Finally: Basketball spielen in Germany

This is an article I wrote for the Bulldog Weekly... There will be a blogpost about my central/eastern Europe trip soon!

So the Madness began … without me.

March Madness tipped off in the USA last Thursday and I’m in Germany. And I missed it as I’ve missed In-N-Out, a warm day at the beach and those tall California palm trees.

March Madness is the medical term invented by the doctors (the talking heads) at ESPN to describe the hysteria that sweeps across the American nation for the NCAA Division I college basketball tournament at this time each year. It is not uncommon to see College basketball fans filling out mock brackets and placing small, or even large, bets on games. And they go crazy, watching each insignificant first or second-round game to see if their predictions come true.

Well I was one of the crazed college basketball fans for as long as I can remember. And since I couldn’t watch the games from Germany, I was overwhelmed by a basketball fit as those first round games were being played. So I asked around and found an athletics store and decided to purchase a basketball with the hopes that by shooting some hoops I could at least curb my madness.

I purchased the cheapest ball I could find and dressed in some stylish European athletic short shorts and then went to a park to shoot some hoops.

The park was next to a lake, the grass was green and the sky was blue. It was a nearly perfect spring day.

It took a while for me to find my shot again. I hadn’t touched a basketball since I arrived in Germany two and a half months ago, but eventually the ball began to fall gracefully through the bottom of the net. It gave me a peaceful easy feeling.

A group of people, roughly college aged, played a game of basketball on the court opposite mine. After about fifteen minutes, they called out to me in German, and asked me to play.

So for the next hour I played basketball with the Germans, thus satisfying my basketball craving and partaking in a unique cultural exchange.

At the end of our game I couldn’t help but express my satisfaction that one of the players wore a pair of Lakers basketball shorts.

Upon hearing this, one of the guys said, “The Clippers are better,” in a serious and almost threatening German tone.

“Nein,” was all I said.

A Column I Wrote for the Bulldog Weekly

I wrote this column a week ago for the Bulldog Weekly, the University of Redlands student newspaper. It is my reaction to the Coffee County and Winnenden shootings that claimed 25 lives last week.


A 28-year old male ended 10 lives with two military assault riffles and a handgun and a shot gun in Coffee County Alabama Tuesday.

The killer terminated the lives of his mother, grandmother, uncle, two cousins and five others including an 18-month-old girl, before he turned the gun on himself.

“It is hard to put into words what happened today,” German Chancellor Angel Merkel said.

And Chancellor Merkel was right.

There’s no need for colorful adjectives, gory details or quotes from the mourning families of the victims to understand that 10 lives ended too early is tragedy beyond the threshold of grief.

But the Alabama shooting was not what Chancellor Merkel was talking about.

She was reacting to the shooting that involved a 17-year old male who ended 15 lives with a Beretta 9 mm pistol before taking his own life in Winnenden, Germany Wednesday morning.

Nine of his victims were students at a high school he had attended. Eight of the nine student victims were young girls. Three teachers – all females – were killed. Then three men were killed, completely at random, as the killer fled.

Winnenden is a small city in Baden Württemberg, Germany’s southwestern most state, and two hours from where I study in Freiburg.

While Germany has a violent and militaristic history, it seemed just that – history. The people I come in contact with, especially in Baden Württemberg, have been nothing but easy going and peaceful.

So it came as a surprise to everyone in this community that such a tragedy would strike here, just as it surprised the people of a quiet rural Alabama community only hours earlier.

So what’s wrong?

“Computerspiele (Computer games)...Musik (music),” Baden Württemberg Minister President Günther Oettinger said of possible influences authorities will look into that could have altered the 17-year-old boy’s mind.

The Coffee County shooter was suspected to have had girlfriend and work-related problems, but like the Winnenden shooter, little is certain.

Yet one thing is for certain. Both the killers got a hold of guns and then ceased acting like humans, they turned into killing machines. They were both young men from wealth industrialized western society nations. And with just over a month until the second anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting, which claimed 32 lives, we have to seriously ask ourselves: is something messed up with the psyche of the young men of our generation?

Europa!

It is a nice night. The last few nights have all been nice. In fact, the whole week has been nice. The weather is not as cold as it was a few weeks ago and it seems to be drying up a little. The Freiburgers must have been successful in scaring away the evil spirits of winter at last week’s Karnival.

Sprinkles fall from the sky every now and then, but the short spurts of precipitation pales in comparison to the storms Freiburg received a few weeks ago.

And so I decided to sit on the floor, with a cup of tea and look out my window from the seventh floor of my flat and write a journal entry about my trip to Luxemburg, Brussels and Paris last week.

