Back in the US of A

My daughter must think Florida is a tropical Christmas land. We harked the herald in the Sunshine State last year, and we're back again, novelty German presents in tow for another round of palm tree cheer. The same houses on my parents street have the exact same decorations around their palm trees. Yup, my daughter has no proof that Florida ever removes its Christmas kitsch. Come to think about it, neither do I.

As I write this, Germany's under a blanket of snow and will likely remain that way through the Yuletide season. We, however, spent the day on a beach just north of Naples, Florida, worrying about getting sunburned. Sure, I know you're supposed to dream of a white Christmas. Anyone who has lived in Florida for more than three years might dream of a white Christmas until they actually (re)experience one. Then they realize that snow never shows up without cold and darkness and then "In the Bleak Midwinter" becomes the appropriate carol. Enjoy your hot cocoa folks, but I'm happy to pop open a cold one while soaking up the vitamin D this December. "Snow on snow on snoooowwwwww....."

Of course, coming back to America is a reminder of the things I miss and don't miss. Here are some back-in-the-US-of-A observations, in no special order:

1. Patriotism - "the American flag!" squeals my daughter from the back seat of the car at pretty much every traffic light. Now, I'm doing my duty to teach her to wave the flag and smile (She's not quite old enough for the "Fifty Nifty" song, but she'll get there. If you don't know what the "Fifty Nifty" song is, ask your American friend), but sometimes you forget how much patriotism you can fit in a square block. The used car lots are surrounded by so many flags you'd think the bones of some hallowed president were buried under the Toyota Tundras. Of course, I was proudly patriotic when I went to see Lincoln. When I found out about the film a couple months ago, most of my German friends gave me strange looks when I got all giddy. I loved the film (Daniel Day Lewis is worth the price of admission), though something in me, planted by almost two years on European soil, rebelled in silent protest whenever the film became too sentimental. 
2. Trader Joe's - It's good to see you Trader Joe's. Thank you for opening in Florida just down the street from our little vacation condo. The chips, salsa, bean dip, peanut butter, and various American craft beers were just like old times. Of course, this time around I'm less impressed with the fact that you have Rittersport. 
3. Fashion - Everyone knows day-to-day American fashion is more casual than day-to-day European, but it's always a small culture shock when you actually see it, and I come from a part of Germany that's not exactly a world fashion capital. But wow, it's Christmas and the gym clothes are out! You can't waive an American flag without hitting someone in yoga pants, gym shorts or tights. Speaking of tights, I had the strange experience of being startled by body openness coming back from Europe. Somehow, between the time I left two years ago and Advent 2012, tights transformed from something women wore under skirts to an appropriate trousers alternative. Walking through the Atlanta airport, I thought that I had stumbled into the locker room at the local ballet. The times they are a'changin'. In any case, I take full advantage of America's casual attitude combined with Florida's pleasant weather. No, I'm not ready for tights yet (unless I'm running in the winter time) - I still feel a continental need to wear something that requires a belt when I go anywhere. But man, hello flip flops! I wear them in Germany too, though I get judgmental stares in the supermarket, because in Germany sandals combined with socks, are indoor-only attire. But flip flops are to Floridians what leather loafers are to Italians. Wear them all the time. Do you feel that breeze, feet? This is America. This is Florida. This is freedom. 
4. Plastic bags - Good gravy, America, do we really need to use so many plastic bags!? If we stacked up the plastic bags we've used since Thanksgiving we could probably get back to the moon. The lady at Target will double your plastic bag if you buy a pack of gum. The Germans have the good sense to charge for them. Everyone goes to the store armed with baskets and cloth bags, not just the types who pack their NPR totes with arugula. I remember when a plastic bag tax was introduced in DC  - people cried out as if they were being forced to go to the dentist. But it seems to have worked. Let's cut back, folks. 
5. Southern hospitality - Southern hospitality, oh I've missed you. I didn't even realize how much I missed you. We all love to feel welcome, but as a parent, you hope for a special place in heaven for those who welcome your child. This was especially true when we touched down in Atlanta to hit customs before our connecting flight to Orlando. Few people are happy to see a child in an airport, but the Atlanta airport staffers delighted at the sight of a tired, curly-haired almost-3-year old in our umbrella stroller. I near' thought they were going to invite us in for a glass of sweet tea. And it wasn't the whole smile-with-your-mouth-not-your-eyes plastic hospitality you sometimes get. The good folks in the ATL were happy to see us. We felt welcomed. 

