Topic: football, what else?

So … what can I say? All of Germany is in a football world cup frenzy, basically. I’ve never seen so many German flags before. There are now small flags available which you can put on your car windows and you see loads of them everywhere. It’s a very strange sight for us Germans because the black, red and gold can normally only be seen when a right-wing party or some neo-nazis are having some sort of rally or whatever. Because of our recent history (Hitler, the 2nd world war, the Holocaust) we are normally very careful with any kind of patriotism such as waving our flag, but that has really changed over the past couple of weeks.

I was in Frankfurt on Saturday, which was the day when Germany played Sweden in Munich. As soon as I got on the train I could hear men chanting football songs etc. When I arrived in Frankfurt, it was as if the match was taking place there because of all the noise and the large number of people in football shirts. Most of them went to one of the so-called public viewing areas where huge video walls are set up. I did want to see the match, but not in one of those places. Luckily, me and the friend I was with found a nice bar with not too crazy people and a good view of a TV screen. And a cool drink, which was much-needed because it was very hot that day. The match was decided after 12 minutes (Germany was 2-0 up by then), but it wasn’t too boring to watch the rest of it. Afterwards, everybody was out in the streets and there was what we call “Autocorso”, i.e. cars cruising around the streets and honking like crazy. Thank God it was quiet on the train back home, expect for the last part of my journey. I swear there were the exact same fans chanting as in the morning.

While I’m slightly annoyed with all the hype, I must admit that I’m pleased to see that everything’s peaceful mostly. On the train back, there were a couple of Africans talking about football in French. When 2 Americans and their German relative (as far as I could tell) came to sit next to them, they all started talking to each other about the world cup. It’s really a friendly atmosphere and everybody seems to get on with each other and that’s really good to see. I had expected the Dutch fans to cause some trouble in Nürnberg after losing to Portugal on Sunday, but they must have been too depressed for that.

Anyway, Germany (aka “we”) are playing Argentina on Friday and I think that’s going to be really tough. Can’t say who I expect to win. Germany’s been playing much better than I had expected and I’m almost in last place in our office betting round, so don’t ask me how it’s gonna go down.

Veronica Mars is addictive!

Remember that my best friend came to visit me shortly after Easter back in April? While she was here we watched an episode of Veronica Mars (VM) on TV (I think it was ep 104). She hadn't seen the show before (it's on at 2 pm on Saturdays, a time when no one but me seems to be home to watch it) but she enjoyed it and when she was back home she managed to find more episodes and she and her boyfriend are really into it now and have seen the complete first season. I have only seen about half of it because the German network ZDF that airs it only shows it once a week, but in Austria or Switzerland it was on every weekday so they got through the season much faster. Anyway, I don't think my friend has been so addicted to a show before. That's normally my part. Okay, she loves other TV shows too, such as 24 or Sex and the City or Lost (also because I showed her the first few episodes on DVD), but I'm the obssessed one who searches for info and photo galleries and clips and wallpapers on the internet. But now it's my friend. And she's become a shipper (without knowing that word, I guess). We talked on the phone a couple of days ago. I said I'd managed to steer clear from any VM spoilers, but we ended up talking about some things I hadn't known before anyway. She didn't say clearly what would happen, it was more like „V gets a new boyfriend“ and I'd guess who it was then. Or I'd say that Veronica's dad is really cool and that it was a pity he broke up with Veronica's teacher and then she'd say he'd find someone new, someone who's been seen before and I'd ask „Not Wallace's mom?!“ and she'd say „Yes!“ and we'd both laugh. We're such fan-girls. But VM is really worth it. Great show. And the dubbed German version is pretty good, actually. I haven't seen many English clips to compare it to, but (Kristen Bell's voice (she's the actress who plays Veronica) sounds more like Manja Doering (who dubs her) than I expected. When I'm used to one voice (either the original one or the dubbed one) it always takes me a while to get used to the other one. With Dawson's Creek, for example, it was like this: I had only seen it in German for a number of years before seeing an English episode and I couldn't get used to how strange Joey Potter (i.e. Katie Holmes) sounded. Okay, enough of that ....