I find writing like this, whether it is fiction, non-fiction, poetry or just plain journal entries, to be a relaxing form of therapy. And Lord knows I need it.

I worked late into the night and into the early morning working on a paper for my European Political Cultures class. The theme or thesis, if you will, of my paper was a rejection of the belief that there were just two polar political cultures in Europe from 1945-1989. It was a simple paper, all I had to do was recall the legend of Tito in Yugoslavia and the student revolution – and how pointless but significant (? It confuses me too) it was – that occurred in France in the 1960s to prove that there was popular and national descent on both sides of the iron curtain, but it took a while to write.

It is nice to recall earlier more exciting events with short and simple one or two clause sentences that don’t have to relate to a thesis. I can bore you and ramble, like this:

The bus left my flat at eight Monday morning. I spent the previous night packing and reading Kurt Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of Champions.” So I only got a few hours of sleep. Vonnegut’s writing is addictive. I finished about half the book before I realized it was two in the morning.

This is an important detail for later part of my trip, so listen: Vonnegut was a somewhat prolific American author. His body of work spans from the late 1940’s up to his death in 2005. His novels are as tragic as they are funny, as compassionate as they are cruel – it’s black humor. He writes in a straightforward style that makes the reader move though the book at a very fast pace.

The main theme that dominated his books was centered on the humanist philosophy, which are, I’m almost certain, born out of his experiences during World War II. Vonnegut served in the US Army until his battalion was taken prisoner by the Nazis. He witnessed the destruction of Dresden by Allied bombers. Dresden was a city in East Germany that had little military strategic importance. It was heavily populated, thus chosen as a target to hurt the German civilian moral. This incredible experience inspired “Slaughterhouse Five” but also seemed to get intertwined in all his writing. (I’m currently reading “Slaughterhouse Five,” which is a very anti-war book, but it doesn’t ramble and it isn’t pretencious, its just plain good and from his heart). Well, “Breakfast of Champions” (the novel’s title had nothing to do with Wheaties) was no exception, especially since it was a Vonnegut’s de facto midlife crisis novel at age 50. He saw a lot of his fellow Americans die in combat as well as the civilian deaths in Dresden. “Breakfast of Champions” was written and published in 1973.

So I finished the novel on the bus and had it on my mind as we approached our first stop. Our first stop was the Cimetiere americain Saint-Avold. Saint-Avold is the largest American cemetery in Europe. 10,000 young American men who died in World War II are buried in this small town on the French side of the Franco-German border.

The memorial was beautiful. The graves were laid across a large open field. Beyond the field was a forest that made for a serene backdrop. At the end of the field was a large memorial chapel. Inside the chapel was a group of five statues of allegorical figures that represented the eternal struggle for freedom.

The names on the gravestones were diverse. Each state of the union was represented. Every so often a gravestone was marked by the Jewish Star of David. Given the atrocities the Jewish population in Europe suffered during World War Two, and the risk these men took of capture by the Nazis, made these markers especially noteworthy. This of course did not take anything away from the Christian gravestones. Every so often a gravestone would read: “Here rest in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God.”

It may sound cliché, but I felt moved by the sacrifice of the 10,000 men at Saint-Avold. Their cause was among the most important in the history of the world. It’s humbling to reflect on their deaths. These are some pictures of what the memorial cemetary looked like:

Our next stop was the city/state of Luxemburg, which was roughly two hours away. I slept for most of this leg of the journey.

Luxemburg is a small city/state on the French, German and Belgium border. It’s a nation of about 400,000 people.

This is the history of Luxemburg and why it became a state as I understand it: Some duke from somewhere in France moved hundreds of years ago and declared himself the king of what proved to be a militarily strategic spot just north of the Rhineland. Luxemburg was conquered a few times, but, because of its rocky terrain, transportation to the region proved difficult and no nation could either possess or desired to maintain Luxemburg for too long. So the duke’s descendents are still in charge. Although Luxemburg is democratic they still recognize the royal family for ceremonial reasons. There is still a palace for the duke and his duchess. This is what it looks like:

Here is a video of a palace guard:



Under most circumstances the size of Luxemburg would make it unimportant to the study of international relations. But Luxemburg is the home to a few of the European Union’s institutions, including the Court of Justice.

We spent an hour and a half exploring the city of Luxemburg and met at the bus and made a trip to the European Court of Justice. The Court of Justice was in an impressive building, but unfortunately the court was out of session. There were no trials going on and the large building was mostly empty. All in all, the trip to the Court of Justice was boring and our tour guide was not that good. She would make a good grandmother, but she rambled about things that were mostly irrelevant, like the architecture of the banks and hospitals in Luxemburg.

