haircuts; The Boy... really wanted one, but they were all closed. Which might be a good thing. Based on the hairdos of the kids who lead the players out onto the field, German barbers have either no skill or a wierd sense of humor. Perhaps both.

There was also a Fan Fest, as there is in every host city. Basically it's a place to stand around and drink while watching the game on TV. How's that different from the part of town outside of Fan Fest? I'm not sure. I think the only difference is they frisk you on the way in to Fan Fest. There's also music. Before the U.S. game it was 'merican classic rock, which meant watching weird Italian fans sing along to Bryan Adams' Summer of '69.

Speaking of singing along, once everyone got in to the stadium, they welcomed the U.S. on to the pitch with Born in the U.S.A. Once I figure out how to get a video stream off my camera, I'll post a nice link to Mravic singing along to the Boss at the top of his lungs (and getting the words wrong). Getting to the stadium was a mess. It required climbing a giant hill, not the kind of thing one wants to do on a hot day with a bellyfull of German beer. When I got to the media gate (after being directed to the wrong gate, a couple clicks away), there was one guy there and he wouldn't let anyone in. When I tried to go in, he stiff-armed me, so, taking a page from Mravic (you'll remember his earlier post about yelling at a German cop), I started in on this clown, who understood zero of what I was saying. There were a few other guys trying to get in, too. Things were about to get ugly. We really needed someone to cool things down. Someone who could break the tension. Someone funny. Perhaps someone with his own sitcom...

Which brings us to Drew Carey sighting No. 2. We chatted for a while until the clod at the gate let us in. I felt kind of bad for him. He had to lug a ton of camera gear (in addition
to the TV thing he's doing, he's also photographing the games) up an awful lot of stairs. But he did it himself--no assistants. If I had his money, I'd have a valet to carry my laptop. You know, Mravic's old job.

Lost in Translation

2006-06-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

No one enjoys reading poorly translated phrases more than I, so I couldn't help but shell out 4 euro for a t-shirt, commemorating FOOTBALL EVENT 2006. I picked it up in Kaiserslautern, at the start of a very long day. Trained it down there to meet up with Mravic, The Boy... and a couple of SIers before the U.S.-Italy game. We ate Italian food, thinking it was going to bring us luck. K-town was quaint, to say the least. Not much going on there, and not the kind of place where a man can find an iPod. (Which I was trying to do because my iPod died. The tally for the trip thus far: two Apple products, two breakdowns. Little wonder that Apple stock I bought in a rare--and typically misguided--foray into the world of high finance a few months ago has gone nowhere but down. But I digress.) In addition to the shirt I snagged, we also saw a bunch of dudes from a travel business with a peculiar name: Few Limits. Either a problem with translation, or the guys were just brutally honest.

Life on the Autobahn

2006-06-16T06:45:00.000-07:00

While Mravic is off castling, some of us are working. Two of our photographers (both English blokes) are staying in Frankfurt for the next couple of days, so I've been riding with them. Yesterday was Nuremberg [insert own joke about what a trial the trip was]. England played Trinidad and Tobago in an awful game. I remember right before I left my mom said something like, "You're so lucky. You're going to have so much good German food." Here's three words for you, Mom: German truckstop currwurst. Apparently the restaurants at autobahn exits are supposed to be legit. And it's not like there's much to eat on the road between Nuremberg and Frankfurt at 11:30 [insert own joke about what a trial it was to find food]. So when we stopped for petrol, we ate. Currywurst (bratwurst with sauce and curry powder). At a truckstop. It tasted about like you would expect German truckstop currywurst to taste.

Then it was home to bed, in the car first thing this morning for Stuttgart, where the Netherlands is (are?) playing the Ivory Coast, in what should be a great game. The autobahn is an interesting experience. Yes, people haul ass on it (even people on ATVs.) But more alarming is the fact that some don't, so you can be tooling along behind a guy going at a decent clip then pull out to pass and never see the guy approaching the speed of sound in the passing lane. Add in the fact that you have to convert km/h to mph in your head to figure out how fast you're going, and it's quite and experience. Things should pick up tomorrow: U.S.-Italy, which should be preceded by some good times.

Castles and Such

2006-06-15T17:37:00.000-07:00

4:50 pm German time and the Ecuador bandwagon has left the station. These guys look good. Would love to see them knock off England in the second round. If England gets there. Best goal celebration so far: The Nacho Libre mask that Ivan K aviedes whipped out after knocking in No. 3 vs. the Ticos.

