Where's Özil?

So, the European Championship is on and people are excited enough about it that I would need to wear earplugs if I wanted to sleep on game nights. Football, guys, right? Right? And despite Germany's aforementioned lack of diversity, Nuremberg seems to have a contingent of fans from every European country, so it's not just Germany's game nights but every game night. So, every night. But I digress.

 Moving on: remember this guy?

His name is Mesut Özil and he plays for Germany and he was pretty good in the World Cup in 2010 but apparently he's not doing so well in the Euro Championship this year? Whatever, not the point. This is the point:

Hah. Get it? Because he makes that face all the time. Seriously, google him and you'll see.

Schwarzfahrer

Germany is not exactly ethnically diverse; according to Wikipedia, 91.5% of Germans are ethnically German. The next biggest ethnic group, Turks, accounts for just 2.1% of the population. Of course, just because a country is not ethnically diverse does not automatically mean it has a racial problem, any more than an ethnically diverse country is automatically a haven of peace and multicultural understanding. But, well...

Germans are especially sensitive to accusations of racism, partly, I think, because the unspoken follow-up to such an accusation is "and remember what happened the last time you were racists?" There's a strange, wishful perception that World War II took care of racism in Germany once and for all. It's a huge blind spot and I've often been surprised at the uncensored comments from people who would in no way consider themselves racist but who say (and apparently think) some astonishingly racist things.

So that's an introduction to this Oscar-winning (oooooo, ahhhhh) German short film called Schwarzfahrer. The literal translation of Schwarzfahrer is "black rider" and it's the term used for someone using public transportation without a ticket. In the film, it's also a visual pun! But watch it and then I won't have to explain it.

If that didn't make you want to slap that old woman, I don't know what would. Make you want to slap an old woman, that is. Anyway, she got her comeuppance and I got an excuse to use the word 'comeuppance'. Everybody wins!

It's a Harz knock life

A few weekends ago, we headed up to the Harz National Park for a long weekend of climbing. It's something of an annual trip for my friends here, but it was the first time I'd been. We slept in the garden at Christian's parents' house, ate their food, drank their schnapps, and got hand-knitted socks from his mom. So yeah, it was great.

The Harz National Park is in north-central Germany, approximately (very approximately) where the yellow star is and just east of the former East/West German border. Christian's parents missed ending up in East Germany by about 10 km.

The climbing in the Harz is on granite, which I think is my new favourite kind of climbing. It's a little hard on the knees, elbows, ankles, and fingertips, but skin grows back and just look how pretty it is!

And I finally got to do some multi-pitch! Now in my mind, multi-pitch is hanging from a belay you built yourself, 300 metres up with nothing but air beneath you. But, thank goodness, that's not what all multi-pitch is like, otherwise you might not be reading this because I might not have written it because I might have died.

We did one last route as the sun set on Monday evening and then drove back to Nuremberg in the dark.

And now, history: During WWII, the Harz region was quite important for munitions manufacturing and a lot of the labour was supplied by forced-labour camps. V-2 rockets were built underground by prisoners working in horrifying conditions. At the end of the war, 40,000 of these prisoners were marched through the Harz as the German line retreated from the Allied advance. 10,000 died of exhaustion or were shot because they couldn't keep up. Just your daily reminder that something horrible has happened in every beautiful place.

And lest you think that's a depressing way to end a post, I'm sure something beautiful has happened in most horrible places too.

Just trying to help

Today, in "Facts About Germany You Did Not Ask For and Will Never Use": the whole country is obsessed with Kleenex. And not the boxes, but the little pocket-sized packages. It's a statistical fact that at any given time, 88% of Germans have a pack of Kleenex on their person. DO NOT LOOK THAT UP JUST ACCEPT IT.

A brand named Tempo dominates the German market in "facial tissues" (gross, by the way), much like Kleenex in North America. This is probably not a terribly important fact for you, but it is an expository fact for the following anecdote: Once, at an outdoor music festival (where it's loud, yo), the girl in front of me in line for the bathroom asked me if I had a Tempo and then looked at me like some sort of weirdo when I triumphantly pulled a tampon out of my bag. In my defense, if life was a game of Family Feud and the category was "things a woman might ask for in line for the bathroom", my answer would be number one.

