Komm schon, Hansa!

Any post relating to the FC Hansa Rostock Soccer team has to begin with disappointment. And my disappointment was two-fold. First, the team lost 0-1. This was expected, but still disappointing. Second, there was no rioting, and that is more disappointing than the loss.

See, when I told people in Neubrandenburg that I was going to Rostock, invariably they would make a joke about the soccer team here. Usually it was how much they sucked. The team is currently ranked last in the Second Bundesliga, and if they keep on losing could be knocked into the fourth league, since they might not be able to handle the third league's fees. The other kind of jokes were about the rather violent soccer fans that Hansa Rostock is known for. I quizzed a German friend of mine, and she cautiously or jokingly recommended that I go to a game, but she also stressed that it should be a game against another East German team, since those tend to be more violent.

The FC Hansa fans in Rostock are...insane. And everywhere. Essentially in Rostock, anytime you see some sort of vandalism, you can safely assume a Hansa Rostock fan is behind it. Broken window in the train station, Hansa Rostock. ACAB graffiti on a building, Hansa Rostock. Overturned car in flames on the street...Ok it's not that bad, but still. Luckily, the fans are easily identifiable by their tattoos. One group of fans in particular, the Suptras are known for their violence against the fans of other teams. The fans are often punished for this by the owners or people in charge. For the last game Hansa Rostock had against Dresden, the teams were forbidden from selling tickets. It was a ghost game because the fans were too out of control the last time.

These are the Rostock fans at the game against Dresden in 2011.
© Suptras Rostock

So, when I found out that Hansa Rostock would be playing Erzgebirge Aue, a team from Sachsen, and that some exchange students were getting tickets, I was on that like broken glass on the streets of Rostock. I was banking on these crazy-ass fans to start some shit at the game. Truth be told, I wanted to riot, but to borrow a quote from Battlestar Galatica, I also like to “let the emotion of the crowd flow over me. Waves and waves of it. Like electric current.” It almost sounds soothing, and it is, but at the same time it's very exciting. Electrifying, I feel alive in situations like these. You can lose yourself in the crowd.

Sadly for me, the Suptras screwed themselves over. After a few incidences like the one pictured earlier, the stadium owners decided that maybe placing the violent, Molotov cocktail-hurling, xenophobic Hansa Rostock fans next to the other team's fans was a poor choice. So they closed off an entire section of the stadium to keep the two groups apart. The Suptras are not pleased to say the least, since this area, die Südtribune, was their (curb)stomping ground. Now they are crammed into a corner section with much less space, and of course many fewer people. So, unlike previous games, there were no fights, no fires, no smoke bombs, no attacks on the other fans. But there were still the customary helicopters circling the neighborhood all day like normal. It's good to know some things never change.

As far as the crowd feeling, I wasn't let down. The regular fans are still pretty vocal and there wasn't a dull moment. I had a very loud German guy behind me the whole time shouting commentary on the game. Little gems like “What the fuck are you doing?”, “Move your ass!”, and “No, you ape, we're the team in blue and white!” His girlfriend was just as loud; a perfect pair really.

During the opening chant.

Speaking of chants a whatnot, today's title means “Come on, Hansa!” There is a fan song related to this: the Komm Schon, Hansa fan song...to the tune of Barbie Girl for some reason.

The game itself was pretty boring. It always is when your team is losing. There was a red card pulled in the first 12 minutes against a Hansa Rostock player, Erzgebirge Aue faked more injuries than I thought possible for adults. But all in all, I would certainly go back for another game. The tickets were cheap, the mood is great, and eventually the Suptras will start something. Like I said, it's a goal of mine to be in a riot, and if my teachers taught me anything it's never let go of your dreams.

Yes, I did take pictures of more than the fans

Bernstein

“I'm riding a 3-speed, 20 year-old, communist-made bicycle with mismatched tires, what the Christ do you expect from me?!” I shout to myself as I flounder on the muddy trail. I've never taken a bike trip outside of a city before, but I've decided that my first foray into longer distance cycling should take the form of a 13 mile trip to the town of Ribntz-Damgarten. Go big or go home, right?