A nice day today. I got my castle jones satisfied. Rather than backtrack to castle Rheinfels, the largest ruin on the river, we skipped train travel for a day and rented bikes. A great idea; in fact, the best and most unexpected experiences I’ve had on trips have come from renting bicycles. In ’96 I rode from Nimes to the Pont du Gard, a 30km trip over a large mountain range; rode around Strasbourg and the German town across the Rhine; and toured the battlefield at Verdun on a mountain bike, which might have been against the rules but no one was there to notice because I’d come on April 30, a day before the official tourist season began.

Today we got our bikes, rode down to the ferry to Bingen across the river, and pedaled about 8 km down the Rhine on beautifully groomed bike trails—encountering numerous other biking parties along the way—to the first castle we came upon, Burg Rheinstein. We parked our bikes along the river, climbed up the winding path to the castle and spent a couple hours exploring. Though I’d promised the B… I wouldn’t make him climb any more scary towers, he bravely scaled the narrow steel stairs to the top lookout, though I’m sure he’ll say I forced him. After a pleasant lunch at the little café at the castle, we rode back to Bingen. Saw the Mausetürm (the Mouse Tower), a small castle built on an island in the middle of the river, which controlled trade on the Rhine in the Middle Ages. Across from the Mouse Tower stand the ruins of the castle Ehrenfels, which I’m determined to walk to tomorrow. I’ve made that clear to the B…. We’ll see what happens.

The wine here is very good. Our hotel is run by Georg Breuer, who has a vinyard nearby. The minibar is stocked with Breuer wines. I’ll see if they can ship to New York; they’re so much better than the German wines I’m used to. They serve their champagne at breakfast—all the more reason to drag my traveling companion out of bed before früstuck shuts down at 10 in the morning.

England-Trinidad kicks off in 36 minutes. If I can distract the B… from running around the hotel room with his new wooden sword (I refused to buy him a huge metal broadsword at the Rheinstein gift shop) we will take in the game in a café here, then hopefully make it an early night. We haven’t had one those in a while, especially with these 9pm games. And the noise outside our window wherever we go.

Here's some visual proof that my traveling partner is having a good time, no matter what he might say in e-mails or remember later.

Why Do They Call It Deutschland if They're Not Dutch?

2006-06-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

Those are the kinds of questions you get asked when you travel with a nine-year-old. I don't know the answer. But here are a few notes from Deutsch(not Nether)land.

The famed German efficiency appears to be mostly myth. Train stations after the games are like the last days of Saigon. The Germans had promised to lay on more trains on game days but if they have it hasn’t been enough. Yesterday we decided to skip our reserved high-speed train back to Cologne right after the Korea-Togo match to hang out with Mr. Bechtel in Frankfurt and watch Brazil-Croatia. We waited patiently with thousands of other fans on the platform for the S-bahn back to Frankfurt’s main station. One left fully packed. Another appeared to be late, so the attendant told us to go to the next platform, where a half-empty train was waiting. Several hundred of us trudged down the stairs, over a ways and up to the next track only to watch the suggested train pull out with plenty of room. We trudged back toward the original platform, but a police officer was preventing us from returning, saying “no more room.” That’s when I went off. I yelled at him, “We were on this platform, but they sent us to that one, and the train left! We’re going up!” Amazingly, he relented with a shrug.

Turned out to be not such a good idea to get on that train. It was crammed to the breaking point and hot hot hot. Then, of course, it pulled out of the station, crawled along for about a quarter-mile and sat on the tracks. Too much traffic. We learned much about the Greenhouse Effect sitting there. I sat basically on top of a German woman. She was polite about it.

Bechtel took us to a huge street fair in Frankfurt. Tons of folks drinking beer and apfelwein at outdoor tables. A giant screen was set up for the matches, but nowhere to sit and the setting sun washed out the screen, so we scouted out a restaurant that had a TV set up. The place had about half-dozen waiters and waitresses but only two seemed to be on duty. Bechtel and I had steaks, the Boy… a burger. No need to order sausage, because we got the wurst service imaginable.

