Italy Schmitaly! ... USA, USA USA!

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Hamburgers, Frankfurters, Asparagus, Strawberries & Fußball!

This week finds me in Germany for a mix of business and pleasure. I have a German lady that works for me in Hamburg, so I needed to go and preach the gospel according to James. I had several meetings with “The German Works Council,” who told me all the wonderful things I could not have this lady do. If I expect her to work longer than 10 hours a day, then I need their permission, if I want her to come to London for a 3-day meeting I need their permission. On top of her 6 weeks vacation, plus bank holidays, I have to give her two-weeks this year to go take a class. If I don’t I’m not sure what happens, but these are Germans so I’m guessing some guys in black leather trench coats will drag me out of bed in the middle of the night and beat the crap out of me :-) Actually, it’s a little like having a union, so I guess it’s not a bad thing.

I spent Wednesday and Thursday evening playing around Hamburg, which was a blast because they are a World Cup city and there are crowds everywhere watching football and talking smack. Only a handful of people can actually go to the games, so the Germans have set up massive “Fan Parks” which have a giant diamond vision type screen and seating for about 60K people. They sell beer and get pretty crazy at those places, but there are police everywhere (thousands of them). I went and watched the Germany v. Poland match; two neighbors that share a troubled history and a passion for football so the game was huge. It was 0-0 with only 2 minutes left, so I decided to get a jump on the crowd and head for the U-bahn (subway), as I was walking away from the park I heard a deafening roar that seemed to ring through the whole city … Germany had scored with less than a minute remaining locking up their position in the second round of the cup, and I missed it!  Hamburg folks are very friendly, and my Team US jersey was an invitation for dozens of people to practice their English. In Germany they sell a magical beverage called “bier”; it looks a lot like the American drink beer, but that’s about where the similarity ends … Germans take beer seriously and this stuff rocks!

On Friday I hopped on a train to Frankfurt to visit Anja; those who read my blog will remember her as my Austrian ski buddy, and my spiked heel wearing Greek sight-seeing partner. Anja lives in Wiesbaden and invited me up here to watch US v Italy on Saturday night. I had hoped to score tickets for the game and it would have been an experience, but a pair of seats still costs over $1000 and I think the fan parks are even more fun. So we’re going down to the Rhine river tonight where they have a giant screen set up over the river with bleachers on each side … should be pretty cool. I’m almost getting good enough at talking smack to the Italians that I can say we’re going win big tonight and not start laughing. Sadly I think the good ole US of A isn’t going to be around much longer in this tournament.

On Friday night Anja and I went to dinner at a really cool castle on the Rhine that had the best asparagus I’ve ever eaten. Then she mentioned something about a Strawberry festival in a nearby town. I had an image of a little town fair similar to the Rush Springs Oklahoma Watermelon Festival (which I highly recommend by the way) …I was wrong! This was a massive German party with all the clichés. Picnic tables full of Germans singing along with songs they all knew the words to. More beer and wine than you can imagine and yes plenty of food and drunk people … Good times! We got home about 2a.m and then sat out on her balcony just chatting about Sabre, life, liberty and pursuit of happiness … you know those late night deep conversations, we’ve all had them. Somewhere in there we tried to watch a concert video of Robbie Williams, but fatigue was setting in, and since it was 4am we decided sleep was called for.

Saturday, I got up at the crack of noon, and after showering and doing a little work it was already 3 in the afternoon. The US v Italy match didn’t start until 9, so we went downtown Wiesbaden for lunch. A mild hangover and fatigue kept me drinking diet coke and water with lunch. Wiesbaden is a gorgeous town with some really cool German looking buildings and quaint little alleys. This town (like all others) is World Cup crazy, and I’m seeing shirts and flags from all nations walking around. There was one point where we were walking down a street with lots of cafes; we could see about twenty different places with big screen TVs visible. In no time it was time to head to Frankfurt fort the USA match. It is hard to explain the passion for this event, and yet I didn’t see one fight. The crowds were too big to get into the fan zone for the match, but Anja scouted out some kick-ass spots with a perfect view of the giant screen. Don’t know if any of you watched the match, but it was not pretty and with both teams and referees all putting on a rather poor showing a 1-1 draw seemed fair. But the US did play a half of football one man down to powerhouse Italy and stood their ground, which is something to be proud of. I remember at one point walking past a large group of chanting Iranians; since I appeared to be the only American wearing a Team US shirt in sight, I decided not to taunt them :-) The craziest fans I saw were from Portugal; they had just won a match in Frankfurt and secured a spot in the second round for the first time in 40 years, and these guys were nuts. We saw plenty of half-naked grass skirt wearing Red and Green painted, drunk off their ass yelling at anyone who would listen to them fans … it was kind of cool. Europeans, Asians, Africans, Australians, South and North Americans … for culturally appreciative people, this event is an unrivaled opportunity … can’t recommend it enough!

The weather in Germany could not be more perfect for the Cup, and this evening as Anja was driving me to the airport with her convertible open I was filled once again with an appreciation for just how cool an opportunity I’ve been given this year. And still more to come! My Dallas trip was supposed to start next weekend, but business needs are forcing me to delay my trip home until 7/6 - 7/13. I’m hoping to take a couple of those days off and make an appearance in Seattle.

Have a great weekend everyone!

James

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