Phone Home, Elke and Sven, Phone Home

What a powerful, counter-cultural post by Elke Naters and Sven Lager on Zeit Online. What a rare modern, public witness to the radical love of Christianity. What a testimony as to why these poor but sexy Berliners who moved to South Africa and embraced the faith of the "transforming power of love,"' to use their words. Haven't read it yet? Click on the link and read it. Don't know German? Pop that baby into Google Translate and let'er rip. It's worth it.

Naters and Lager moved to South Africa, because, among the rhythms of their Berlin life - "writing books, having kids, going drinking" - they went, comfortably enough, "with any particular pain, but without any particular depth." In contrast, I moved to Western Europe. Growing up in a family who always heard from international people and international places, Western Europe was like a storybook of endless chapters that I could step into. Heck, eventually I married into it. The food, the trains, the culture mish mash, the hoards of bright, artistic people who valued not just producing things but the moments where drinks and walks and bike rides are shared with friends. These things just weren't as abundant in the land of individualism and energetic economy.

That life of drinks and art and conversation - well, I wouldn't have given that up for South African excitement, myself. Maybe that was their storybook place. I read "Cry, the Beloved Country," and believe me, I want to see the country, but I'm not sure if I'd be ready for the pain part. But for Naters and Lager, they needed to taste more life. Something (to paraphrase their words) more radical than punk, communism or whatever isms we stuff in our soul to make the world better and our morals correct. In Africa, they found a land that was not just Christ-haunted, but Christ-bathed, a land of amazing healing, yes, but of even more amazing forgiveness and reconciliation, repentance and belief.

I'm glad they wrote their piece, not in some right-wing rag, but in one of the most respected German-language newspapers. I like that they included conversations over wine with their bewildered Berliner friends. (The title of the piece is, after all, "You actually believe in the Bible?") I like that, judging by the 760 (my last count) comments, many full of snide and bile, that they seemed to hit a nerve, a nerve I'm so often afraid to touch. And, believe me, I hope all of this is a sign that Naters and Lager haven't forgotten where they came from. Not everyone can travel for their spiritual journey, and we desperately need to hear their stories. We need to know what radical forgiveness looks like, lest we think we don't need it. We need to know that God is moving and just, that he loves us, that he hasn't abandoned us. Phone home, you strange, foreign, Bible believers. Tell us more.
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For what it's worth, I've sat with him here. I sat with in him those comfortable street cafes in Western Europe, between classes or meetings or days off breathing second-hand smoke while nursing a Spanish coffee and the kind of book that melds mind and soul. I held his hand with a tiny band of praying Italians at a Pisa train station, at an Easter morning worship circle in Eastern Germany and with my own child in a church here in Plochingen. And for the many here who do not know him, who keep him at a comfortable distance, I've felt God's dancing love for them, his desire for reconciliation. May we, to quote the old prayer, see Christ more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more nearly, wherever our journey takes us.

Olympic Post

The closing ceremony is over. The medals have been lovingly packed away (sorry if the American team took so long... zing! Hollah!). I watched it. Like other sports, I loooovvve watching the olympics. I remember watching the '84 Olympics with my mom. Both of us were especially excited by the horse-jumping. As I grew up, I was dazzled by Carl Lewis and the original dream team and Michael Phelps and marathons and running and jumping and swimming and synchronizing! This Olympics was no exception. This Olympics was spectacular. I loved the variety - sports, countries, fans, scenery. Well done, everyone.

Here are a few post thoughts:

1. Keep all the sports. Keep that ever-expanding Olympic Leviathan consuming strange, wonderful sports from all five ringed continents. And why not? Basketball's popular, running is elemental, but why not include walking, synchronized swimming or handball? The fun part of the olympics is that the popular and the obscure meet on level ground (or water). The olympics isn't a closet to sort out the stuff that prevents you from finding your favorite socks. There's room for everybody in the party. Now, the impatient sourpusses who can't handle flipping between rhythmic gymnastics and field hockey might ask, where do we draw the line? I like the cigar test - if you can smoke a cigar while playing without it impeding your performance, then it's not a sport (sorry darts and poker - they show you on ESPN, but not the Olympics...).  But everything we might find boring (I find riding bikes in circles in the gym boring, but I can't deny it's a sport and the athletes are worthy - plus the moment when that old Brit came back and won and cried during the anthem... well, good stuff) or not fitting into our cultural understanding or looking silly.... I mean, the 50 km walking looks silly. Evidently, proper athletic walking technique involves shaking your hips in a sexy salsa dance style. But I've never seen a sport where so many people keeled over in exhausted. Well, maybe at band camp, but that always involved asthma and heavy brass instruments... But anway, there were 303 disciplines. Keep'em all... 
2. Speaking of different sports, how can we even talk about who's the best olympian all time? Folks can make they're case for Phelps, Bolt or dozens of people before them (maybe Bolt makes his own case - this seems to annoy some folks, but I like his Muhammed Ali showmansship - plus, behind the cocky act, he clearly takes joy in running like a cheetah). Apples, oranges, times and training. I wish we could watch Bolt could race Carl Lewis or Jesse Owens or Jim Thorpe on an even plane of modern training and technology. But we can't. Enjoy the present, remember the past. Know that this bar and blog conversation can't ever really be decided. 
3. On display - part of the profession for the athlete is being on display, and none more than the Olympics. This includes way those aerodynamic suits don't leave much to the imagination (not that I noticed... someone else told me). But I'm actually talking about the emotional (which requires looking up at their faces). Honestly, would you like to have millions voyeurs watching you at your job? Imagine if your last job interview were not only broadcast live all over the world, but it was analyzed ad nauseum by business experts, journalists, and comedians for the remaining night. Especially the part when you didn't get the job and you sat on a park bench sobbing like that poor Korean fencer who was gypped out of a spot in the finals due to a strange clock malfunction. Or you got the job and you celebrated by hurdling park benches like that hulking German guy who got gold in discus with Mo Farah's victory expression pasted to your face. Sure - they knew what they were getting into, but they're still human. This struck me especially when a German high jumper got 4th place for something like the third straight tournament. There, for all the world to see, she jumped up an down, tears in her eyes, screaming "I always get 4th! Always 4th! Always 4th" That hissy fit of raw frustration reminded  me of my own pathetic hissy fits, behind closed doors, usually alone or with someone who made a promise to God and me that includes the words "for worse." But I will say, come winter time, that I have a great pair of aerodynamic running tights. 
4. London - China's incredible, collectivist display at the Beijing opening ceremonies may have been astounding, but for whatever our many flaws, I much prefer the dynamic, multicultural West with its breathing room for movement, humor, song and spirit. Great vision, great games, and if I had money to spend (ha, hehhhhh....) I'd immediately do what your tourism offices is hoping I'd do. 

The Different in Europe

A couple weeks ago, my daughter and I went to a friend's house for coffee and cake. The coffee and cake was spontaneous - the original plan was a quick swap: translation of a letter for a couple of ESL books and some hand-me-down girl clothes. But when we arrived, the cake was on the table, the coffee was ready, and the other guests had already arrived. My friend and her family were about to move to Michigan for a couple years. In the weeks before our spontaneous coffee and cake meeting, I taught some English to her and her daughter while bringing in the occasional anecdote about living in the good ol' US of A.

Her other guests were a Turkish woman and her daughter. The Turkish woman wore a beautiful, gold-hemmed headscarf that, along with her excellent posture, gave her a stately presence. Her daughter, save for a slightly darker complexion, could fit in well with any Swabian play group. They both declined cake - there was something about it that made it unfit for the Muslim diet - but they ate generous helpings of fruit salad. The Turkish woman asked if my daughter was a boy - it seems like my daughter's name sounds masculine in Turkish ears - but no big deal.

I love Europe for these moments. In this little strip of land crammed with countries and tribes and dialects finally at peace with each other. Their last wars went too far, so they decided a common economy was a good way to keep the peace and make a little money. It made sense, with everyone so close together. I go two hours in any direction and the people are different. Sure, European, still, but different languages, cultures and mentalities, spiced with Turkish and African immigrants, not to mention the occasional displaced Yankee.

Now, the talking heads prophets are predicting European collapse - or at least the currency and Union, and, more darkly, giving voice to those who despise with The Different as our neighbor and collaborator. Plenty of the prophets, especially from my own country, can't hide their Schadenfreude behind the curtain of grim prophecies. Clearly those snobbish Brussels elites hadn't read their Keynes or their Burke or their own opinion polls or the Greek accounting sheets. The boom times hid all the structural problems and the bubble to bring about debt, stagnation, unemployment and overall hopelessness. Financial hardship is a common ground for a divorce.