Caught the train back to the flughafen—six minutes to cover the same ground that it took nearly an hour to travel after the game. Watched the end of the Brazil match in a viewing area at the airport with three screens set up. Apparently some Croatian women were sitting behind the screens watching their own TV, because when a Croatian player put the ball on top of the net near the end of the game, there was screaming and cheering from behind the screen. They thought the ball had gone in.

OK, that Frankfurt Flughafen is a nice station.

Where’s the cold water?

Got a call from Llosa as we arrived in Cologne about twenty minutes past midnight. He’d been at the US-Czech game but missed the Korea match because of car trouble. Which accounted for the empty seats next to us at the game. I felt bad; he’d paid me $250 for them.

First castle spotted: 12:17 pm, on a hilltop across the river from Remagen. I would like to relate the story of the Bridge at Remagen to my traveling companion but there’s an older German man sitting in our train compartment. Heck, he may have been on the other bank, manning a machine gun nest. So I’ll wait till we get to the hotel.

I’m coming to the conclusion that a lot of soccer fans are drunken louts.

Time for Germany to discover air conditioning, I think. None in our hotel in Cologne, which meant we had to leave the windows open and listen to the soccer chants and pickup games being played in the little park outside our hotel. They went on until at least four in the morning today. None in the hotel here in Rüdesheim, so we have the windows open and are being serenaded by a German version of the Holiday Inn hotel band: “Yesterday,” “Walk of Life,” “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”…

The fabled Rhine gorge looks a lot like West Virginia. Except for the castles.

How much do the Germans like Brazil? Saw a coal barge floating down the river today flying a Brazil flag.

Everyone speaks English here.

Found a soccer pitch today and had a little kickabout.

Did I mention the heat?

Oh, behave.

Togo + Germany vs. Korea + Singapore

2006-06-14T06:27:00.000-07:00

I was ready to blow off South-Korea vs. Togo for a chance to spend the day in Cologne, where we’ve seen very little except the path from the train station to the hotel (which is very lovely, lined with little shops and outdoor cafes selling Kölsch and sausages.) But the Boy… said he wanted to go, and I’m glad we did. We took the plushest high-speed train yet—had a car all to ourselves, with plenty of room to run around. The train got up to 270 kmh at one point, about 160 mph. You could barely tell but for the landscape speeding past.

The Germans love their beer. How much? Two guys tapped a minikeg on the platform waiting for the train. A couple of cops came by and laughed when the guys offered them a sip of Kölsch.

The atmosphere at the game was fantastic, huge blocks of Korean fans doing their highly organized chanting and singing, and several patches of Togo fans trying their best to counter. The game was probably not great to watch on TV, but inside the Waldstadion (reached by a lovely path from the S-bahn station through the woods; this certainly isn’t Giants Stadium) it was feverish, and not just because of the sweltering heat. No sign of Luis Llosa and his son, to whom I’d sold my two extra tickets. Worried that he was unable to make the successful transfer even with all the paperwork I dumped on him (canceled tickets in my name, copy of my passport, letter from FIFA confirming the transfer, letter from me allowing him to pick up the tickets). Especially troubling in that the entire transfer process turned out to be completely unnecessary.

Three guys in front of us from Singapore had adopted the Koreans and painted their faces in the team colors of blue, red and white. They also brought the oddest stadium food I’ve ever seen: bananas and smoked salmon. Lots of Togo wigs on the German fans. The B… cheered Korea—he knows Park Ji Sung from Manchester United and Ahn from the 2002 highlights. In fact, except for that speed-skating nonsense, it’s hard not to cheer for Korea. Nice fans, non-stop energy.

Bechtel got his laptop. Finally. We'll certainly miss the heavy bastard.

The Week That Was

2006-06-14T05:20:00.000-07:00

It's been seven days since I arrived. As my train to Nuremberg is delayed for over an hour, meaning I'd get there too late for the press conference/training session I needed to attend (Trinidad and Tobago, who will, mark my words, draw with England tomorrow), I've bailed on the trip in favor of watching the Spain-Ukraine game and spewing forth the best and worst--or should I say "wurst" (HONK!)--of the World Cup to the point.

Five Things I Learned About Germany: 1) Beer is cheaper than Coke. 2) It's hot. 3) People are just as fat here as in the States. 4) The men dress much better than the women. 5) Germans really do talk like Colonel Klink.

Best Welcome to Germany Moment: The Frankfurter next to me on the flight on the way over was quite helpful re: where to hang, how to move about town, etc.

