World Cup madness has hit Germany – and I guess, considering the name of the competition: the entire world. Everyone is certainly buzzing about it here. Soccer isn’t such an obsession in America — though I hear it is catching on.
Not sure I even want to be around when Germany plays its first game – but I guess it is pretty much unavoidable, especially because this competition lasts An Entire Month. Wild!
A bunch of us, as it turned out not necessarily sports fans, decided we should, at the very least, have the World Cup experience. So we searched out a pretty cool Biergarten in a park nearby. It had the name of the hill where Christ was crucified. Seems like an odd choice, but I am ignorant of any other context for “Golgotha” that would justify naming a beer garden after it.
It was fun, raucous, but civilized enough. We sat outside under a tent, instead of gathered around the big screen inside a more traditional bar room. Many of these big screens are set up all over the city of Berlin. By the Brandenburg Gate, near Checkpoint Charlie, in Potsdamer Platz. Even here at the hotel, they set up rows of chairs in front of a standard size television for the guests to enjoy.
We will be in Dresden for Germany’s first game. I suspect that will mean empty streets and crazy craziness wherever there’s a television screen around.
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