They may be right. The whole kitten-caboodle could fall down all around us. Or, the magic elixir will work and we'll all have cushy jobs, a sense of meaning and tickets to Eurovision. But it's worth mentioning that whatever happens, we'll all still be here. Our neighbors will be our neighbors. We'll have to talk and trade and exchange and ask and immigrate and emigrate. The Different will remain both across the border and across the street. The Different are in that country in the north or the south that everyone is complaining about. Sometimes The Different is in the other balcony flying a foreign flag during the football tournament. Sometimes The Different is on the other side of the bed. For better or worse.

Whatever system, past, present or future, the second greatest commandment applies. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Judging by the story that follows it, our neighbors include The Different, especially those close to us. We're close to each other. We're different, and we can break bread together. Or cake. Or if you can't eat the cake, there's always fruit salad.

The Violinist (A Voice of Our Own)

My weekly journey to Stuttgart ends late in the evening. My last class finished, I walk briskly down Koenigstrasse. Stuttgart's great shopping street is nearly empty. The locals huddle in bars to watch the Wednesday night soccer games and dart in and out of clubs like shy gophers with cigarettes. The muscles in my legs burn with the pleasure of movement that contrasts nicely to the icy central-European breeze against my face. There's freedom in walking, freedom in knowing that the street, the sneakers, the buildings standing in attention all the way were designed to parade me to the train station and take me home, where my daughter sleeps and my lover waits. I am fast, but I don't hurry; I walk in an un-lonely solitude that I experience in big cities at night. 

A line of music breaks my thoughts like an unexpected visitor. Where have I heard that before? Oh yes. That's "Time to Say Goodbye" the song Andrea Bocelli sing's in my parent's speakers and in that Italian cafe I frequented in Freiburg. It's not typical of the violinist. She usually plays songs from movies. I usually hear her play the theme from Schindler's List or "My Heart Will Go On." 

The violinist is blonde, pretty and perhaps a bit too thin. She's young - a teenager? Her hair is straight and nearly tied behind her head in a pony tail that wags in a friendly manner as she movers her bow back and forth over her instrument. She's an amateur, no question, with only the occasional evening pedestrian for an audience. I like to think that she's Russian. I don't know of course, but my prejudice says that a blond girl with a violin must be Russian. Of course, I can't tell. She could be a local. She could have been born down the street from me in the good ol' US of A. Or anywhere else, really. 

Why does she play? Need? Charity? Hope? Hopelessness? I don't know. But as I pace by, I reflect how much she's like a blogger. It's one thing to play in our bedrooms or write in our journals - little pieces of us expelled from our minds with no listener or accountability. But the street and the Internet give us a voice. Regardless of our talent or depth, we get to say something that might be heard by anyone who happens to walk by our night, our street, our website. We may dream of Carnegie Hall or The New Yorker, we may reflect on what changes in history, education or genetics might have gotten us there. But that does stop us from playing and typing, pretending and expressing, saying something that may just cut through the noise of our busy minds. 

I continue home, "Time To Say Goodbye" fading behind my right shoulder. 

Feel free to leave some change in the hat. 

The Train to Stuttgart

One of the best parts of my weekly routine adventure is Wednesdays, when I take the train from Plochingen to Stuttgart. It starts with a brisk, 10-minute run to the train station (hey - I'm a parent and I happen to enjoy breakfast) where I'm usually just in time to catch the Regional Express. The Regional Express only stops three times along the Neckar river before we hit the Swabian metropolis. Sometimes I hit the Jackpot and land an Interregional Express, which is a nonstop trip to the mighty Hauptbahnhof (main train station).

I love speeding through past the Neckar hills as they wake up to the gentle glow of the Eastern sun. The hills and the buildings and the trees get thicker as we approach Stuttgart, a testament to Germany's lively effort to weave nature and civilization. I love that I'm not driving so I can watch them. I love that I can read the enormous book that I got at the library and that I'll regret bringing later as I lug my backpack down Koenigstrasse (hmmm... Kindle?..nahhh). I love that I can go through my prayer cards, which help me better love all of those who I think about and who are not on the train. I love that I can see the people.

