Eishockey!

Yesterday I went to an ice hockey game in Cologne at an arena about as big as the United Center. The Koelner Haie (sharks) played the Berliner Eisbaeren (polar bears), and since the Haie were the home team, there were a looot of fans there. It was different from the Blackhawks games I've been to... for one thing, there was FIRE in the pre-game show (like when they play music before the team comes out, and stuff). It was awesome. Also, when the team came onto the rink, they skated out through an inflatable shark's mouth. And their mascot was skating around waving a flag. An ice-skating, flag-waving shark is probably the coolest thing I've ever seen.

The game itself was pretty quiet; the only noise in the arena came from fans yelling, which they did a lot, but we were far away and up high in the cheap 15 euro seats. It was neat that all the noise was produced by people though; I think it is the sort of thing the Blackhawks people tried to get the drumline to do last year, except they were dumb about it. At this game there were 3 people with drums sitting in the superfan section and they played a lot and the audience interacted and clapped along and stuff, kind of like how we do cheers at football games, but better. It was also fun how into it everyone was; when the team was coming out, the announcer only said every player's first name and everyone in the arena yelled the last name.

After the game we decided to stay in Cologne and go to a restaurant. Cesar, the Peruvian guy, wanted to go to this Peruvian/Latin American restaurant he had heard about, so we tried to do that. It took about an hour to find the place because first we had to get the address, then take the train to where it was, then ask about 5 people where the street was because we had no map, but none of them had ever even heard of the street or the restaurant, and Cesar had to call the restaurant a few times to ask how to get there... it was annoying and we were all getting kind of cranky, but eventually we found it, and it was REALLY good and REALLY worth it. I tried cevice (which is much tastier than its description makes it sound), chicha morada (a drink made from purple corn), and Inca Cola (soda that is apparently canned in the US, but not sold anywhere I've seen) and they were really good, as was my dinner. It's comforting to know that real Mexican/South American food does exist in Germany, because last time I was here I couldn't find any, except the kind that had peas and corn and carrots in it. Which isn't really that Mexican, except the corn, but even that was Germanified. But this restaurant was really really really good.

Today has been nice so far. The sun was out earlier, making today the third day since getting here that I have seen blue sky. So I appreciate it when it happens. I don't really know what else I'm going to do today, because I've already eaten and finished my homework... maybe I'll go wander around town or something.

Tschuss!