Worst Welcome to Germany Moment: When he told me that as a journalist he recently heard that a helicopter had been stolen and there were fears it would be crashed into a stadium. Welcome, and sleep well at night!

Best Game: Trinidad and Toabgo's 0-0 draw with Sweden, proof that even nil-nil games can be thrilling. The Soca Warriors accomplished it largely by kicking the Swedes in their ankles and relying on amazing goalkeeping from Shaka Hislop.

Worst Game: Luckily I missed a lot of France-Switzerland (very little time to watch TV), but what I saw was predictably boring, as are most games involving the Swiss.

Best Goal: The first of the tournament, by Germany's Philipp Lahm, a right-footed screamer (he's left footed) after he gave a Costa Rican defender a subtle juke that sent the guy sprawling.

Most Overplayed Story: The continuing saga of Bechtel's laptop. Laptops can be heavy. We get it.

Second Most Overplayed Story: Bechtel's sausage consumption, which now stands at a meager seven, meaning I'm going to have to really work to hit my goal of 50 in five weeks.

Best Performance: Lahm was great the whole game, as was his teammate Sebastien Schweinsteiger. Hislop singlehandedly kept T&T alive. But I'm going to say Tomas Rosicky, who played a big role in making the U.S. look like rubbish.

Worst Performance: A lot of bad ones come to mind (the entire U.S. team), but I've got to say Ronaldo. I'm guessing he's eaten more than seven sausages since he's been here. Fat, fat, fat.

Best Sportsmanship: The Germans (and other fans) who have adopted under-represented countries so they can play in front of rabid fans.

Worst Sportsmanship: The German EMTs who were taking a pickup game against a bunch of German kids outside the Dortmund stadium before Tuesday's Korea-Togo game a little too seriously.

Can You Spot the Real Togolese?

2006-06-13T14:23:00.000-07:00

A lot of German fans have adopted Togo--primarily, I'm guessing, because Togo tickets were easy to come by. There aren't many fans here from Togo, so if you went by what you saw at the game, you'd think it was a nation of apple wine drinking pasty blonde guys.

Breakfast of Champions

2006-06-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

On Monday I spent 13 hours in a press box in Hannover with nothing to eat except some sort of goulash they likely serve in Hungarian prisons. I had nothing to read on the train back. So from reasons I can't really explain, I spent 15 euro on a Sunday Times (I didn't know it was quite so pricey), then I ate at Burger King for the first time in like 10 years, (no way I could choke down another sausage) and I decided I needed a beer to wash it down (it was a long day). So there I was at 2:30 in the morning, sitting on the floor of a German train station, eating a Big Mac ripoff (they even call it the Big King--who knew?) and drinking a warm can of Becks. If that's not rock bottom, I'm not sure I want to know what is.

And Then They Played the Game

2006-06-13T02:06:00.000-07:00

Cologne, a Portugal town the night before, had overnight filled with American fans. Supporters decked out in official team jerseys and draped in U.S. flags packed the station and crammed into the high-speed train for Gelsenkirchen. Several Elvises were sighted. We had reservations, a wise choice as even the first-class aisles were standing-room only. In our compartment were a couple of guys from Oklahoma whose flight had been delayed 15 hours out of Dallas and had just arrived at 3 that morning. Many of the passengers on the plane were Mexican fans with tickets to the game against Iran, which they missed because of the delay. The pilots were giving updates of the score during the flight, and these guys were very glad Mexico won. They said the tension/anger level was running pretty high among fans people who’d paid countless amounts to travel thousands of miles only to miss out on their World Cup experience. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, even a fan of El Tri. But I bet it’s the last time they fly American.

Also in our compartment was a kid just out of high school from Columbus who had been playing in pick-up games in Cologne. “Standing on the sidelines waiting to get in, I couldn’t speak a word to anyone, but once we were on the field it didn’t matter. Everyone knew exactly what to do and where to go.” Soccer as the universal language.

The scene outside the station in Gelsenkirchen was raucous. American fans poured into a small courtyard outside a bar called the Hibernia, which had been designated on bigsoccer as the unofficial meetup point. Much chanting and singing and banging of drums and drinking of big beers. Though I didn’t think we’d see anyone we knew, we found David and Cameron, the father and son we’d met on the train from Paris the day (seemed more like a week) before. Then we ran into Kaela and Tai from the co-ed soccer team with their whole crew—about 20 die-hards who’ve rented out a converted mill somewhere in rural Germany as a base of operations. We were interviewed by Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker, though I fessed up that I was from SI and he probably woulnd’t want to quote me. Cameron and The Boy Who Shall Not Be Named got a little kickabout going. It was nice to have another kid around for TBWSNBN to hang with.