People on the train are the best. Students buried in their iPods. Hippie punks with dread locks, patches and tattoos. Businessmen with ties and glasses and important newspapers. A bouncy Japanese woman with bouncy hair who bounces her son on her lap while singing a bouncy Japanese song. It's a strange thing about public transportation. During the commute everyone is equal, united in a sense of purpose and destination. Everyone is close. Sure, we try to be far away, choosing the seat furthest from any possible contact with strangers, especially if we have strategies for when we arrive and which car we take. But eventually, the train fills up and people from every tongue, tribe and nation are packed together like a game of human Tetris. It's awkward, funny, uncomfortable and humanizing. And it sure as heck beats vehicle Tetris on your local highway.

Of course, the camaraderie ends at the train station. That's the moment we stop, well, ok, many moments before, we race to the door like it's a fire drill, everyone aware of the trouble each day has and how everyone else should learn patience.

But before that, there's the serene moment of speeding with a book, a prayer and so many flavors of human to look at. The train speeds ahead like a mechanical wild horse. We run parallel with another train, this one carrying cargo cargo instead of human cargo. It's hard to tell which train is faster, but they both seem to be enjoying the chase. I imagine that they greet one another with a sunrise smile, glowing that they're doing what they were created to do.

Frankfurt

I'm in Frankfurt for the next few weeks, and I must say, Europe's financial capital is making a wonderful impression. The heavenly weather helps, of course. I've always had a little bias against Frankfurt - it seemed to me like Wall Street without the rest of New York. (Indeed, I learned today that a nickname for Frankfurt, besides "Bankfurt", is "Mainhatten." Main - pronounced "mine" - for the river hat runs through it, and the rest, well, if you don't get it ask your neighbor...) I saw plenty of people with power posture and chic suits, and the skyline is a neighborhood of skyscrapers with the names of banks shining proudly at its points, but Frankfurt has more to offer.

I've only been here a couple days, but here are a three things that Frankfurt has going for it:

1. The Main River - Majestic, and with a splendidly-kept river walk, the Main is clearly the place to be where there is good weather. Joggers, bikers, walkers, lovers, picnickers and (happy day) biergartens rest on either side.
2. Transport - I've never seen a metropolitan so bike friendly (of course, I've never been to Amsterdam, but I've been to Berlin and Munich), and the Frankfurters take full advantage.
   
3. Diversity - In my mind, there are few things finer than walking among a spicy mix of nationalities, languages, colors, sizes, shapes, ages and activities. I suspect that part of this was tourist and the American military bases, but the whole gumbo must also think the international financial institutions, the university and the general life of the city of Frankfurt.
   

Is the Hundertwasser House Germany's Answer to Dr. Seuss?

The most beautiful building in the small city of Plochingen is St. Ulrich's, the Protestant church that presides over the Neckar River with the majesty of an aging monarch overlooking his court. The second most beautiful building is St. Konrad's, Plochingen's handsome Catholic church that lies just down Hindenburgstrasse from my in-law's house. But if you visit Plochingen's official website, the first image you see is a fuzzy-edged picture of the city's own Hundertwasser House.

In the early 90s, the famous Austrian architect and artist Friendensreich Hundertwasser (his name means "Reign of Peace Hundred Waters," though he was never a basketball player) agreed to design a masterwork for this sleepy Swabian town. The house, which is a high-walled courtyard containing apartments and cafes and an enormous "Rain Tower" which may or may not collect rain, stands proudly in the middle of downtown.

The purpose of this courtyard is to convey Hundertwasser's distinct characteristics: "happy colorfulness, round forms and playful balconies." Also, Hundertwasser planted a live trees in the balconies and roofs. These "tree renters" serve as an important testament that not only people, but trees live in apartments.

