alert 27

For our road trip to Frankfurt this weekend, I decided to make the trip via car with our video guys. That meant my first introduction to the Autobahn.

For those unfamiliar, the Autobahn is the German highway system built by Adolf Hitler to mobilize his war machine. The interstate system in the USA is patterned after the German Autobahn.

Now, the big difference between the Autobahn and an American interstate lies in speed. On the Autobahn, there is no speed limit outside the city. That meant we routinely cruised along at 200 km/h. That translates to about 120 or 125 mph.

Though I was firmly nestled into the back seat amongst luggage and video equipment, the speed with which we were moving was readily evident. The driving time chart in our map of Germany listed the Berlin-to-Frankfurt trip as taking 6 hours and 15 minutes.

Our time: four hours, 15 minutes—including a 20-minute lunch stop.

I’m not quite sure of the actual distance we covered in that time, but it was certainly much more than I’ve ever traveled in that time. That includes my Indianapolis-to-Grand Rapids drive in 3 hours and 45 minutes freshman year.

After we arrived safely, our video guys and I went out to the Rhein River and partook in some truly tourist activity. We ponied up our €15 each for a 2-hour boat ride down a portion of the river. It was easily worth it. The river wound about in a valley, with vineyards and castles decorating the hillside in either direction.

When we reached our destination, we had to turn around and take the train back to our car. Luckily, the train needed repairing and we were forced to wait a full hour, rather than the 10 minutes suggested by the schedule. (Did I say “luckily”? Silly me.)

After that, I went out to dinner back in Frankfurt with most of our German front-office staff. We went to the Hemingway Lounge, a lounge with—you guessed it—an Ernest Hemingway theme. It was tasty, both the food and the beer.

Saturday was game day, a.k.a. sleep-in day. The crowd, at nearly 27,000, was easily the largest we have had/will have this season. One of the distinguished guests at the game was the US Army Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez.

It was a bit of a mixed feeling. Being away from home makes me feel somewhat more patriotic (whatever that means) than I do when I’m actually there, so I got a little swell of national pride to meet a high-ranking officer. Of course, that was rather tempered knowing that he essentially commands all US ground forces in Iraq, an operation I’m nowhere near fully supporting. He seemed like a nice man, though.

We lost the game to the Frankfurt Galaxy 18-17 on a last-second field goal. The loss drops us to 2-3-1 and throws a major wrench into postseason hopes, so everyone was pretty glum after the game.

Our trip back to Berlin involved a 4½-hour train ride on the Deutsche Bahn ICE (German Train Inter City Express). The trip was a foreshadowing of my ever-nearing vacation, which will take place via the high-speed trains. Of course, when it’s on my dime I won’t be traveling first class like we did today. Still, it was an enjoyable method of travel, and it mad me wish we had high-speed trains back home. It would sure save lots of gas money.

whatever fits

For those of you who intensely desire to see more pictures, I posted some on my Facebook page.

Right now, I’m trying to remember where I last left off… oh yes, after Good Friday. Where that ellipse is, I checked my own blog. Wow.

Anyways, I got up for church on Easter morning, which was very nice. Here’s the thing, though. Thanks to the fact that our hotel is pretty much out in the boondocks, the bus only runs once an hour. So I had to decide if I wanted to be 45 minutes early or 15 minutes late. Naturally, I chose to be 45 early because I’m just like that.

After that, I embarked on my museum-filled afternoon. For just €6 (and producing my handy-dandy Cornerstone ID), I gained admittance to all three museums currently open on Museum Island for the remainder of the day. Two are currently undergoing reconstruction.

On the advice of those who have gone before, I started with the Pergamonmuseum. The main feature of this museum was the Pergamon Altar, which dates to 170 BC. I’m trying to remember terminology from my Fine Arts class sophomore year to help describe this, but am coming up empty. Anyways, all along the base of the altar were narratives of the gods and goddesses carved in relief. They had an audio tour that went through all the stories being told on the altar, which was really astounding. The way narrative can come to life in stone never ceases to amaze me.

Other highlights at the Pergamonmuseum included a reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate, which stood in Babylon during the 5th Century BC, or during the reign of Nebuchanezzar. The gate was impressive in size and rather more colorful than I’d imagine something from that long ago being. In my limited mental imaginations of the past, everything from more than about 400 years ago is brown or gray.

