They say I´m not German

The boys kept calling it soccer for my benefit, but I called it football because screw my benefit – I’m in Germany and their word makes more sense anyway. The stadium was small and plain but it didn’t matter to the Germans because the greatest game in the world was about to be played and every seat in the house is a good one. The home team, St. Pauli, represents a neighborhood in Hamburg whose residents are fiercely devoted to their team and pay upwards of 500 Euro for lifetime passes to all of the games. I knew nothing of the opposing team, Wattenscheid, except that they too, have incredibly loyal fans, some of whom drove hours just to attend tonight’s game.

I wasn’t sure why Philipp and Felix were rushing me. As I walked out of the restroom Philipp yelled, “Hurry up!” turned around and ran through a sea of people all filing through the entrance to the stadium. I chased after him and when I caught up I realized the reason why we were running: there were no seats in our section – one either found a good place to stand or spent the entire game peering over the shoulder of a seven foot tall lumberjack.

We shoved our way into the crowd of excited, buzzing fans and planted ourselves fifty feet behind the home team’s goal. Then the cheering began … and didn’t stop for the next hour and a half. Arms thrown up in the air, key rings shaken like maracas, beer sprayed overhead, whooping and hollering, the entire stadium sang in unison and didn’t stop until every player left the field. Somehow they all knew the words to every song, every cheer and every chant and they sang and screamed like the fate of the game depended on it. And maybe it did because St. Pauli won and we jumped and yelled as if money were raining down from the sky. I learned all the cheers by the end of the night and took great pleasure in pumping my fist in the air, hollering words that meant nothing to me, not caring because I got to feel German for ninety minutes.

I’m having a wonderful time in Hamburg. Felix and Philipp are being perfect hosts and have tons of activities planned for our weekend. I picked a good time to visit Germany because for whatever reason, everyone parties on May 1st. Blog updates will inevitably take a backseat to this partying and I’ll update when I get another chance.