What else is there to say? The weather is still hot and sunny, but I wish it would rain so I won't have to water the garden every few days. Thursday was a holiday and I had Friday off, so it was a very long weekend for me. I didn't do much except for watching lots of football. Last night I saw a really good film: Far from Heaven (German title: Dem Himmel so fern) by director Todd Haynes (who Christian Bale fans will remember as the director of Velvet Goldmine). Julianne Moore got an Oscar nomination for her role. The film is set in Hartford, CT, in the 1950s. She plays housewife (or homemaker or whatever you call that) Kathy Whitaker who has to deal with problems in her oh so perfect marriage (Dennis Quaid plays her husband Frank) and starts spending time with her gardener Raymond (Dennis Haysbert). Of course the predominantly white community doesn't approve of a white woman befriending a man of colour (or whatever the politically correct term is). Etc. etc. The film is kind of an hommage to the melodramas of Douglas Sirk and co. (according to my TV magazine). Very well done, excellent acting, and New England looks beautiful in the fall.

Linkage

Just quickly (am at work) 3 websites I love and would like to share with you:

Saker som händer (Dinge, die passieren/Things that happen), a Swedish blog with cute little pictures or drawings of funny and not so funny things that happen in Minna’s life in Stockholm. It’s all in Swedish and I don’t understand half of it, but the drawings are still nice to look at.

Surfmusik , a directory of live streams of radio stations (and web TV) from all over the world. I find it much easier to access the streams from there than going via a station’s homepage.

LEO, an online dictionary for German-English and vice versa, and also for German-Spanish and German-French. I use it a lot at work, although I still prefer my hardcover 2 volume PONS dictionary, but that’s at home and not in the office.

I got tagged ...

.. at least I think I did. Anyway, I saw this in Jen's blog and now did it myself.

I AM: sitting at the computer and typing this.
I WANT: all the data back that I lost.
I HATE: lukewarm coffee, stupid music (DJ Bobo, Scooter, etc.), etc.
I MISS: living alone and close to my friends.
I FEAR: screwing up big time in my new job, hitting another deer, etc.
I HEAR: I still burn (song by German Idol 3 winner Tobias Regner) on the radio.
I WONDER: how much longer I'll be able to stand listening to my parents quarreling.
I REGRET: not going to the dentist for years.
I'M NOT: good at making decisions.
I DANCE: in my room to music I like (but not very often).
I SING: along to songs I like very loudly in my car.
I SEE: trees in the garden, and clouds passing by.
I CRY: not that much, but very easily at certain songs or kitschy films.
I AM NOT ALWAYS: careful with my words.
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: Thomas Kinkade puzzles when I have time.
I WRITE: e-mails and sometimes letters or postcards to my best friend. Oh, and summaries or recaps of every single episode of McLeod's Daughters, my favourite TV show at the moment.
I CONFUSE: people. (Sorry, don't know what to answer here really.)
I NEED: more self-confidence and experience in a lot of things
I SHOULD: sort out the mess and try to find my Windows XP CD.
I START: reading too many books at the same time.
I FINISH: this.

Mal wieder was auf Deutsch

Hab schon lang nix mehr auf Deutsch gepostet, und man will ja seinem Blog-Namen gerecht werden, gell?

Gibt leider nicht viel zu sagen. Das Wetter ist saukalt, wie wohl überall in Dtld zur Zeit.

Meine Arbeitstage sind immer noch nicht wirklich kürzer geworden, und werden es wohl auch so bald nicht. Heute gehe ich allerdings eher, weil ich zum Zahnarzt muss, ganz toll.

Ein langes Wochenende steht bevor, weil Pfingsten ist. Meine Schwester hat am Di Geburtstag und der Mon wird daher in eine Back-Orgie ausarten, weil sie Kuchen mit ins Büro nehmen will an ihrem Geburtstag. Also werden wir Muffins in einer Silikonform backen, was wir noch nie probiert haben. Hoffentlich klappt's.

Mein Blog-Template gefällt mir nicht mehr. Mist. Die anderen, die's bei Blogger gibt, sind genauso langweilig.

Hab letzte Woche Walk the Line gesehen, der war super. Und Elizabethtown, der war ganz nett.

English version:
The weather is awfully cold for this time of year. My workdays are still long. I have to go to the dentist later today. A long weekend is ahead of me (it's Whitsun) and as it's my sister's birthday on Tuesday, we'll be baking muffins on Monday so she can take them with her to the offic on her b-day. We've never tried any recipe from the book I bought a while ago, so I hope it's going to work out.

I don't like my current template anymore. And the other ones from Blogger are just as boring.