After the bomb threat to the University that kicked this week off, I decided that I needed more excitement in my life. I decided to take this bike trip for several other reasons as well though. First of all, I recently repaired my bicycle, and I'm drunk with my power being able to travel at upwards of 15 miles per hour! Also, I've developed a recent “interest binge” in amber after my coworker told me that the area here is just covered in the stuff. Eventually I landed on the idea of visiting the Amber Museum in Ribnitz-Damgarten, which bills itself as the Amber City. Today's word, “Bernstein” comes from the low German word “bernen”, which means “to burn” and “stein”, which of course means “stone”. Bernstein is the German word for amber, did you know that amber is flammable? Neither did I!

I planned on combing the beach for amber for about an hour before I set off on my trip. Did you know that amber floats in salt water? (Neither did I!) My wide-eyed and naïve goal was to load up on at least 1 pound of amber before I hit the trails, sell it along the way, and finance my admission to the museum. Turns out, amber only washes ashore after storms, and we've had fantastic weather over the past few days. My planned departure point was Markgrafenheide, just north east of Rostock. I was going to travel along the coast and then after about 7 miles head straight east to Ribnitz-Damgarten, emphasis on the “planned” and “was going to” parts in the last sentence.

It was a beautiful and foggy morning, totally alone on the beach.

I didn't bother to plan an actual route for my trip, but I knew the cities I was supposed to turn at, and I figured that would work well enough. Nope. On the trails, it didn't tell you where you were currently located, rather it told you where you could go from that point. It's like instead of saying “you're in Kansas City” it says “head this way to get to New York”, which is a stupid system, because you can head west out of Kansas City and eventually get to New York. This is apparently how the trail planners thought too. According to them “This way to XYZ“ means that they will take you to the middle of no where and then to XYZ. My midway point was the city of Graal-Müritz, beautiful name, dont you think? And as chance would have it, nearly every bike path east of Rostock leads to Graal-Müritz. This means that instead of taking an efficient route, I zig zagged all over the damned forest. At one point, I was forced to choose between a path through a swamp, which was reported to be flooded out and another path, which I could see to be nothing but mud. I opted for mud and was handsomely rewarded, with more mud. At another point, I turned left when I shouldn't have and went about 2 miles on the trail and ended up going about 500 yards as the crow flies. But it's the journey that matters, not the destination, right? Right? Somebody tell me I'm right...

Eventually I did make it to the euphonious town of Graal-Müritz. GM was once, and still is today, a spa resort town, and this place was gorgeous. Rows of villas, cafes, bright colors, thatched roofed cottages. Very picturesque. I should have planned my trip in reverse, so that I could end my day with an hour in the sauna and a relaxing massage from a Swede named Njord, but alas. Regardless, GM is definitely a place I intend on returning to when I have more time on my hands.

The thatched roofs look so cool.

After leaving GM, it was luckily a straight shot to Ribnitz-Damgarten. I guess god decided I needed a break. RD, like I said, bills itself as the Bernsteinstadt, and it sounds dumb, but I was literally expecting a town made of amber. Like amber windows, amber roads, amber everything. Nevermind that this would be horribly expensive and a disaster if anymore ever lit a match, but I wanted amber, damnit!

I could not be happier to be done biking.

This is the Amber Fisher and his Family fountain in the center of town. You can see him and his barefoot, hillbilly children, with their no doubt rabid dog.

The museum was really interesting, and when you pay to get in, they give you a free piece of amber. Apparently they are just rolling in it, so they can give the stuff away. One floor is the science of amber, how it forms, where it comes from, why Jurassic Park was total bullshit, and where to find it. I plugged my ears when they talked about Jurassic Park; I have to hold onto my childhood. The second story was all about amber jewelry and decorations, which, in my opinion, was an utter snooze-fest. “Oh look another amber necklace! Look at all the ways I can wear amber around my neck!” Take my advice and stay on the ground floor. The museum also has an amber finisher that you can watch, and for 5-15€ you can even finish a piece yourself. The museum staff are really nice, and the lady even let me take an extra piece of amber for free. I did have to shower her with compliments about how great the museum was though.

After the museum, I bummed around the city, ate lunch, and then hopped on a train back to Rostock. This train ride took 20 minutes and cost me 3€. My trip out took me 3 hours, but it was free, it was also beautiful, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

der Kaufrausch

I think this post is going to be the first in my newly thought-up “Alltagslebensserie” or Everyday Life Series. Most of my posts are about large events that I attend or trips that I go on, but this sort of overlooks the other 90% of my time here, which is spent doing absolutely normal things, but of course with a German flair. Hmm, maybe that's poor word choice, I usually don't associate the German lifestyle with the word “flair.” Regardless, some everyday parts of my life are clearly different here in comparison to the states. Today, I'm going to talk about potentially my favorite mundane thing to do in Germany: going to the grocery store. Today's title word is that sort of high feeling you get from buying something you really want.