But Luxemburg’s terrain made it the most scenic of the European states that we’ve visited so far. The city was built on the top of a mountain, or so it seemed. All around its base were valleys. Our tour guide said that there were 400 bridges in Luxemburg city alone. The bridges were grand. They were often long and connected different hillside peaks and carried trains and cars over the long valleys. Here are some pictures of Luxemburg:

We left Luxemburg and drove for a few more hours until we arrived in Brussels at about eight at night. We stayed in a little hostel in the middle of the busy city center. It was a very touristy area. Near our hostel were restaurants and gift shops and beer and chocolate and waffle shops. It was nice.

That night I went out with my roommate Ray. He and I explored the city center. The architecture was impressive. The city hall is hundreds of years old and the buildings that surrounded it were built in the early 1800s. Parts of the city had to be rebuilt after numerous invasions by the Germans and the French. The Austrians, Spanish and Dutch also found time in their busy histories to invade Belgium at least once. It made for an interesting mixture of architecture from the different countries during different eras.

I took a city tour the next day, Tuesday. An old lady gave the tour. She was informative and sweet. It was a good tour, but at one point of the tour, an incident occurred that I soon won’t forget.

We stood at a street corner as she explained the different types of architecture and the history of the Belgium people. A local man was unchaining his bicycle from a street sign post near where we were standing as she was talking.

She explained: “The Belgium people are a mixture of many national identities. We have heritage from the Germans, the French, the Austrians, the Spanish and the Dutch.”

The man had unchained his bicycle just as she finished. He got on his bike and said: “Yeah, we’re all a bunch of bastards,” and then rode away, down the street, nonchalantly.

Our guide was noticeably embarrassed, but we all found it funny. She made sure to let us know that she did not share his opinion.

I don’t want to bore my readers too much with details about the lectures we received. We visited the European commission for two lectures on that first full day in Brussels, one on climate change and the other by the directorate-general for external relations.

That night I went back to one of the places we had visited on the city tour. I wanted to get some writing done and to get out of the city center. The place I went to was a large building built in 1880. By European standards it was pretty new. The large building used (when you spell used don’t you want to spell it phonically, like ust, or youst?) to be a church, but then it was quickly converted into a market place. The market place eventually lost interest and the building was abandoned in the 1960s. But it was such a pretty building that the city of Brussels decided to save it. So now it is a semi-convention center, semi-bar/tavern. I went there because it was quiet and it seemed like a good place to write. Both of my predictions proved correct. With the ceiling high above my head and a lot of space I felt there was room for creativity. So I wrote a chapter of the novel I’ve been working on for the last two semesters on a yellow legal pad while I drank a beer.

I ran into a few other IES students as I returned back to the city center at about 11 p.m. They were coming out of a bar for a smoke. The bar was a little tavern in one of the old city center buildings, a few meters away from the house where Victor Hugo wrote many of his latter works. My comrades informed me that there was live music inside. So I decided to go inside.

I ordered a Bush beer and sat very close to the band. The band was made up of just two people, a guitarist and a stand-up bassist. They played blues and country songs. Both the guitarist and the bassist took turns singing lead. They were good. Here are some clips of their performance:



After about 45 minutes to an hour later, they took a break, it was about midnight. I decided that since I had to be up early Wednesday morning, it would be a good time to leave, but first I wanted to speak to the band.

The guitarist sat on the small stage, smoked a cigarette and drank a beer. I introduced myself and shook his hand and then took a seat next to him on the stage. We started talking about music.

This is what I learned about the guitarist: his name is Madejay and he was originally from Indonesia. Our music tastes are nearly identical. He loves the Band, the Rolling Stones, Johnny Cash and anything blues and country. He first listened to Robert Johnson at the age of 15. He left home at the age of 16.

This is what he said about Robert Johnson and leaving home: “I listened to Robert Johnson when I was 15 and I decided that I wanted to play and sing like that. But I realized that if I wanted to learn to play like that, I’d have to live like he lived. So I left home a year later and started living on the streets and playing for change and food and stuff – you know?”

So I left about half an hour later without really knowing how much of his vagabond story to believe, but enjoyed every detail of it.

The next day, Wednesday, we went to the European Council and the European Parliament. Both were in impressive buildings, and the lectures were pretty good, dealing with the issues that face the new European council.

I went out with some people that night to an Italian food restaurant. We talked about social politics and debated some of those finer points. It was an ideologically opinionated group of students, but everyone was respectful, so it made for good debate.

Oh, and by the way, here are some pictures from Brussels:

Thursday was a long, but good day. We had to wake up early, dress in our business formal clothes (we had to wear business formal each day), and get on a bus for an eight hour ride to Paris. We had to dress well because we stopped after an hour at SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters of Allied Powers in Europe), which is NATO’s main military command base in Western Europe.

