auf geht's deutschland, schieß ein tor!

I've been watching a lot of the WM (Weltmeisterschaft, World Cup) at the Public Viewing at Roßmarkt. It's always a good time, but the atmosphere is absolutely amazing when Germany's playing -- being in the middle of a sea of German colors, the arena full to capacity and everyone's eyes on the screen . . . . There's really nothing like it in the U.S., no Public Viewings in the middle of cities, no sport that captures the whole country's imagination, no Nationalelf whose first and last names everyone knows. The city was magical after the game, too: everyone yelling and blowing vuvuzelas and pouring into the streets and dancing. It's immensely fun to be in Germany for this.

kaffee & kuchen and german feather dusters

Cecilia visited me on her way to moving to Italy for the summer and fall. We ate, walked, talked about our big life uncertainties two years after graduating from Pomona, and watched the World Cup. Kaffee und Kuchen at Café Laumer was a highlight (their veranda seating is lovely), as was Germany's World Cup win over Australia on Sunday night. We sat outside of a hookah bar in Sachsenhausen and nursed beers, then walked back to my apartment, grinning at all the honking cars and excited people post-win.

Near my apartment, we were accosted by four guys running out a bar, trying to convince us to come in and celebrate Germany's win. When we tried to say we were tired, they became suspicious. Had we not supported Germany?! No, no, we had! We pointed to our leis in Germany's colors. They remained unconvinced; how could we not want to celebrate? Had we even WATCHED the game? One of them wielded a feather duster (in German flag colors) as a microphone. It turned out he wanted us to name the players who had scored each of Germany's four goals (which we knew, but we were flustered, and had not understood the question). At our confused, "Wie bitte?" the guy determined that we needed reminding. "Podolski!" he told us, delivering a whack to my back with the feather duster. "Klose!" WHACK. "Müller!" WHACK. "Cacau!" WHACK. We were then sent on our way, sufficiently shamed.

not imaginary

This weekend I visited Lexy in Berlin on a last-minute whim, which was a thoroughly excellent choice. We walked all over Tiergarten and Grunewald, spent a whole afternoon in a Biergarten, attempted (nearly successfully) to visit a recreated medieval village, and took advantage of Berlin's fantastic brunch culture. The highlight for me, though, was returning to Tacheles.

The last time I was there was October 2006, as part of my thirty-hour accidental sidetrip between Italy and Oktoberfest. Most everything about that trip felt like something I'd made up in a haze of too little sleep -- drinking brightly colored Berliner Weisse at the festival in front of the Brandenburg Gate that we eventually realized was in honor of German Unification Day; happening upon large numbers of nudists in Tiergarten; etc. But Tacheles really felt like something that existed only in my imagination, and not just because I went there on a night that ended in me kissing a German boy in a some grass that I thought, at the time, was a park, and the next morning turned out to be a ten-by-ten-foot scrubby patch outside a retirement home.

This is what I remembered about Tacheles: some kind of tall, abandoned-looking building with a bunch of graffiti and many flights of stairs, a bar up top, and some kind of park with playground equipment out back. It seemed deeply unlikely to be true, and yet, when Lexy, her friend Chris, and I went there on Saturday night, the only thing missing was the playground equipment. There were a bunch of massive sculptures around the Biergärten/bars in the yard -- I wonder if maybe the playground equipment I remember climbing on was actually someone's art installation? If so, belatedly: oops.

how i spent my thursday

Thursday was Corpus Christi, the third and final holiday of Germany's weird ring-in-the-summer holiday season. I went jogging in Günthersburgpark in the morning and then went back in the afternoon to lounge in a bikini and write. Then I saw Prince of Persia with my friend Pet (better than anticipated, actually, though it felt like kind of a mash-up of many other Disney movies with a little time-travel twist) and afterward we went to dinner at Rinks and split a Bembel (traditional stoneware pitcher) of Apfelwein. I hadn't liked Apfelwein much when Katherine and I first tried it, which horrified Pet until I assured her that I had since remedied the situation. As my friend Amanda and I learned, it turns out that the secret is to order yourself a Bembel, preferably one intended for far more people than are currently present, and keep drinking until you don't remember anything at all, let alone why you used to think you didn't like Apfelwein. Some places, like Rinks, have smaller sizes than the 1,5-liter ones you get at places like Dauth Schneider or Wagner, but my friend Amanda and I thoroughly recommend the 1,5-liter size for two people, lots of good times, and very few clear memories. Delicious.