I hate shopping at home, and when I do go shopping I am methodical. Except for a calculator, I shop alone. I have to get “the deal.” This phrase, “the deal,” I picked up from my sort of grandfather. His penny pinching puts me to utter shame, something or other about living through the depression...He also says “the deal” when he can't think of whatever word he's looking for, which can make conversations about finding obscure things for a good price very hard to follow: “I went down to Dillon's, and they had a deal on that there deal, and so I asked the gal at the counter about the deal....” I should say that I love and respect this guy deeply, and I'm not trying to be mean by making fun of him. This man also introduced me to Aldi's in America, or as he likes to call it “that German outfit up behind Walmart.” And Aldi's is the perfect jumping off point for my comparison.

Remember, Germany does't have a lot of space and this is reflected in their “super”markets. I just looked up the county appraiser's information on Walmart in Topeka, and it is about 212,000 ft² (19,700 m²). That German Outfit behind said Walmart (Aldi's) is about 15,000 ft² (1,400 m²).

Our beautiful Walmart. I just noticed that the southern two entrances aren't shown in this picture, so it's actually even larger than it is here.

That's more than 14 times smaller, and Aldi's is the exact same size and layout of a typical German supermarket. To make up for this size difference, there are a lot more supermarkets around the city, and generally they have a smaller selection than you find at Walmart. If you want flour, you have one choice. Canned goods, maybe 15 feet of selection on one side of the aisle. Drinks, well you get the idea. This can be sort of frustrating when you need something sort of obscure. We were going to make pasta with a pesto sauce and had to check three different stores to find it. On the upside, because the stores are so small, there is always one within walking distance.

Netto is the closest market to my dorm.

This is the bread, condiment, pasta, seasoning, jelly, coffee, tea, and baking aisle.

Shopping in German (the language) is also very interesting. It makes every trip educational, and it also seems to make me more curious about things. I stroll through the spice aisle (it's really only a 3 foot section) and end up buying some sort of wildly interesting spice and think “oh the things I could cook with this!”, then I get it home and find out it's actually parsley. Another interesting thing about shopping in Germany is that, for some reason, English words and American-themed packaging on products are “hip” and “cool”, but a lot of times they either make no sense at all or are used in a weird context. I'll give a couple of examples. I was at Aldi once, and they were having American Week, so I went and checked out what German grocers think my country boils down to. The American section was marshmallows, Texas-style curry chicken, and a sort of waffle iron device that made muffins instead of waffles, but all of it had stars and stripes and the Statue of Liberty on the outside. The next example is more recent. I was in Rewe looking for Worcestershire sauce (and I actually found it!), but next to that I found several very interesting sauces, and took pictures. Let's pause and enjoy the weirdness:

Reports indicate this sauce is sort of a sweet and sour sauce with a hint of pineapple.

Somehow "hamburger sauce" is not ketchup.  Nearest I can tell, it's similar to mayonnaise, but not mayonnaise...somehow.

This sauce translates as "Gypsy Sauce", which is somehow not offensive to the Gypsies (actually called  Romani) who do live in Europe.

Ok, this one has nothing to do with misused English, but I still giggle at the word "weiner"

The final strange thing about German grocery stores is the thing the causes me the most stress when I'm there: check out. It's god awful. You have to pay for each grocery bag (about 6-15 cents depending on the size), which means that no one actually buys the bags and just tosses all of the goods willy-nilly back into their cart on the other side of the register. You also have to pay a deposit on the cart, just like at American Aldi's. The cashier herself, is typically as similar in appearance and disposition to a toad as a human can be. I made the mistake of asking her how she was doing once (and only once), she frowned at me for about 3 seconds, then said “fine”, and went back to scanning. The longest conversation I ever had with a cashier here is when one had to ask me what sort of fruit I'd bought so he could look up the code; it was a fig, so it's sort of understandable. Then comes my least favorite part, paying. I almost always pay with cash, and euros don't have paper bills until you hit the 5€ level, so I end up with ass loads of coins in my pocket that I need to get rid of. The problem is that doing math in German is really hard for me, since their numbers are backwards. So, when they say the total is 23.47€, they say the equivalent of three-and-twenty euros seven-and-forty cents, so it takes me a second to realize they don't mean 32.74€, which is the order the numbers were said in. This is precious time I don't have with a line of impatient Germans to my left, a scowling toad-faced cashier in front of me, and a chaotic pile of groceries without a sack to my right. It's like running a gauntlet.