Anyways, I spent about 2 or 2½ hours in that museum taking in all the historical artifacts, which were many. After that, I moved on to the Alte Nationalgalerie, or Old National Gallery. It consisted of 19th Century painting and sculpture from many different German artists and had three levels. Level Three held Classicism and Romanticism. Level Two was Idealism, Realism, and Impressionism. Level One contained Classicist Sculpture and Facets of Realism. I’m sure all of that means a lot to everyone, and you’ll know exactly what I saw on each level. My favorite piece was a sculpture of Pan and Psyche, depicting their conversation following Psyche’s attempt to see the face of Cupid.

By the time I finished there, it was closing time. I’ll have to return another day to see the other museum. At the end of the day, which was my third one off in over two months, I felt very refreshed. Spending a day alone at museums certainly fits my idea of a good time. As I said last time, I’m a nerd.

Yesterday, we played the first Monday night game in NFL Europe history. (I stand on the sideline, so I can say “we.”) Despite pregame rain, we remained happily dry throughout the game, in which we defeated the Cologne Centurions 24-13. Funny how staying dry made first mention over winning for me there.

Since Tuesday is when my large weekly press release is due, I had a short night as I prepared that as well as wrote my latest article. That is done now, though, which a wonderful relief.

With the win last night, we now have a perfectly palindromic season through five weeks—WLTLW. What an oddity. I wanted to include that in my press release, but decided people may be thrown off by my use of “palindromic,” which is indeed a word (I checked). Since my job isn’t to be pretentious or to try confusing people, I’ll stick to doing that on my own time.

Though we played Monday, we still play again this Saturday. Talk about a quick turnaround. It will be a short week, and our next two games are on the road. We play in Frankfurt this Saturday and in Düsseldorf the following weekend on Sunday.

It’s hard to believe that I’m closer to my return to Michigan than I am to my initial departure to Tampa. Much remains to be done and seen before I return, not to mention some determination as to what I’ll be doing or where I’ll be going. I decided this morning that this intensely strange experience will probably lead to many more odd experiences, and I’m OK with that. It will make a great book 10-40 years from now.

stop the presses... hold the phone... [insert cliche about breaking news here]

That’s right—twice in one week… this must be some kind of record.

A few evenings ago, one of my friends and I went into town to wander down Unter den Linden (a main street). We also walked around Humboldt University and many fantastic cathedrals, museums and theatres.

As it was dark already, I couldn’t take any pictures. So I went back today to capture some daylight shots. To be honest, everything seemed to have much more life at night, though. As always, the camera doesn’t quite catch how impressive it was.

For me, the highlight—or lowlight—was seeing the courtyard outside Humboldt University where a massive book-burning took place on May 10, 1933. Walking past the area, I didn’t see the memorial at first glance as it is actually under the ground.

But in the courtyard at night, I saw a soft glow. Walking closer, a three-foot by three-foot glass pane sits in the center of the area. Kneeling down to peer through, I was shocked by the brightness inside. Through the window in the ground sits a large room of pure white, empty bookshelves.

Each wall was eight shelves wide, twelve shelves high, and every shelf was absolutely bare. The visual effect—especially at night—was stunning. For a lover of books (and free thought), just knowing of that many books were torched is not very fun. I might have shed a tear if that were my style. However, I’m writing a blog, not an emo song—so no tears.

So that’s a little of my sight-seeing experience, and I hope you enjoy the pictures.

We don’t play until Monday this weekend. It’ll be the first Monday night game in NFLE history, which is only slightly cool since we play again that Saturday. That being the case, I’m planning on attending my first-ever soccer game in Europe tomorrow after our practice. Hopefully the hooligans don’t get me. I’m going to be quite sure to wear home-team colors.

Also, I went to church for Good Friday for the first time in my life this evening. I’m going to return to celebrate Easter (what’s Good Friday without Easter?) and continue the celebration by visiting Museum Island, which I hope is as wondrous a place as it sounds. I’m a nerd.

book-burning memorial

Like I said, the daylight doesn't allow justice to be done to this memorial--not to mention the rain all over the window. Oh well, at least you can get the idea.

courtyard of book burning

The little cluster of people in the middle is where the memorial is located.

Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral)

Marx (L) and Engels (R)

This statue is in the middle of a park near Alexanderplatz. To give an idea of its size, I come up to Engels' waist.

no clever title tonight

Despite my promises to the contrary, here I am more than a week later just getting back to writing again.

Thanks to another packed week of work—it’s past midnight and I only just finished for the night—I’ve managed to remain too preoccupied to get to the computer for a few minutes.

We lost our game last weekend 38-31 at home against Amsterdam. We’re 1-2-1, good for fourth place (out of six) right now. Next week, we play in the first-ever Monday game in NFL Europe.

