So going to a soccer game was one of my top goals while here in Germany. For a while I was afraid I wouldn't be able to fulfill that goal (no pun intended, by the way). But then one day in my Deutsche Populär Kultur class, our professor asked if anyone was interested in going to a "Fußbol Spiel" and immediately over half the class raised their hand. So he set us all up with tickets to the match between Berlin and Frankfurt.
The train to the stadium was incredibly packed. Just when I thought no one else could possibly fit in our car, 2-3 more people somehow managed to force their way in. If I may digress for a moment, I must say that I have gotten over my "claustrophobia" of overly-packed public transit due to the ridiculous amounts of people on some of the trains and buses I've been on. Anyway, we managed to reach Olympiastadion without any problems, and no one got pick-pocketed. It was about a 30 minute train ride from where we were.
By the time we got off the train, I was happy to be able to breathe again. It was also about 20 degrees cooler. It was only about a 10 minutes walk from the train station to get to the stadium.
Olympiastadion literally means "Olympia Stadium" and is where the 1936 Summer Olympics were held...hence the name. This of course was about 3 years after Hitler had come to power, so there were racial tensions going on. Despite this dark time in their history, the germans are still proud to have such a stadium in Berlin.
Here is the stadium from the side.
And here is the monument that serves as a reminder of the '36 Olympics.
Outside the stadium I couldn't resist buying a scarf with the team colors on it. Besides, I felt like I was more in the spirit of the occasion by wearing the colors. Plus it is a cool scarf. Afterwards, we went in a took our seats. We were in the nosebleeds, but we still had a good view. Before the game started, I bought a Bratwurst mit Brötchen (a bratwurst in a delicious bread roll) and a .5 liter of beer. Everything was delicious.
This would be the stadium from the inside. The players were all warming up on the field.
What made this game so fun was watching all the fans. I thought people in the States were hardcore about their teams, but these Europeans are absolutely crazy. There are different sections of fans in this stadium. We were sitting in the "Fan Club" section, but below was where the hardcore fans were sitting. The Europeans are so crazy that the hardcore fan section has to be fenced off so that they don't go start fights with fans from the other team. This was also the section that started all the cheers. They were on their feet jumping, hollering, and screaming the whole game. It was cool to see all of their hands clapping in unison for some of the cheers. And there were times when they would wave/twirl their blue scarves in the air, which also looked cool.
This would be the hardcore fan section waving banners and cheering.
One thing I don't really understand is why these fans were so hardcore. Berlin is an awful team this year. They were beaten by Frankfurt 3-1. When I told meine Vermieterin that Berlin lost to Frankfurt, she was very angry. It didn't really matter that Berlin lost, the game was still really fun. If I could do anything again, it would be to go to another soccer game.
And here I am sporting my teams colors. Thanks for visiting my blog. Only 2 more weeks left here!
No comments:
Post a Comment