The other night, my sister and I made an investigative visit to the court yard to, just like a certain bear who went over a certain mountain, see what we could see. It is playful and colorful, without a doubt. The visit confirmed my suspicion that Hundertwasser, much more than an esteemed architect, is the German speaking world's answer to American children's book author Dr. Seuss. To my eyes, the best way to describe the Hundertwasser House, with it's playfully scattered windows, generous reds and sparkly blues, randomly drooping colorful drops (evidently to make it look natural), wonderfully loopy corners and curves, can best be described as Seussville. In fact, now that I regularly read Dr. Seuss's ABC book with my daughter, I was surprised to leave the courtyard without seeing a Fiffer Feffer Feff (with his four fluffy feathers) or the Zizzer Zazzer Zuzz. It would be the perfect place for Thing 1 and Thing 2 to chase the Cat in the Hat in father's ten dollar shoes. They did not serve green eggs and ham, but this didn't surprise me as it would have clashed with the color-scheme (Red Fish and Blue Fish, however, would fit right in). I should also say that I don't know anyone who lives in the apartments, so I can't report whether or not they would object to being called "Whos."

Anyway, I can only approach the Hundertwasser House with the fun and humor, but as the Germans say, nothing for ungood. It's clever, quirky, but very unique. And it makes sense that it is featured on the website; every town in Germany has at least one beautiful church, but who has an avaunt garde apartment complex that will turn heads (for better or for worse) of all the people who commute into Stuttgart? The rain tower sticks out of Plochingen's houses like a balloon salesman sticks out of a crowd of children. The Grinch leans out of it to hear if we are still singing.

A Summer Fashion Proposal

I just visited weather.com, and it looks like some afternoon storms are cooling off the DC area. That being said, I felt nothing but sympathy for the residents of my former hometown, who have spent the last couple of weeks sweltering in the hundreds. Here in Germany, it's been in the 70s, 60s when cloudy (Sunday felt like winter in Florida).

The summer months are particularly tough on the men of Washington DC. Women business attire allows moderately short skirts and short-sleeve blouses. This attire can handle the mid-Atlantic heat. But the conservative business dress of the District mean that men, from Capitol Hill to K Street to Think Tanks, must enclose their sweaty necks in a tie wear a suit jacket Amazon-like conditions. Moreover, male business attire ensures that the energy-guzzling air conditioning units of every office, restaurant and government building will be running until every room could house a flock of penguins (with Morgan Freeman's soothing voice narrating their activities. Hey, I'd watch it).

So, with debt payment and spending buts pending in Washington, perhaps they should consider their AC bill, not to mention the sanity of any man who has to walk from his taxi to the Longworth House Office Building as if going through a sauna.

Once again, Japan is showing the way - not just in reliable automobiles and penalty kicks, but in hot weather business fashion. Facing a summer energy crisis after the Fukushima disaster, the Japanese government is encouraging their suit-wearing class get rid of the jacket and tie for a look that conservative-dress purists would deride as business casual. And, really, why not? What's so important about the convention of a long-armed suit and a piece of silk hanging in front of your shirt that you couldn't withdraw them for a season for the expressed purpose of everyone's felicity, not to mention comfort and less energy spending. It may even help politics. Perhaps the current fiscal debates would be more effective, not to mention more courteous, if President Obama and Speaker Boehner were wearing short-sleeve cotton button downs with a throat capable of breath.

Plus, everyone can put their suit and ties back on in October. And in January, to save energy, not to mention the heating bill, everyone can wear fashionable, colorful sweater vests.

Closed for Corpus Christi, or The Farming Practices of Protestants

Anywhere you live, you can see how the customs, culture and holidays of any land is bathed in their history. This is, of course, true in Germany, and one of the interesting things about being here is observing the remaining residue of the Reformation and the ensuing conflicts in produced. Many towns, including my own, have a large Protestant and a larger Catholic church, for example. Some areas still find a strong religious identity that defines their area, such as the proudly Catholic Bavaria. And of course, the States with enough Catholic citizens and influence have Catholic Holiday off.

So, my new home state of Baden-Wuerttemberg is closed for business today for the feast of Fronleichnam, or Corpus Christi. B-W is traditionally Catholic and Protestant and was historically divided by not just religion, but by tribe, fiefdom, economics and much else until Napoleon conquered the whole area and put it under one administrative unit (which no one bothered to change after Napoleon's defeat). We didn't growing up staying home for such religious holidays in the States, so not being Catholic (or high-church Anglican, for that matter), I couldn't tell you when the feast was or how it came about (but for the full story, you can read all about it on Wikipedia or talk to your Catholic friends).

