'54, '74, '90, 2010!

Until this week, I'd seen maybe one professional soccer game in my life. Then the Weltmeisterschaft (WM / World Cup) started, and it's such a big huge deal here that it's like all I've done all week. Every bar in town has put up TVs so that people can watch the games, and the big grassy field across the street from the train station has been turned into a "WM-Park" - there lots of large picnic tables, semi-permanent stands selling beer and wurst, and a HUGE screen at the front of the park so that everyone can see the game, even from hundreds of feet away.

This picture is Germany in a nutshell.

I went there to watch the US-England game on Saturday, and it was pretty cool, but there weren't many people there because it was a game early in the tournament that didn't involve Germany. On Sunday I went to the Irish pub in town to watch the Germany-Australia game, which Germany ended up winning 4-0, and it was absolutely CRAZY. Everyone was all decked out in German flags, colors, and facepaint, and after the game the town just went nuts. The Neckarbrücke, one of the only bridges over the river, was so packed full of people celebrating that no traffic could get through, so I couldn't get a bus home for a long time. People were running up and down the main street waving German flags, and other people were driving up and down this same main street honking their horns, singing, and just generally partying for over an hour after the game ended. And that was only Germany's first game, in the preliminary round! I'm really excited that I'm here this month, because it's cool to see how things go down in a country that actually cares about soccer and has a decent team. Relatedly, I've been hearing this song a lot lately. It's basically about how Germany is going to win the WM.

Other than soccer craziness, nothing unusual is really happening here. One fun thing I did recently was go to the annual Stocherkahn race in the Neckar, and even though it was rainy and gross that day, there were still a ton of people there and it was a lot of fun. Stocherkahns are these boats that are kind of like canoe-gondola hybrids; most dorms in town have them, and on sunny weekend days there are always a lot of people relaxing on them, drifting down the river. Pictured below are two of the boats from the day of the race and what the finish line looked like.

So yeah, that was pretty neat!

Because I like organizing my thoughts in list form, here are some lists I have thought of that relate to me being here in Germany.

Things that I have tried to explain to Germans, but I don't think they really got it:
Marching band/drumline
Big Ten football
saltine crackers
chili


Nights that were fantastically memorable, even though I didn't really do anything special:
Grilling with my roommates and then allowing myself to be convinced to come out with a few of them, which turned out to be a great choice because it was "Rock Night" at the bar we went to, and not many things are better than German boys singing and dancing to "Barbara Ann" by the Beach Boys

Things that are going to kill me when I come home:
4 classes + NUMB + SAI at Northwestern
open container laws

Now I'm going to go take a nap, because last night I stayed up too late writing a paper that I should have started before midnight, and I had to wake up for class earlier this morning.