We lost the Kaela-Tai crowd in the march to the strassenbahn, which was absolutely packed. American fans, in the overwhelming majority, filled the car with U.S. chants and even The Star-Spangled Banner, which didn’t sound half bad. The handful of Czech supporters made a valiant but fruitless attempt to respond. The boys were dying from the heat in the car on a seemingly endless trip to the stadium, about four miles outside Gelsenkirchen. When the doors finally opened, the crowd exploded out onto the platform like soda from a shaken-up can.

In Japan and Korea four years earlier, the route from the train station to the stadium was always lined with vendors selling souvenirs and drinks out of duffle bags. Same would be true at any big game in the States. Nothing doing here. A German could have made a fortune selling bottled water to the thousands of sweaty fans coming off the strassenbahn. Instead, we marched dutifully through the heat to the security checkpoint.

Which turned out to be an anticlimax. After months of worries and debates on the BS boards about ID checks at the stadium (each ticket has a computer chip keyed to the ticket buyer’s personal information, including passport number), the process of entering the stadium involved a pat-down and a ticket scan. No ID check at all. I would have saved lots of money and avoided lots of hassle in transferring tickets had I known. As would have thousands of other fans. A scam. For some reason, the Germans thought it wise to put only one souvenir stand in the stadium, worked by five employees. That was the longest line of the day—it took nearly 45 minutes to buy a couple t-shirts and flags. Making a circuit of the outside of the stadium, we saw former U.S. sweeper and Bundesliga star Thomas Dooley being interviewed (he speaks better German than English, having grown up in the country as the son of a U.S. serviceman).

After taking leave of David and Cameron (with plans to try to meet again in Kaiserslautern) we headed to our seats. The inside of the Veltins Arena, home to FC Schalke ’04 of the Bundesliga, was rocking with U.S. fans, who appeared to outnumber the Czech by 60-40. Our seats were in the second deck, along the goal line. Nice view, but high up. I would complain, except that a few seats down was Thomas Rongen, former coach of D.C. United and the U.S. Olympic team. The drums were pounding, the chants were going, the flags were flying. The atmosphere was electric. It all looked so promising. And then they played the game.

The Continuing Saga of Bechtel’s Laptop

2006-06-13T02:03:00.000-07:00

After having been given a walking tour of Paris a couple days earlier, today Bechtel’s laptop climbed nearly all the way up the 509 steps in the tower of the Döm, Cologne’s massive and beautiful cathedral. We would have gone to the top, but as it turns out, Bechtel’s laptop is afraid of heights. And to think I was going to heave it from the summit. Bechtel’s laptop was disappointed not to accompany us to Gelsenkirchen, where he was supposed to meet another friend, but that just means we get to spend more time with it. I wonder what's next for Bechtel's laptop!

Giddyup

2006-06-12T06:39:00.000-07:00

I spent the England-Paraguay postgame drinking beer with some English friends of a friend. We were back down on the bank of the Main and, predictably, after hours of drinking (the one litre beers are nice), folks started jumping into the river. I have to hand it to them: for being drunk football fans, these lads were pretty clever. There were police boats in the river to keep people from taking the plunge, so they would run to one end and create a diversion. When the boat took off in the direction of the sprinter, the true jumper would leap in. I stayed dry, by the way. The water was a bit chilly.

Then it was off to Hannover to watch Italy practice (Sunday) and play Ghana (tonight). Hannover is okay. Some strange equine affinity, though.

Watched most of the Iran-Mexico game in a biergarten across the street from the stadium, where I had a fine bratwurst with fries. Seeing how this is Europe, I doused the fries in mayo. I can feel myself getting fatter, and I'm pretty sure my heart stopped at some point during the meal. After a currywurst (sliced wurst in a sauce similar to Milwaukee Stadium Secret Sauce and curry powder) at the Munich train station, a rindwurst (fancy hot dog) during the English drinking session and a paprikawurst (spicy and awesome) for dinner with a colleague Saturday, the sausage count stands at seven. I may abstain today. I don't know if my body can handle another pork product.

