"Public Viewing"

For those of you following the Euro 2008, the European soccer championship, you already know what a fantastic game it was last night as Germany beat Portugal 3:2. For those who aren't, I'd like to let you know that my (second) favorite national team played brilliantly in the win against the favored Portugese national team.

I watched the game at a "Public Viewing", which is a German term using English words to describe a mass of fans watching a game on a public square. This is a brilliant solution to the German problem of having 30-40 million soccer fans (in a nation of 82 million) who all want to experience the stadium atomsphere but don't fit into the stadium.

In the small city of Gütersloh (pop: 96,000), more than 5,500 fans packed themselves into a small area to cheer on their national team from afar.



A picture of the "Public Viewing Area". You can see the giant screen in front of the old courthouse.



Celebration after the first goal.


After the game, as is popular with the Turkish, Russian and Croation minorities after a win in this tournament, fans got in their cars and hit the streets. They drove through the city for hours honking, waving flags and cheering. A line of cars full of boisterous fans was still crawling by an hour and a half after the end of the game.

I had a great time at the game, and I know I'm pretty lucky to be in Germany during a tournament like this. The only people I'm jealous of are those who got to experience the World Cup here in 2006.

In other news, today was my last day of school. I got my report card, which turned out to be a very good one, and said goodbye to teachers and some classmates. On Sunday I'll be going to Austria with my host parents and one of my host siblings for a week of hiking in the Alps. After that, I'll come back and say goodbye to all of my friends here before embarking on my travels around Europe. Until next time!

Settling in

So I'm settling in here more and more in Rheda. School is slowing down to a regular pace and it's becoming less and less of a strain to understand everything going on in class. I can understand more and more of songs in German that I've listened to for months. Immersing myself in the language is really helping my comprehension.

I'm now teaching three times a week at school and it's turning out to be a lot of fun. Two times a week I have an English class and once a week I teach a cultural studies class. The students seem to enjoy it and it's rewarding for me. It's also good to be able to present my view of America and the world to students who usually only experience it filtered through mass media.

Now for some pictures...

Some of Friday afternoon and Saturday morning was spent with the host cousins. They are really cute, very energetic, and a lot of fun. We played the Swedish lawn game Kubb, which is actually really popular here in Germany (shout out to Bojö).






I spent Saturday afternoon and night in Bielefeld with my host sisters and my host brother. First we went to see a Bundesliga (German professional football [soccer] league) match between Hertha Berlin and my new favorite DSC Arminia Bielefeld.



Before kickoff, everyone singing.



Bielefeld scores! 1:0. DSC Arminia Bielefeld ended up winning 2:0 and was in 2nd place at the end of the day. I hope all of us Bielefeld fans took pictures, because that won't last too long, the 30-plus game season is only just underway.




Just a map with Rheda-Wiedenbrück marked. The dark points are larger cities. Just southwest of me you can see the Ruhrgebiet, a highly industrialized area of Germany.

That's about it. As always, feel free to comment, and keep in touch.