Thursday, December 9, 2010

With the Christmas season comes... Soccer Hooligans?

Last weekend I visited Hamburg for the last time before mission Homeward Bound.  My friend Chris drove me from here to Hamburg, which should have been normally a five hour, problem-free drive.  However, as usual with all ideal "problem-free" situtations, this was not the case.  When we went to leave Marburg at 10 am, it was snowing like crazy.  Ok, well, enough to give us a nice 4 inch layer of snow over everything (and yes.. Germany really does look like those snow covered postcards- everywhere...).  Now, back home, this is basically nothing to some of our snowfalls.  I mean, they shut down the entire state school systems last year for our 16 inches of snow.  However, Germans (although used to snow in some areas) are just not equipped with the amount of salt, large snow plows, and frequent exit ramps off their highways as we are.  Consider us lucky, Wisconsin people.  Also, don't forget the cars and type of driving they're used to- definitely no Ford 150 four wheel drives here...  It's just basically chaos after 4 inches of snow.  Literal chaos. 

After getting on the autobahn with our quaint little rental car (chris crashed his the week before.. so we had to compromise) everything seemed in order; yes it was snowing, but people could still go about at a decent pace, and the lanes seemed to be at least decently plowed.  However, after about 2 hours into our drive (and after extreme issues with our windshield fluid which I won't get into..) everything just became crazy, snow filled, and maximum of 25 mph.  On the autobahn.  That's right.  The fastest highway in the world.  Yep.  Ok now please allow me to rant.

The autobahn, is truly, quite awesome, provided there is quite awesome weather.  And no construction.  But as far as construction goes, I'm pretty sure that's crappy everywhere you go.  But anyways.  When there is unfortunate weather conditions, the autobahn seems quite unethical to me.  At home, our highways come with an exit ramp at least every 5 miles, if not less, especially in cities.  Here, one can go miles and miles and miles and a few more kilimeters, and then maybe another mile.. pass a truck stop.. and then another mile and WHOA you can MAYBE join onto another autobahn.. aka traffic sits. and sits. and sits.  With no where to go.  At. All.  People here can be stuck in traffic for hours upon hours, especially if they shut down a lane on the highway because some stupid truck driver was going too fast for conditions and spun out, resulting in him crossing the median and closing down the entire highway for jack forking his truck, facing the wrong direction in the opposing lane.  Not to say I've experienced that.. (sarcasm..).  Luckily I was in the lane he started off in, resulting in far less (but yet still existing) traffic.  The other lane, however, was at a standstill.  For the next about 50 kilometers, or however many miles.  It was literally crazy.  And then the other highways trying to merge to that highway were bogged up, which bogged up other highways, and well, can anyone say domino effect?  So, dear Germany, please invest in exit ramps.  and more salt.  That is all :) Not that it generally effects me, since I'm only in a car once a month or so, if I'm lucky.


I didn't get a picture of the traffic jams.. but they generally look like this..

Flughäfen teilweise geschlossen, Züge umgeleitet, Autobahnen blockiert (dapd)
Ok.  Enough about the roads. 

On friday I sat around finishing a paper for my politics class here, and then went to a soccer game with my host sister Sarah Fuchs,  her boyfriend and her boyfriend's friend.  It was SO incredibly cold.  I believe the temperature was -9, but, in honor of the frozen tundra which I must represent everywhere I go, I stood outside for the full 2 hours of playing, half time, and pre-game warm ups.  We were freezing despite our many layers, but we were better than most German fans who were lacking appropriate winter feet wear.  Soccer fans are crazy dedicated here.  Many of them drove all day from Southern Germany to Hamburg (Northern Germany) just to watch this game, and then were going to turn around and go back home.  Gas is even more expensive here than at home, and after my little rant over the autobahn during crappy winter weather, it is yet another base for my theory that soccer fans are crazy.  The stadiums are set up so that all the fans for one team sit in one section, and the fans for the other team sit in the other.  Basically, so they don't end up killing each other.  This isn't an exaggeration either.  I personally witnessed a 70 year old man in the row infront of me punch a 30 year old in the face TWICE because of spilling a few drops of beer on his jacket.  And also, the 70 year old's best friend proceeded to get in a verbal fight with another younger fan which resulted in the breaking of a stadium chair and the younger guy practically pummeling his girlfriend to try and strangle the 70 year old.  It was crazy.  If a fan from the other team would have made the mistake of coming into our section, they would legit have beaten the crap out of them.  It was extreme.  Yet amazing.  Don't think that you can't just go to a game and not care who wins, you can totally do that.  It's just the soccer clubs that have the crazy dedicated fans, and if they find out you're a tourist and have no idea whats going on, they usually teach you the team songs and provide an awesome experience for you.  The soccer club of Sarah's boyfriend was around us and now I know the songs from Kaisers Lautern, and witnessed them illegally setting off a firework smoke bomb thing in the stadium at the beginning of the game.. it was pretty rockin.  Unfortunately we lost.  But hey.  Great experience.

 

Saturday we had Thanksgiving dinner at the Fuch's house.  It was soooo good.  We had turkey, mashed potatoes with bacon and cheese, green bean casserole, stuffing, gravy and apple pie.  My host mom and Sarah made the turkey the day before and cooked it in a Dutch Oven thing starting before I got there, which was awesome because I was honestly terrified of the damn thing.  So yay.  I may have improved my cooking skills, but let's be real here.  Thanksgiving turkey?  yeah.. ha.  anyways.  Sarah and I made the potatoes and green bean casserole, our friend Christina brought the pie, Tania brought the gluehwein (a hot wine served at christmas time here..) and it was quite the fest.  Although they were all super skeptical of the stuffing.  I swear they thought it was made of vomit or something.  Oh well.  More for me :)
 
 
 
 

Weren't they cute :)

After dinner we went to the Christmas market downtown, which was gorgeous.  The snow even added to the effectt and gave the whole market a cute, warm Christmas feeling.  I love going to Christmas markets here at night; they're in every town and basically are places where you can buy little knick-knacks like ornaments, christmas stars, cookies with your name written on them, candies, sugar covered nuts, lots of food, and gluehwein.  Gluehwein is HUGE here with the christmas markets.  Each city has their own cups for the Gluehwein, which are like little collectable coffee mugs.  I have about 5 now from this year alone. 


 
 
 

It was quite the fun weekend.  Definitely recommend Christmas markets to anyone who is travelling to Europe during the Christmas season.  They're in basically every large city across Europe, and in all cities in Germany.  Definitely a great experience, especially if you're under the influence of Gluehwein :)

Well folks.  Tomorrow I'm off to Budapest until Tuesday.  I'm pretty stoked- we're going to the baths in the city center which are suuuper warm all year long, and are basically spas for the entire day sunday.  I'm not that thrilled that coming back our train doesn't leave the airport until 10:30 and isn't getting to Marburg until 6 am wed. morning, but sometimes you just gotta go with the flow.  Just another adventure to add to the list; maybe one of those stories I can tell my kids in the future to convince them their mother was once easy-going and not a stickler or something.  That is if I stop hating kids anytime soon.