Three Feet of Meat

2006-06-12T00:43:00.000-07:00

This is more like it. The Thalys high-speed train from Paris—an American dad and his eight-year-old son were sitting in front of us, on their way to the first two U.S. games—dropped us smack in the middle of World Cup mania this evening. Cologne/Köln is one big football party. Lots of Portuguese and Mexican fans, plus Englanders, Swedes, some Ecuadorians and even a spare Angolan. Oh, and plenty of Germans. The ceiling of the Hauptbahnhof (that’s “train station” to the uninitiated) has been painted with a huge soccer mural: Zidane, Beckham, Ballack, Raul. Sure, it’s an ad for Adidas, but it’s awesome nonetheless.

We trundled past the massive cathedral (which might I suggest could use a sand-blasting?) and through the narrow streets packed with souvenir stalls and beer stands to our hotel on the banks of the Rhine. I had just enough time to file my si.com column [link], which I’d written on the train, before the kickoff of Portugal-Angola, which was being played a few miles away in the Cologne stadium. All the hotels and restaurants along the Rhine had televisions set up on their terraces for al fresco viewing. We pulled up a small table at the café next to our hotel. Large groups of fans were placing large orders of beer, the local specialty being Kölsch, which I’m told is lighter than the normal German. I can attest that it goes down well. The Boy Who Shall Not Be Named had his third soda of the day, and the combo caffeine/sugar rush had him goofily repeated the phrase “zoom-zoom,” as in, “Daddy, can I have another zoom-zoom?” and “Look over the river at the zoom-zoom!” To think he wanted a Red Bull.

In the game, Portugal got the early goal—seems to be a pattern in this tournament—then held off the plucky Africans (with their requisite white guy ). We all cheered the Angolan bicycle kick. No matter that it missed.

Since our restaurant had stopped serving food, at halftime we walked down a few doors to a place down the way that specializes in pork knuckles and “meter-long” sausages. I approached the latter with some trepidation, but the BWSNBN insisted we had the appetite for it. And he was right. Who’d have thought more than three feet of meat could disappear so quickly? (It reappeared in a different form later on, but let’s not get into that.) The meal was sehr güt! (Case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve discovered the umlaut key. Does “umlaut” have an umlaut? I can’t remember, but my former bass player Ron Richter always wanted to start a heavy metal band by that name. He also had an idea for a band with seven guitarists called Plethora. I think the meter-long sausage would have been the official ground meat product of Plethora. But I digress...)

One drawback to being situated right along the river is that the river has a lot of boat traffic, going all night. Also going all night are these soccer fans. It must have been 2 a.m. when the real singing started: “YMCA”, “We Will Rock You”, “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and various incomprehensible chants. Shortly thereafter came the clean-up crews, hosing down the sidewalks and raking up the broken bottles. Pretty soon it was getting light out, dawn just beginning to creep up across the river. That was at 4:04 a.m. I know because I was awake.

Paris shrugs, picnics

2006-06-11T09:38:00.000-07:00

There is a palpable lack of World Cup fever here in the City of Lights. Note, however, the faint smell of fresh croissants wafting through the window of our hotel room this morning as we prepare to leave for Cologne.

Coming back from the Eiffel Tower yesterday evening we walked through the Champ du Mars, full of picknickers waiting for the tower light show to begin. Over in a small corner of the park a few disparate men were watching the Argentina-Ivory Coast game on a TV set up at an outdoor cafe. They seemed out of place. No one else was interested. Kids were riding bikes and kicking balls around. People sat on blankets with wine, cheese and fruit. Old folks sat on benches and talked. This was well after 9pm, and the sun was just setting behind the Eiffel Tower. It didn't get dark until almost 11, right before we went to sleep.

You Invaded Poland!

2006-06-10T08:53:00.000-07:00

So the English government has been encouraging its fans to maintain an appropriate sense of decorum while in Germany vis-a-vis the host country's checkered twentieth century history. In other words: Don't mention the war. Predictably, not everyone listened. There were about 100,000 English fans in town without tickets, and most of them were watching the Paraguay game down along the river, where four big screens had been set up (including one in the middle of the Main). The most common chant from them was the old "There were 10 German bombers in the air"one, in which the RAF proceeds to shoot them down--one-by-one, which, if nothing else, makes for a hell of a long cheer. (Of course, someone has set the chant to music.)