Skyrocketing levels of maturity

Remember a while back when I said that I wanted to find a very specific licence plate and that I would not rest until my mission was accomplished? Well, I found it I found it I found it! Months* of hard work** were rewarded when I came across this masterpiece of German engineering***, just sitting there as though it wasn't the answer to all my prayers.

Enhance.

Ladies and gentlemen, my work here is done.

* weeks
** looking at licence plates
*** I have no idea what kind of car this is

Pop psychology

Hey! This song is called "Schrei Nach Liebe" ("Cry for Love") and it's by Die Ärzte (the Doctors), a venerable punk rock band from Berlin. It's an anti-fascist anthem that makes the highly-nuanced argument that fascists are fascists because their mothers and/or girlfriends didn't love them enough. Clearly the Doctors are psychologists, amirite?

But seriously, it's pretty catchy and it's great for singing to yourself when you're trying to convince yourself to do something you don't want to do.

Speaking of fascists (smooth segue), check out this video.

It's worth noting that while 25,000 fascists sounds like a lot (and it's obviously 25,000 fascists too many), that's only about 0.03% of the German population. It's not like Germany is crawling with neo-nazis. Also, how clever are those t-shirts?

Germany's most wanted

To my eternal (so far) embarrassment, I got breathalyzed by the German police on my bike on Friday night. My friend Michi and I had ridden the wrong way up a one-way street (he was on the sidewalk but I was on the street because I am terrified of jumping the curb) when a police car drove by, turned on the flashing lights, backed up 20 metres, turned on the loudspeaker, and said "Bleib stehen" - "Stay where you are." I almost died of embarrassment then and there. The officers got out of the car and came over for a chat. I then got really flustered because I was worried about getting in trouble, started stuttering, and probably sounded completely trashed. Add to that the fact that we were obviously coming back from the Berg (a festival in the vein of Oktoberfest) and I don't blame them for breathalyzing me. But it did lead to this fun conversation.

                        Officer: Please blow into the tube.
                        Me: Okay.
                        Officer: NOT LIKE THAT.
                        Me: Sorry.
                        Officer: Again.
                        Officer: 0.6 promille.
                        Me (in my head): Holy shit isn't the legal limit 0.08?
                        Me (out loud): Is that good or bad?
                        Officer: It's good... for you.

Anyway, apparently the scale (not the limit) is different in Germany because 0.6 promille is (significantly) less than half of the legal limit for cyclists. And once the officers figured out that we were not drunk, they were quite friendly and sent us on our way with directions to the bicycle path. Disaster (and heart attack) averted!

In which we follow through

So there's this German supermarket chain called Aldi which, in addition to food, has a rotating selection of other allegedly useful stuff at very affordable prices. And what Aldi happens to be offering at very affordable prices has an embarrassingly large effect on my life. So, for example: Aldi will have barbecue stuff and I will buy it and plan a barbecue which I will never get around to inviting people to. Or Aldi will have gardening stuff and I will buy a couple of plants which I will kill within a week, rendering the leather gardening gloves which I also bought superfluous. It's a fantastic business model and the Aldi brothers are accordingly wealthy.

What I'm saying is that about a month ago, Aldi had bike stuff, so I bought a bike-repair kit and an extra inner tube and a bike computer. My friend Tim bought a book of bike tours through Bavaria and a plan was hatched. Our route would follow the Altmühl river from its source, through a string of picturesque German towns, until it joined the canal that connects the Rhine, the Main and the Danube.

It looks more impressive if you see it on a map of Germany. See? Oooooo.... ahhhhhhh...

It was 240 km in two days. But, except for the 2-km hill of death at the very beginning of the ride, it was mercifully flat. Biking with 35 pounds of luggage took some getting used to and some careful steering, but it did make us feel pretty badass.

I had my first Weisswurst (white sausage) breakfast on the second morning of the ride. Weisswurst breakfast is traditionally served with Weizen (unfiltered wheat beer), but I opted for something a little more conducive to continued cycling.

At night I slept in a yellow tent and it was like sleeping inside a sunbeam.

It was schöööön.