Second Letter from Berlin

The students at Freie University were on break for the first three weeks that we were here, but now their semester has started so there are plenty of German college students about for us to try to chat with. I met a couple of cool kids in my basketball class and I’ve met a water polo coach who’s going to hook me up with a team to play with in the bundes liga when the season starts in May. The other night we met a group of FU students way out in the East side of the city, at this place where you pick up a wine glass for 1 euro, eat and drink whatever you want, and pay what you feel like you owe when you leave. All on the honor system, and the place is still in business. Incredible. I talked for a long time with this one political science student about differing perspectives on world affairs and each other’s cultures, and we both agreed that The Big Lebowski is among the finest pieces of cinema ever produced. I swear, the Germans love that flick. No idea why.

So last summer when I was living on my own away from home for the first time I read a lot of websites and a few irreverent cookbooks promising to teach me, the young bachelor new the kitchen, how not to starve. They all focused on making the actual cooking very simple, which it turns out was a waste of time. Cooking is easy; it’s the shopping that’s hard, especially when we’re cramped for fridge space and the markets are open about 10 hours a week. I am pursuing ever more creative ways of preparing spaghetti, rice, and sausage. Also, I love frozen pizza. For some reason the Germans use salty salami instead of good, honest pepperoni on their pizzas, and I haven’t been able to get a straight answer out of anyone as to why.

Yesterday I saw my first European football (ie soccer) match. The home team went up 3-0 and sat there the rest of the game, so that was exciting, and some fans lit their seats on fire with about five minutes left to play in the game. By the time a fire extinguisher had been passed up from the field, another section was ablaze as well. Luckily, the crowd of 45,000 only filled the Olympic Stadium to about half capacity, so people could easily put some distance between themselves and the burning seats. Other than that the crowd was well-behaved, so the arson was a bit out of the blue.

Wednesday we head out to Munich for a few days on some cultural field trip. I have too much to do before then to look into exactly what we’ll be doing, but rest assured I’ll let you know when I find out.