Wieder zu Hause

Well, I am back home now. It feels weird. Since I've been back, I have had a couple german moments when I say 'danke' and 'tschuss' instead of speaking english. That will change. I was nervous driving home from the airport for the first time in five months, but I made it. I had a great time in Germany. Thanks for reading. See you all sometime soon.

Fotos

Rund um den Bodensee

Well, its been awhile. Whats up? Wie Geht's euch? Italy won the cup. That was disappointing for pretty much everybody in Germany save the aforementioned Italian fans who celebrated the win with tears and victory laps. At least Germany got third. Bastian Schweinsteiger is awesome. Germany's coach, Juergen Klinsmann, quit, is returning home to California and hopefully will eventually take the spot of fired US coach Bruce Arena.
Elliot stopped by Konstanz on his way around the globe last week and we had a great time speaking english. We went to Heidelberg and Stuttgart to see the amazing new Mercedes Benz museum. It was one of my favorite museums I had ever been to. They had Ringo Starr's jet black sportscar and a popemobile. Check it out if you can. Heidelberg was full of tourists, expensive beer and average Doener-Kebaps. We did have a great tour of the city from a family friend that lives there, though - thanks Jen.
I rode my bike around the Bodensee this weekend. I set out with some friends at 4 on Friday and we got back at about 4 today. It was amazing. Great weather, great bike lanes and whenever we got hot or tired, we just parked our bikes and took a swim. We spent the night in the tents that we strapped on my bike rack. The first day we went through the Swiss part of the coast into Austria. After we crossed the border we found this great little secluded harbor with grass right by the water. We decided not to see the 'Camping Verboten' sign and set up shop. We were out of there by seven in the morning to avoid any potential angry Austrians.
The next day was spent half in Austria, half in Germany. We got to Bregenz in the morning and we had a herzhaftes breakfast with great bread, butter, cold cuts, jelly and cheese and went swimming and shopping for groceries and then set off. We crossed the border at one or so and went to Lindau, an island city that was having a city festival on that day. We actually ran into a fair amount of festivals in the cities that we passed through. There always seems to be something going on in the cities and towns in these parts. It is great to see a city that wants to give its people shit to do. Well, the festival in Lindau had all these little stands and stages throughout the city with bands and performers playing. We watched one band that recalled a younger version of my high school band, Short of Stable: mismatched clothing styles and instruments, nervous playing, average singing (sorry Taylor), and english lyrics, which for this group lost them a couple of cool points. I did give them a huge hand for the moment of nostalgia they provided me with, though. The bands and musicians that I have seen here seem to just sing in english because it is seen as the international language of cool. The quality of lyrics definitely takes a huge hit because of it and it usually just ends up sounding trite to a native speaker. Modern german music has definitely thoroughly disappointed me - except for the official and unofficial world cup songs, which have been in my head for the past month. There was another group we saw in Lindau; an emo/punk/hardcore group from germany called - I kid you not - 'Smile Now, Cry Later'. They screamed/grunted/sung in english cliche's as well. They were terrible.
After Lindau we rode through a little town that was having a festival, bought some cherries and had a pit-spitting contest. We found a nice nude beach with woods nearby, made a bonfire, roasted peppers and pretty much every other foodstuff we had with us and slept by the water. Today is was hot and we swam and got ice cream several times before taking the ferry back to Konstanz from Meersburg. All in all we went 74 miles in 48 hours. I am tired now and am looking forward to sleeping on a real bed. This trip made me appreciate the amazing vehicle that is the bicycle. It is really well-incorporated into the traffic infrastructure here and it is a fun, healthy way to get around. I plan to use it as much as I can when I get back home, but it will be tough because of the fact that cars rule america and everything is just really far apart. I have two exams, two weeks and a visit from the family before I come home. Bis Gleich.

Fussball Patriotism

My time here has absolutely flown by. I have been here for four months. I haven't seen home for four months. I haven't spoken english in four months (Yeah, right).
It feels weird to think about going home even though I will be returning to what I have known all my life.
Well, not all of it - I just used my calculator to find out that after this trip, I will have spent 2.3 percent of my life in Germany. That seems like a substantial amount of time and I can tell myself that I have done very well to live for that long in a foreign country, but the main thing that I get from that figure is that I am still very young. And that feels good.
And I still have a month left - complete with the World Cup finals, the fourth of July, and the ever-increasing presence of German football patriotism.
I think that most Germans would say that the flag waving going on these days has absolutely nothing to do with 'patriotism'. It has to do with the fact that the German squad just reached the semifinals with an amazing penalty-shootout win over favorites Argentina. Before the World Cup started, I think the only prominently displayed German flag I saw was in front of the Reichstag (parliament) building in Berlin. Being patriotic in this country is complicated. It is tied to a history that very few want to be connected to. For many, its just something that is not done. But it is hard to argue that the German national team has not inspired some semblance of patriotism. The people in the streets, football fans or not, are thoroughly decked out in rot, schwarz and gold. Whether they are wearing those colors to support the team or the country is the real question. Either way, I'm loving being here for it.
This Tuesday Germany plays Italy. This Tuesday is also the Fourth of July. There are several americans here, and we are planning to watch the game and have a cookout. I'll be supporting the Germans, after I eat some smores and a cheeseburger.