Walking into SHAPE was like walking into a US military museum. There were pictures and busts of General, and then later President, Eisenhower. He of course was the first Supreme Allied commander. There have been roughly a dozen or so supreme commanders since Ike, and they’ve all been Americans. The second in command has always been a British guy and then the rest of the major positions are filled in with guys from those other European countries.

The guy that talked to our class was Lt. Colonel Andrqej Wiatrowski. He was Polish. He spoke about NATO operations and such. He was a good guy with all the normal good guy characteristics. He was funny and engaging and personal and answered questions in a straightforward, military manner. I was impressed with Lt. Colonel Wiatrowski.

At one point he said: “We never know what will happen in 20 years. 20 years ago, I was in the Polish army, we were under a very different type of security agreement called the Warsaw Pact.” He said this with the hope that Europe will be more united in 20 years and with the hope that it can act as one in pursuance of its security interests.

Another man named Colonel Christian Platzer spoke. He was the European Union’s representative to the NATO, or something along those lines. He was Austrian. He expressed with a great interest the need for the EU to become independent of US military security. He said that it was in the best interests of both the EU and the US for Europe to stand as one. Some students took this the wrong way and were upset because it sounded like the Colonel didn’t appreciate the US. I disagree with these students. I think it is good for the EU to look out for itself. It would be best if we, the US I mean, doesn’t have to pay billions of dollars to look out for Europe and all Western interests.

Anyway, a long bus ride later, and we arrive in Paris. It was about six o’clock when we arrived.

Paris is a beautiful, but nasty city. Its monuments and buildings are simply fantastic and I don’t know if I’ve seen a city as decorative. But the poverty that some of its people have to live in while others – including the students such as me – drink small cups of coffee that costs three euros, is shameful. I don’t like thinking about it, but I feel I must think about it. On the long bus ride back to Freiburg I thought about it and I felt like nothing more than privileged swine that gets to waltz around Europe at other people’s expense. But I also think the same thing about Europeans that live so comfortably and smugly. I also thought a lot about Saint-Avold and the American men that died in Europe. I wrote a lot in my journal on the road back to Freiburg. It made me come to the conclusion that I must do well and work hard here.

Here is something I wrote in my yellow legal pad while I was having these thoughts on the road back to Freiburg:

Standing in the dark near Le Café Mars two blocks from Rue de Lafayette. For Ophelia I felt afraid, but for the vagabond on Rue de Lafayette – the one sleeping beneath the balcony where the old lady did her modest gardening and the little children took their morning piss and the scores of people bought their evening newspapers a few meters away – I feel ashamed. And I’m ashamed of poverty in San Bernardino while I drink coffee that costs five Euros and fifty cents. And it is a sunny day outside. It looks like an early spring.

It is not good writing and I wouldn’t consider it poetry or good prose, but I think it gives a rough picture of a darker side of Paris.

Well back to Paris: Even normal folks just piss in the subways and there is dog crap everywhere. But it is a part of the Parisian experience and the Parisian experience is wonderful. It really is – I know it sounds like I’m trashing on Paris right now, but this is only because it is in Paris where I’ve felt the most alive since I’ve arrived in Europe. The city is an exciting place to be and I’ve loved my time there. It makes a person want to love and hate everything all at once.

I met up with Leah and we did Paris the way most Parisians do Paris. We ate most of our meals by going to the markets and making it ourselves. We enjoyed begets and cheese and cheap bottles of wine and sparkling wine. And to live this way – by not going outside our means – and to take long walks on the Seine and watch the Eifel Tower sparkle on the hour and to see the splendor of the city was simply amazing. And it is a city to experience with a person you love. There is no other way, thinking back on it, that I can imagine Paris.

Leah wrote in detail about our time in Paris. We had a great time and anything else that I would write about Paris Leah has already written in her blog. Here is the link to her blog: http://pariscestmagnifique.blogspot.com/

We left Paris on Sunday morning for a long bus ride back to Freiburg. I did homework most of the ride. Here is an early version of my Political Cultures thesis for the paper I completed yesterday:

The European political culture between 1945-1989 was as diverse as a D.J.’s play list at a Mexican wedding reception. The older generation wants its traditional ethnic music – can we think of Charles de Gaulle here? – while the younger generation fights passionately for its poorly crafted and substance less urban rap music – any parallels to the French student revolution of the 1960’s?

This very early draft was mostly a brainstorm. It was cut in favor of a more thought out and sophisticated thesis. I mostly wrote for fun.

The season seems to be a turning here in Freiburg. The weather is nice as I write finish writing this on the porch of a café that over looks the city (It took me two sittings to finish this up). From here I can see deep into the black forest. Here is a video: