The Morning After

AFP photo

"We were bad, that's all. It was utterly deserved. The Spanish played better than us, we had no defence," 41-year-old Marwan, his face painted in the national colours, told AFP in Berlin.

My sentiments exactly.

Germany lost last night to Spain in the Euro Cup finale, 0-1. And I'm not even sad about it. I don't know much about sports, and I know even less about soccer, but even to my sadly untrained eye, Germany looked like a bunch of two-left-feet-pantywaists who apparently fell bass-ackwards into this whole thing. And I know that's not a very supportive thing to say of this fine country that's providing my unborn child and me with such excellent (and free) healthcare, but it's true. By the end of the game, I was cheering for Spain.

The truth is, I'm apparently not the only one on German turf with these feelings. Last week I taught English to a group of German soldiers in their early 20s, and we were discussing the Euro Cup. I was asking them what different teams' strengths were, and the guys were doing a good job of coming up with adjectives. Russia is big and very strong, like a wall, they said. Spain is small but fast and maneuverable.

"What about Germany?" I asked them.

"Germany has much luck," they said.

"That's all? Germany's greatest strength is that they're lucky?"

"Yes."

Apparently they were right.

And in an obviously unrelated news story, the German flags are already vanishing.



JEM

P.S. You can watch a great slideshow here of Germany pouting like this wasn't their own dang fault. Take special note of Germany's coach, Joachim Löw, who inexplicably chose to wear a women's blouse to the final match.

The Scene is Set ...

Looks like all the flag-waving is paying off. Smell ya later, Turkey. And smell YOU in the final match on Sunday, Russia or Spain. (I'm hoping for a Cold War grudge match with Russia, but whatever.)

Go Germs Go!



JEM

I'm from Europe

It's funny because it's true.



JEM

Hawkeye

Jake's been going to a lot of science conferences lately. Right now he's in Potsdam, near Berlin. About a week and change ago, he was in Leipzig. While he was in Leipzig, I received a very short e-mail from him, from which I quote the following:

"I just met Alan Alda. Nice guy."

My brain subsequently exploded. Alan Alda.

As in "M*A*S*H".

As in Benjamin Franklin Pierce.

As in Hawkeye.

As in one of the men very high on my "If Only I'd Been Born in a Different Decade ..." list of men who slay me. (Those interested may read about two other men on my list here.)

Oh, now don't get too cocky, Alan Alda.

It's not called my "If Only I'd Been Born in a Different Decade ..." list for nothing. I've seen you lately.

And it's a little upsetting.

Fortunately, Hawkeye wasn't wearing the glasses when Jake saw him. Jake says he looked more like this:

But passed out alone on a couch at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. He was there filming a PBS documentary called "The Human Spark" that will air next year. Jake stood across the lobby and watched him sleep with his mouth hanging open and his lurpy frame struggling to find a comfortable position on the über-modern couch. Jake only had a few minutes between sessions and managed to, from his vantage point, mentally will Alan Alda awake so that he could go sit by him and strike up a conversation. They talked for a few minutes about the documentary, and Jake told him how much he and I love "M*A*S*H". Jake says he was very gracious and seemed geniunely flattered.

To which I replied, "That's just great." And stuck my head in the oven.



JEM

P.S. You owe it to yourself today to read a few of these Hawkeye one-liners. You'll thank me.

Flying the Old Black, Red and Gold

Germans aren't really patriotic.

Which isn't surprising. After being screwed over by not just one but two nationalism-obsessed regimes in under 50 years, Germans have a right to be a little skittish about touting a love for the Vaterland.
To be fair, most of the rest of the world would still feel a little chilly at the sight of a mass gathering of Germans chanting "Deutschland! Deutschland!" in a fervor of national pride.

It still brings up some bad memories.

This is why, up until two years ago, it was considered to be in very poor taste to fly a German flag in Germany.

You could find a few black, red and gold tricolors in the vicinity of the Reichstag, Germany's capital building in Berlin, but virtually nowhere else.

But in 2006, Germany experienced something of an identity crisis when its soccer team made it to the World Cup.

And won the bronze.

For the first time in a really long time Germans were proud of their country, and they wanted to wear it on their sleeves.

And so they did. A little awkwardly at first, like getting on a bike for the first time in decades. The world watched slack-jawed as it happened, not quite sure how it felt about the new development, but ultimately decided it felt good to see its competitors develop a little confidence. A little bite.

And it has stuck.

It's Cup time again (Euro Cup this year), and the tricolors are flying everywhere.

But calling it patriotism, I think, is a stretch. It's more like team spirit. Time-wise and otherwise, the sentiments don't seem to extend beyond soccer season.

Which is too bad. Because they've got a pretty awesome country here.

Germany is the wealthiest country in Europe and, trailing only Russia, the most powerful. It brought us the printing press, considered by many to be the most significant invention of all time ...

a religious reformation that shook the monolithic Catholic Church to its core ...

and many of the greatest and most recognizable classical composers the world will ever know ...

Bach

Beethoven

Not to mention the first Mormon apostle to be born outside the United States since John Widstoe — President Dieter Uchtdorf (who, by the way, recently visited our very own chapel here in Dresden and is just as charming, genuine and generally awesome as he seems on T.V.).

They also have great cuisine, including all manner of wienies and mustard and pickles and these things ...

German potato dumplings. Oh, mama.

And let's not forget, last but certainly not least ...

Heidi Klum — breathtaking international superhero, I mean supermodel, and hilarious, endearing, level-headed host of Project Runway and Germany's Next Top Model (which blows ANTM clean out of the water, but that's another post entirely).

What's not to love? All things in time, I suppose.



JEM

Then, Yes, We're Thinking of the Same City

Today in English class, the students asked me where I was from, exactly, in the United States. I told them Idaho, which is in the Rocky Mountain region of the country, in the west. Usually no one has heard of Idaho, so I explained that it is a big state with not many people and lots of potatoes and cows.

"Do you know of a city called Provo?" one woman asked.

Yes, I told her, stunned that she had, apparently. I studied at a university in Utah, I said, and I had been to Provo many times. "Do you know people in Provo?" I asked her.

Turns out Provo is sister cities with her city, Meissen, which lies 10 miles or so outside Dresden, and the two cities maintain a correspondence.

"Zhey come to our Stadtfest (city festival) every year," she said. "And zhey trink vahter."

Cowboy Diplomacy

From the BBC today:

Bush in Germany on 'final tour'

Mr Bush was greeted by Mrs Merkel as he arrived in Germany

US President George W Bush is in Germany on the latest leg of what is likely to be his last tour of Europe.

His talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel are expected to focus on Afghanistan, Iran and the Middle East peace process.

Earlier, Mr Bush attended a summit with EU leaders in Slovenia where they threatened Iran with further sanctions unless it suspended nuclear enrichment.

He said an Iran with a nuclear weapon would be "incredibly dangerous" to world peace.

Mr Bush will later travel to Italy, France and the UK on what is being seen as an eight-day farewell tour of Europe.

During the trip, Mr Bush has held out the prospect of a global deal on combating climate change, which he said could be achieved by the end of his term in office in January.

US President George W Bush issues Iran warning

The US president and his European hosts ended the summit by admiring a show of Slovenia's dancing Lipizzaner horses — a fitting image the BBC's Oana Lungescu at the summit said — as it suggests the days of cowboy diplomacy are over and, after the strains of the Iraq war, Europe and the US seem back in step again.

Whatever divides the US and Europe, our correspondent adds, they remain the world's inevitable partners, united not just by history and values, but also daily trade worth $3bn.

###

Don't tell anybody this, but I secretly relish how much Europeans dislike the U.S. Because no matter how much we disgust them with our fast food and our SUVs and our Wal-Marts, in the end they always have to grit their teeth and smile because we're stuck together, and they know it.

And I think that's kind of funny.

President Bush accepts a barrel of herring as Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel grits her teeth and smiles.

JEM

We Have a Verdict. And a Gender

Noggin profile shot clearly shows our child is human.

Went to the doctor on Friday for the 4-month check-up, and the ultrasound was conclusive. Apparently the alien has developed into an actual human child. A human child with a perfect nose and XY chromosomes.



JEM

Public Service Announcement

Did you know that May, June and July are the three months of the year one is most likely to stumble upon a baby bird that's fallen out of its nest?

If you happen to find a baby bird on the ground, the first thing you should do is look around for its nest and, if you can find it, replace the bird. If you can't find the nest, assess the bird. Is it injured? Is it a nestling or a fledgling? The Interwebs tell us that a fledgling is fully feathered, can flap its wings and hop. If the bird you've found is a very young nestling or if the bird is injured, it's a good idea to consult a veterinarian for suggestions. It is possible to hand-raise a baby bird but the mortality rate is very high and they require a great deal of special attention.

However, if the bird is a healthy fledgling (see above photo), it's likely that it hasn't actually fallen from the nest, but rather has left the nest. Simply place the bird in a nearby bush or tree where it is not in imminent danger. Odds are likely the bird's parent is nearby and will pick up where you leave off.

It is not, in fact, advised that you panic while standing outside in your pajamas and hustle the little guy back to your apartment in a hand towel. It is further unnecessary to build the bird a nest out of a milk carton and some old socks and attempt to feed it mashed-up hard boiled eggs with a tweezer and water from an eye dropper for several hours.

Now you know.





JEM