Nonetheless, it was quite a sight. Both sides of the river and all the bridges were lined, and there were flags everywhere. People were having a really good time despite the heat and the fact that there were like three beer stands. Needless to say, thank god England won.

JFK at night

2006-06-09T23:26:00.000-07:00

What a rousing start to our World Cup adventure. After tearful farewells at home, we set off at 6 pm Friday. [The Boy Who Shall Not Be Named] [edit. note: He insists he doesn't want his name used, or even to be mentioned] placed his first call home from the Triboro Bridge, 15 minutes into our cab ride from the airport. After his homesickness subsided he slept in the cab. We got to the airport a scant three hours before the 9:30 flight but passed the time in a cafe filling out our World Cup brackets using excel files downloaded from this excellent site, which I came across courtesy of my loving wife. I somewhat optimistically have the Yanks headed to the final four, where we get knocked off by the Netherlands. Brazil wins it all. [The Boy Who Shall Not Be Named] has England going all the way, squeaking past the Dutch 2-1. If I could figure out how to link to the files I'd do so. He originally had the Three Lions winning on PK's until I hipped him to their woeful spot-kick history.
When we got up to head to the gate, I happened to notice that our departure now read 2:00AM. Thanks to $10 vouchers from Au Bon Pain we are loaded up on fruit and Gatorade, but now who knows what will happen with the jet lag.
Paris here we come. Only two more hours until we board. No Drew Carey sightings to report on this end.

Our Old Pal

2006-06-09T07:04:00.000-07:00

The first of what should be many Drew Carey sightings came Friday morning outside the Munich train station. I had a beer with him a year ago in Chicago before the U.S.-England game, which he graciously remembered. Seemed nice again. He's doing something for the Travel Channel, and as we were chatting he was approached by a gaggle of Clevelanders, which you see here.

Asparagus Envy

2006-06-09T06:56:00.000-07:00

Speaking of wood... We like Frankfurt. Munich, on the other hand, doesn't impress, at least the area by the train station that's supposed to be the hoity-toity shopping area. A TJ Maxx would have fit right in. And unlike Frankfurt, where they sell sausages and beers every 100 yards, on the Fussgangerzone there were just these fruit stands that sold apricots, berries and white asparagus. But not just any white asparagus. This stuff was like something you'd see at the shop selling the pervy bear trinkets.

It's like asparagus for men going through their midlife crises who can't afford a Porsche.

Whose Woods These Are

2006-06-08T16:38:00.000-07:00

I had been in the woods for about 10 minutes when I began to suspect that Fussganer meant something far more sinister than I first thought. After a 15-minute ride on Frankfurt's incredibly well-organized subway (live up to those stereotypes, why don't you), I got off the train with a couple dozen Brazil fans. We were going to an open training session that was being held at Offenbach Stadium, the home of a second division German team in suburban Frankfurt. No one really knew where the stadium was, but people seemed to be walking up a long street, so we followed. Occasionally we came to a sign that said Fubganger and had a picture of a soccer ball and an arrow. That was all fine until the Fubganger balls directed us to enter the woods. And not just any woods. These were some thick German woods, a real Brothers Grimm setting.

After what had to be a half-mile, we finally got to the stadium, which was, predictably, packed. The place holds 24,000, and it was full. That's a pretty impressive turnout for a practice, never mind one in Hansel and Gretel's back yard. The Brazilians were amazing, as were there fans. There was a makeshift samba band by the field--lots of ass-shaking and percussion and one guy with a horn that only played one note. It still sounded soulful.

Got lost on the way home; jumped off at the wrong station, which was fine, as it exposed me to more of Frankfurt. Nice shops and, of course, beer gardens. A mettwurst brings the sausage count to 2.

Frankfurt

2006-06-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

I told a nice native Frankfurter on the flight over that I was staying in an apartment near the train station. He told me that the train station was near the redlight district, which I would have figured out for myself when I went out in search of soap and shampoo. Nice to know I can get my joint worked on eight ways til Sunday, but I can't groom myself. After passing a place selling keychains of a cute bear in leather, I finally found a place with three kinds of shampoo: Fire, Water and Rain.

Walked near the river (the Main). Very nice, until I almost stepped on a syringe. And any pangs of homesickness I felt were gone.

A nice beer garden outside the train station provided a bratwurst, our first sausage of the trip.