German American Football and Sightseeing with a Rotarian and a 6-year-old

Wednesday was a national holiday, but Mark and Chris played in a – get this – American Football game. They invited me to go but said “well you probably won’t be interested…it’s not anything like the pictures you’ve showed us, it’s not a big deal, the teams aren’t good…” and I responded by saying “are you crazy?? It’s football! Because I’ve been over here I haven’t seen a football game since last season, and I’m going through withdrawal!”

So I gladly came along. It was a youth league, so of course the kids are small and the stadium is small, but it was funny because the game is still so new over here that a lot of the fans didn’t really know what was going on. Clemens and Monika kept asking me questions about the calls (“what is a block in the back?” “what does that signal mean that the ref just made?” “why did they make them back up 5 yards?”), and were absolutely astounded and excited at the concept of a 2-point conversion. They even had recorded textbook explanations of some penalties/calls that were played over the loudspeakers, so the crowd would know what was going on. All in all, it was great.

I also received word from another American I met a few days ago that there’s a group of Americans here who meet every Sunday at 6pm to go to an American pub and watch football. I’m so there.

After the game, I met up with the Rotarian (Wolfgang), Miname, and Wolfgang’s 6-year-old son Tom to go see the sights of the city. We went to this panorama thing kind of like Atlanta’s Cyclorama, a pretty castle on the river, and drove around a little bit. We then went back to their house to cook dinner. Wolfgang’s wife was out of town on a business trip and Tom was excited for the new playmates, and especially excited at the fact that I speak English, and Miname and I were glad for the company, so it all worked out great.

Wolfgang is a professor at the university, but is on sabbatical this semester to finish up a research grant. He’s pretty much a genius, and has a degree from Harvard and is a guest professor at Columbia. And he’s incredibly nice and is technically located within my department at the university, so he’ll be a good contact to have. At least he can hopefully help me figure out this mess of getting settled.