That meant players had a few days off this weekend. I didn’t have time off, but I still took some. I spend 8-10 hours a day locked in my hotel room writing, so I have to get out every now and again. At any rate, I paid dearly for my time off with a long day yesterday and a late night tonight.

On Sunday, I visited Potsdam, which is on the southwest side of the city. Throughout the town, there are a lot of large, ornate palaces. They were nearly all built in the Rococo period and are thus rather gaudy. And pastel.

Quick aside – Every time I hear a reference the Rococo period, I inevitably think of Rocky Rococo’s, a pizza place in Waterloo, Iowa, where I grew up. Yum. I spent several Intro to Fine Arts classes longing for a good pizza pie. The place was one of my dad’s favorites, if I recall correctly. It closed when I was pretty young, though, so I may be making that part up.

Anyways, the main attraction of Potsdam is the Sanssouci Palace, which was pretty impressive. They only offered guided tours in German, so I had to pass on that. I did, however, take the unguided tour of the New Palace. It had marble floors in some rooms, wood patterned floors in others, that were equally impressive. In one room, the entire ceiling and walls were covered in sea shells. The time spent decorating the room had to have been immense.

Everything around the area I visited was connected by long dirt paths, so I got a nice walk in. Wherever various paths converged, a wide circle opened with 8-12 sculptures on the perimeter. They were some of the oddest sculptures I’ve seen. The sculptures and busts incorporated into the architecture throughout Potsdam rivaled Oxford for sheer weirdness. I have some pictures, but won’t take the time to post them all. If you’d like to see them, just email me.

Today, the team took a trip to Sachsenhausen, which was a concentration camp from 1936-45. They now have a museum and walking tour on the site. I picked up my map to find stops labeled “Execution Trench,” “Site of the Gallows” and “Site of the First Crematorium.” That was when I knew the whole experience would be just a little overwhelming.

At one point, we walked past a large rectangular gravel patch as the hand-held audio tour explained that a garage used to stand there. Only the garage wasn’t used for cars, but for over 10,000 executions.

I could only listen to about a quarter of the tour because of information overload, not to mention a little bit of emotional overload. The whole experience was somewhat surreal. I thought about complaining that I was cold (I was), but it certainly didn’t feel right.

Like I said, work has been non-stop right now, so I’ve been feeling a bit stressed out. Fortunately, I had a very good talk with one of the players about the whole Sachsenhausen experience tonight. It was really helpful to just try to process what we saw. Real conversation is my key to sanity right now, I think, as I live in what feels like a rather fake universe.

Sometimes, I feel like I only get to talk to the players and coaches on the record or for work-related stuff, so it was a treat just to have a real conversation for once. If you click on my articles link sometime Wednesday, you can read some of his on-the-record thoughts on the day.

At any rate, the time is creeping slowly closer to 1 a.m. and breakfast starts at 6:30. Anyone who knows me well (or has been out late with me) knows that I’m a sucker for sleep and I’m not above complaining incessantly about being tired, so I must catch a few Zs before I render myself entirely useless and/or unbearable for tomorrow.

"Work Makes You Free"

Obviously a lie.

Sachsenhausen entry

two of a kind

New Palace

Sanssouci Palace

not fast, just furious

I’ve got to start writing more than once a week. I just have too much going on to keep this post a manageable length. So, with that disclaimer, read on, readers…

I’ll again start with a humorous story. Now, to be clear, this was most assuredly not funny in the least as it took place. But it’s funny. There’s just no way around that.

This morning, after grabbing a quick breakfast, I sat down at my computer in my hotel room at about 6:45 a.m. and began working on a story for the website. About 7:10, my phone rings. It’s one of our coaches.

Coach: “Are you busy right now?”
Me: “Yeah, I’m working on a story.”
Coach: “Do you drive stick?”
Me: “I only have once before in my whole life.”
Coach: “Can you brave it? Ben’s wife and kids are getting into the airport in about an hour. We need someone to pick them up.”

I’ve got to start letting my phone go to voicemail.

Let me give a quick rundown on my manual-transmission-driving experience before I go into the story:

Manual transmission experience #1:
Empty parking lot at Frostburg State University
No traffic
No traffic laws
No one cares if I mess up
Dallas sitting next to me giving me tips

Manual transmission experience #2, on which I am about to embark:
Country I’ve never driven in
Not totally sure where the airport is or how to work the car’s navigation system
Morning rush hour in the country’s largest city
Rental car that I’m not entirely sure I’m insured on—in fact I’m quite certain of the opposite
All alone, until I will (should I survive) pick up someone’s wife and children

My first thought was that I was seriously concerned for the safety of Ben’s wife and kids. I don’t have the first clue what I’m doing.