Ugh, the shit I go through to get “the deal”

auf dem Kriegspfad

Normally my blogposts are filled with cutesy turns of phrase and jokes about how much I love Germany. This blog post will be different, it will be like the drunken text you send to your ex boyfriend: you regret it the next morning, but it needed to be said at the time. Today's phrase means “on the warpath,” and I am ready to burn some shit down. Scorched earth, Sherman's March to the Sea, The Battle of Lakarian City-style

My problem is one, Sparkasse Financial Group. The last time I was in Germany I had Sparkasse as my bank and it was awesome. There were branches everywhere and the tellers were efficient and the fees were non-existent.

My current problem with German banking starting back in Radolfzell. As part of the program, we all opened bank accounts as a group so that GIZ knew our account numbers and was able to deposit our stipends in a timely fashion. Originally we were going to open our accounts with Postbank, which is somehow connected to the German postal service. Convenient since every town has a post office, and thus a branch of this bank. The language school took care of all the details for us, which, at the time, I thought was really nice. The Postbank fiasco went on for about a month, wherein our forms were filled out wrong and had to be redone, our forms were sent back on some other technicality, and eventually our forms were completely lost by Postbank. At this point it was the language school director's turn to be on the warpath. You don't know her, but Frau Heintze can be very imposing when she wants to be.

Frau Heintze is...you have to meet her. Off-topic: The CDC was so much better because of her.

It was then decided that we would all open up accounts with the Sparkasse, the entire process from leaving Postbank to getting my Sparkasse debit card took about a week. Damn fast. I was pleased. We were informed that we had online banking, and that all we had to do was tell them our new location when we moved and everything would be fine. Wunderbar!

It was all a pack of lies!

I got to Neubrandenburg and wanted to deposit some money in my shiny new Sparkasse account from my Bank of America account. I walked into the local branch and was met with a frowning cashier who informed me that depositing money into my own account would cost 10€. I asked why and was informed that I was a Sparkasse Singen-Radolfzell customer and not a Sparkasse Demmin-Neubrandenburg customer, which is the biggest load of bullshit I've heard since I was talking to the crazy lady in the Rosslyn Metro Station.

I tried to email my banker at the Sparkasse Singen-Radolfzell, but she has yet to respond (it's been 5 months). I also tried to use my online banking, but I need my banker's approval to log in the first time, and she won't respond. I then went to an ATM to print a statement, since I can't access it online and I can't use the teller service, and was surprised (read: livid) to discover that I had been wracked with fees for every time I'd used my card to do anything. I would later discover that the Language School had set up (accidentally, I assume) savings accounts for us, not checking accounts. Fan-fucking-tastic.

At about the same time, all of the other PPP'lers were making the same shitty discoveries that I was, and a flurry of emails were sent to our program about getting new bank accounts. They resoundingly denied that option, for a reason that was never fully explained to me.

But fine, it's shitty that I have a savings account, and that I can't actually use the bank tellers, and that I don't get online banking, and that I'm being charged fees constantly, but I still have access to my money.

And then...I needed to wire money (checks don't exist here) to my friend who payed upfront for our rental car to Cologne, so I went to the teller in the Sparkasse, and was informed that I had to use the wire transfer machine...in the lobby. I could have sworn I heard her say “back of the bus” under her breath, but then again maybe not. 

I go to the machine and it won't let me wire the money. It gives no explanation. I walk back in and ask the service desk what the problem is. Her response: “The problem is, you're not a customer here, so I can't even look at your account to see what the real problem is.”

I almost punched her.

So I guess my only solution is to withdraw the money in cash and strap it to a carrier pigeon bound for Leipzig. I don't care if this country is the financial powerhouse of Europe, their banking system is a load of garbage.

If you wake up tomorrow and there is a news report about a series of arson attacks against German financial institutions, don't be surprised. And also could you wire me bail money?