I Take That Back

Italy 1: USA 1. Bueno. I came back from a day of mountainee -ring in the Swiss Alps to watch the game and I was in good spirits after the final whistle. All we need to do is beat Ghana and have the Czechs lose to Italy and we will have ourselves a date with Brazil in the knockout rounds. Sounds good to me.

I climbed a mountain today. The trip i took was organized through the Hochschulsport program, a community-wide sports program that offers pretty much everything you could think of and so many people, old and young, get involved in. I signed up for this trip online and paid only sixteen euros for a guided hiking tour of the Swiss Alps for the day. There were seven of us in all. We met up early in the morning and drove South into Switzerland about an hour and a half. We parked the Volkswagen Westphalia after driving up a steep, skinny road that wound up the mountainside to an altitude of about 1,400 meters. From there we set out on foot. The Germans who were along for the trip were decked out in fancy hiking gear including walking poles, breathable outer and underwear, water sacks built into their backpacks and the like. As usual, they were prepared. Overly prepared. I borrowed some hiking boots and only halfway considered the stuff on the list of items to bring along. It took us about two and a half hours to reach the peak of the mountain we were aiming for, Speer, 1951 meters above sea level (6401 feet). It was a bit harder than I expected and I was surprised when I saw a group of Swiss ladies at least three times my age reach the top in such a jovial mood. Just after enjoying the amazing view, eating lunch at the peak and filling in our entries in the Gipfelbuch, we saw an Alpine Ibex, or Steinbock in German, with its huge horns walking with ease on an extremely steep section of the mountain. There were also a lot of cows lower on the mountain, all of which had bells around their necks which could be heard from miles away. It sounds like an experimental bell orchestra when the herd starts to move. We had to deal with mud, rain, wind, falling rocks and intense heat during the hike. We walked a lot of the way with water running down the mountain under our feet, either from the melting snow or the numerous springs coming out of the rocks. We did come across a good bit of snow, and I had to resort to skiing on my boots on the way down. After a brisk stretch downhill, we took a break at a cabin way up at near the peak where they serve hungry mountain climbers. I asked where the toilet was in Hochdeutsch, High (normal) German and I had no idea what the answer to my question was. Swiss German has a lot of similarities to German, but most Germans will tell you that it is either really hard to understand or a different language entirely. After some helpful hand gestures from the staff I finally found the WC and we were on our way back down the mountain. When I got home I discovered the first sunburn I have had since Ive been in Germany. It looks like I am wearing pink socks on my arms.

We aren't very good at soccer

I have watched at least part of every single game that has been played so far in the World Cup. My life has been about football, beer, and sausage for the past couple days. I watched the US get spanked yesterday by the Czechs. It was embarrassing. They were obviously the better team. By a mile. Their goals were amazing and they looked like the best team to play so far in the tournament. Myself and the rest of the Americans here watched the game, as usual, in the big beer garden under the sun that has come out at just the right time to provide spectacular weather for the Cup. I am using the word spectacular as a relative term here. Before Friday, I hadn’t seen a blue sky for at least a couple weeks, but now the weather is just nice enough to remind me of home. At the beer garden there were a few Czech fans as well as plenty of Germans who just love football. All the neutral fans, of course, cheered not so much for the Czechs but against the US. The rest of the world passionately wants us to lose and it has absolutely nothing to do with our team.

After the 3 nil blowout, Italy played Ghana and the Italian fans showed up in droves. When they scored, the fans got up and ran around blowing their air horns with Italian flags flying like capes behind them. It was great to watch. After the game, which Italy won 2:0, there was an unofficial parade in the city. They flew flags out of their car windows and drove in a circle around the city for an hour. It was almost enough to make me forget that I was in Germany. Im sure the celebration will be even bigger if they beat us on Saturday.

Die Weltmeisterschaft

The World Cup. Its here. Its huge. The kickoff was today, with Germany playing Costa Rica in Munich. I watched the game here in Konstanz. The city has set up a huge beer garden with a gigantic portable screen right by the lake so that everybody can watch the games together. There were hundreds of picnic tables in front of the screen and everyone was standing on top of them for the full ninety plus minutes of the game. Almost everyone was decked out in black, red and gold, waving flags and blowing air horns. Several thousand people showed up, pretty impressive for a city the size of Konstanz. The fans were ecstatic during the game, which ended up 4-2 for Deutschland. Two goals from star striker Miroslav Klose and two more amazing long range shots from Phillip Lahm and Torsten Frings. This is indeed the biggest sporting event in the world. The US plays the Czech Republic on Monday. I will pick up a jersey before then and come back to watch the game at football party central Konstanz.