After stalling out a dozen times just backing out of the parking spot, I got moving forward after another dozen transmission-killing stall-outs.

Parking spot to hotel exit: 30 minutes.

I finally got rolling on the street. That lasted about .2 km until I came to the first red light where I was supposed to turn left. Sure enough, I was stuck. People were pulling around me to turn left. I sat there through an entire green light trying to start, but only stalling over and over.

Two stoplights later, this scene repeated itself. Eventually, I made it to the freeway.

Parking spot to freeway: 50 minutes.

So I’m cruising along doing fine, glad to be past the city driving. Much to my consternation, the fates had other ideas. Being morning rush hour, a bit of construction brought traffic to a halt. I sat there on the freeway in Berlin morning traffic stalling out time and again for a good 5 or 10 minutes.

Now, I’m normally a patient fellow. By this point, I’m alternately screaming obscenities at the top of my lungs while feeling as though my head is going to explode and sending SOS prayers up. Cars are passing me on the shoulder. People are honking me and letting me know that I’m No. 1.

As an aside, this is all taking place in a car with the Berlin Thunder logo clearly displayed. Tonight, motorists all over southwest Berlin are cursing the stupid Americans bringing their ridiculous sport and horrible drivers to their country.

So I finally get rolling again, but there’s a long line of cars stopped on the ramp I need. So I just go cruising slowly looking for a gap to dive into. Meanwhile, the driver behind me is honking because I’m driving at such an incredibly low rate of speed. Finally, I find an opening, whip into it and somehow keep the car rolling. It was a minor miracle.

I reach the airport pick-up area, but drive past where I need to be and find myself heading out the exit. I curse yet again, find the next exit, get turned back around and again approach the airport, this time finding where I need to be.

Parking spot to airport: 75 minutes. (Note: It’s supposed to be a 30-minute drive.)

I park at the airport and go to search for Ben’s wife and kids. The only information I have is that they’re coming in from NYC at 8:30. By a stroke of luck, their flight was delayed the extra 45 minutes I took to get to the airport. Somehow I find them and get them all loaded up into the car.

Not wanting to scare them too badly, but also wanting to explain should this all go awry, I say, “I’m a little inexperienced driving a stick shift.” That’s the understatement of the year.

We must have had some sort of divine protection on the way back because I didn’t once fear too greatly for our safety (in stark contrast to my drive to the airport). The only time I even stalled out was about 2 blocks from the hotel. Ben’s wife started laughing.

“I’m not laughing at you,” she points out. Thanks for that.

So there you have it—easily the best story of the experience to date. My heart rate is high just recounting the episode. All this stress cannot be good for my health. I think that means I need a day off. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m fairly certain I have the world’s most ridiculous job in every way.

Anyways, I’ll rundown this last weekend quickly because I realize I’m taking up everyone’s valuable time.

On Friday, we bused to Hamburg for our game. A 182-mile trip took 3½ hours. Sweet. I went out that night with some of our staff and watched them drink themselves silly. That was a real treat.

On Saturday, we played the Hamburg Sea Devils to a 17-17 tie. It was only the second tie in league history. No one on our sideline really even knew what the overtime format was. It was mass confusion. At the end, no one knew if we should be happy or sad. The feeling in the locker room was the most surreal I’ve ever seen. It was as though we hadn’t really even played the game.

By the time we got on the bus, it was nearly 11 p.m., so we pulled back into our hotel at 3 a.m. Sunday morning. We were able to stretch that 3½-hour ride to 4 hours. That ruled. I slept a little bit when I could over the bus driver’s German soft rock that he kept at a blaring volume.

Somehow, in spite of the exhausting road trip, I got up Sunday and went to church for the first time since I’ve been here. It was an urban, diverse, English-speaking church. I was glad to finally have the chance to get back to church. I sometimes forget how good going to church really is for me.

I went with an American friend I’ve made since I’ve been here. After that, she and I and one of her friends all went out to their neighborhood and had a picnic lunch by a lake. Sunday was the first day that was possible weather-wise. It was definitely a treat. I ate the heck out of those sandwiches. I also warned them that if they keep feeding me, they will never get rid of me. They didn’t seem too worried.

Wow, I didn’t even get to cover Thursday-night bowling. Another time. You are weary of reading, and I am weary of typing.

AOL Arena - Hamburg

This is where we played last week in Hamburg. This stadium will host World Cup matches this summer.