The Round Thing Goes into The Square Thing

I've finally attended a football game! Sure, it wasn't America football, but tomato, tomato. (That phrase is much easier to get across verbally...Let's try again: To-may-to, to-mah-to.)

Weder Bremen, a northern Germany team, played Hoffenheim at home. This happens to be rather close to Tuebingen so we snagged some tickets and drove out there for the game. Took me a while to really understand what was going on, but the easiest metaphor was to think of it as basketball with your feet and then I started to get into the swing of things.

Right you are, Flula, right you are.

I was cheering for Bremen, the team wearing green and white (Because my allegiance to Michigan State runs deep.) but we were amongst the Hoffenheim fans.

In the end they tied, which was glorious because the opposing side was sort of harassing us and we made a quick comeback to even it out.

(For those of you wondering how a professional sports team can tie. I direct you to this blog post by the lovely Katie who attempts to contemplate Europe's lax views on competition).

So we were all pretty content. Bremen tied and they all seemed happy. ...Well not everyone seemed happy.

As we filed out, you could see the Hoffenheim team walking toward their fan-section to celebrate.

The Hoffenheim fans booed and hissed their own team for drawing. I saw some guy chuck a half-full beer at them. That was just sort of unfathomable. Why? They didn't even lose. Sure, they didn't win per se, but they surely didn't lose.

Then I learned that the Bremen fans still celebrate with the team afterward in this weird little victory dance. But what's more so, they, the fans, will bring the team gift baskets and bake them cookies after a great loss. The fans leave the goodies on the players' cars after practices.

Win or lose, soccer is taken to a hyperbole in either direction.

How do I feel about this? I'm not sure, still wrapping my head around it. Honestly, after Michigan's little show in the Ohio State game (yeah, we get internet here and Michigan football is staying classy as ever...) I think sports are taken a little too seriously here. And there. And everywhere.

You're Never Fully Dressed...

Day one of the impromptu Germany Christmas excursion is underway. But it's much more than underway. Day one is almost gone. And I'm still sitting on my bed.

A day of traveling, one plane FULL of babies whose first experiences of flying are uncontrollable anger at the changing air pressure, and a cancelled train connection. It is a small wonder I slept for 13 hours before being prodded out of bed to shower because the scent of my socks is obscenely wafting through the room. It's been a slow start.

We're heading out today to re-accquiant ourselves with Tuebingen, the college town that I studied abroad at. It's really only been a year since I last visited during my internship and nothing here has really changed at all. I have though, I can feel that. There was a great debate over the effects that being abroad had on us all before we left. Who matured, the insides of becoming independent, world-travelled, the nuances between cultured and snooty. (Which I may be well slipping toward...)

Before I flew out of Detroit I had this overwhelming anxiety attack about my appearance. I scurried to the nearest Old Navy and dropped $211.04 on a wardrobe. Having now written out by behavior of the last few weeks, it seems like I'm slipping into this weird quarter-life crisis.

Maybe a three-week stay in Germany during the holidays is exactly what I need. Maybe that's what every 45 year old male says about his new cherry-red Mustang convertible.


...

Howdy, Neighbor!

Going to work at 7:30am, my neighbor found me walking down the stairs in my dirtiest, heaviest work clothes and my trè chic polka-dot lunch box carrying my keys, a hardcover copy of the bestselling novel Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix, a Ramen noodle chicken-flavor pouch, and a cheese grater. 


How do you segway around that?

Coming home from work, he saw me get out of my car with a fern. 

Witching Hour

As a person of the younger variety, stereotypically, I should have enjoyed Halloween in my most revealing version of a cat/witch/devil costume I could muster.

Milkshake bringin' all the boys to the yard and whatnot.

Seriously, because someone needs to explain this one to me, too.

Alas, Halloween found me, not haunting up a local bar flirting my way through all the free cocktails I could stand, but at someone's home, where people were gathering before heading to said bar.

I did not partake in the second portion of that plan.

In fact, one of the party-goers to be said that I looked like I wanted to murder everyone there for keeping me from my bed.              ...He wasn't entirely off. They did have a big bag full of candy, so I gorged myself out of pity and sleep loss. And my first draw was a starburst pack filled with ALL reds.

The night wasn't a complete bust.

I regret Everything.

I did something terribly stupid last night. Oh, why, oh, why did I think it would be a good idea? So much remorse. So much guilt.


Owing to the fact that it was 1:30am and I had finally gotten some cash money into my pocket, the decision to get fast food after a full day of work AND babysitting didn't appear so wretched. I hadn't had a full meal yesterday and there it was. Neon lights a'twinkling.

 So of course I curbed the temptation and just went home to sleep. HA. Nope, I had forty dollars in my pocket and had just listened to a baby scream for no less than four hours. I went through the drive-through and got two cheeseburgers and a milkshame.*

(*NOTE: I actually typed out 'milkshame' instead of 'milkshake' and I'm going to keep it. Some mistakes have great meaning.)

Owing now to the worst decision of the night, my stomach is trying to attack my intestines and while they are putting up a good fight, I think I might die. TMI. I know, I know, "tell more information." It's been so frighteningly horrid that my legs have begun to tingle from my shins down whenever I go to the bathroom.

...Someone call an ambulance while I do p90x and sob uncontrollably.

 I am calling off all junk food in the near future. I've got my sisters wedding (!) to get ready for and some other nice happenings that I would prefer not to wear a moo-moo to attend. Plus, I don't know how drunk-late-nighters do it, but--never again.

(Rita, don't you just love that your wedding gets announced on my blog in the same breath as my digestive problems? Love you, sister.)

So segwaying from the most American-esque story I know to the announcement I intended. I am still currently living in Kalamazoo. I was without internet for around a month, and when I did get it installed, it just so happens that I still have a full-time job that I work six-days a week. Not much time for blogging. Yet, time to save some money for...wait for it....a trip to Germany around Christmas!

I will again try to update more often. But no guarentees. This is a read-at-your-own-risk-type deal.


Here we go again. Welcome back, internet.