I've since learned that Germany's Protestants had their own Corpus Christi tradition. Martin Luther called the day un-biblical and "the most damaging of all feasts," as Corpus Christi celebrates the Catholic view of the Holy Eucharist. As a provocation, Protestant farmers in Germany would always plan to fertilize their fields on Corpus Christi, creating a pungent smell for the Catholic processions. Patriotic Protestant that I am, I have neither fields nor fertilizer, and besides, there's not much of a movement to stick it to the Catholics anymore. Practicing Catholics still march in the Corpus Christi processions, while Protestants, and pretty much everyone else, enjoy the day off.

Surviving the Commute

I remember reading (or hearing) somewhere that the length of your commute is one of the most consistent happiness indicators. Regardless of classification (such as nationality, religion or social-economic status), those with shorter commutes were happier than those with long commutes. It made sense to me at the time, and now Anne Lowery has done the world a favor by documenting the horrors of the long commute in Slate. She writes, and I second, that:

"Commuting is a migraine-inducing life-suck—a mundane task about as pleasurable as assembling flat-pack furniture or getting your license renewed, and you have to do it every day. If you are commuting, you are not spending quality time with your loved ones. You are not exercising, doing challenging work, having sex, petting your dog, or playing with your kids (or your Wii). You are not doing any of the things that make human beings happy. Instead, you are getting nauseous on a bus, jostled on a train, or cut off in traffic."

She goes on to examine the research that shows the correlation between commuting and obesity, divorce, loneliness and other maladies.

An obvious take away is to sacrifice those big things we want in a house - a spacious yard, fireplace, enough TV channels to entertain the entire population of Tokyo - to pay a little extra for a smaller flat or house closer to where you work. Lowery points out:

"Given the choice between that cramped apartment and the big house, we focus on the tangible gains offered by the latter. We can see that extra bedroom. We want that extra bathtub. But we do not often use them. And we forget that additional time in the car is a constant, persistent, daily burden—if a relatively invisible one."

Not to mention high gas prices. Also, if are an employer, I suspect that employees with shorter commutes are not only happier, but more productive and less prone to that creeping resentment about work cutting into their personal life. I may be worth the investment to pay additional salary to employees who live within fifteen minutes of the office (for the business minded, is anyone out there aware of companies who do this? Would it work?).

In the mean time, more and more of us find themselves living like that opening scene in Office Space where the protagonists stop-and-go through the traffic. If we're unable to make the potentially life-saving lifestyle change to reduce the commute, what should we do? I have a few suggestions based on my experience, but these fit to my personality and may not work for everyone. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.

1. Embrace Public Transportation. I had a long commute in DC, and it was actually a little bit shorter to drive in than to Metro (or in sometimes, bus-then Metro) in. Complaining about Metro is one of Washington's number one pass times, up there with the Army 10-miler and bashing the leaders of the opposing party. But whatever Metros problems, the train system is much safer and much less stressful than driving inside the beltway. DC area drivers are an unholy alliance of important people who can't stop blackberrying, college students, tourists and people with diplomatic immunity. Plus, the designers of the northern Virginia road system must have had population control in mind. And folks say I'm a relatively calm person, but behind the wheel I can turn into a cussing, raging hulk. Even if it took a little longer, riding that train got me to and from work in a safe and more-relaxed manner that was better for my soul. On top of all this, public transportation is better for the environment. Not every town has public transportation, but if it's available, I recommend taking it.
   
2. This leads me to my second point, which is to use your commute to catch up on your reading, pray, catching up on the news, or whatever else that may cut into your home life. One of my old pastors mentioned that he uses his Metro time to veg out. He has five kids at home, so on the Metro, he reads interesting news articles on his iPhone. Vegging out of the way, he can focus his energy on his kids when he got home. In Washington, I had a pattern where I would pray in the morning (I pray through prayer cards, as suggested by Paul Miller his book, A Praying Life, which I reviewed in December) and devote my ride home to pleasure reading. This is more difficult if you drive of course. But if you decide my commute is where I catch up on the news or listen to a book on time, then that's one less thing your hours in traffic will take away from you.
3. If you can, make exercise a part of your commute. It makes sense that people who have long commutes have health problems; they simply have less time to move around. They come home and face the choice: do I spend time with my family or do I hit the gym? One way, of course, is to bike to work, which is what my wife's Uncle Gehard does. Now that I live in a bike-friendly country, I hope to be a bike-commuter as well. I did not bike in Washington (it takes a brave soul to bike in DC), I got off the Metro at a place (Farragut West, for those of you familiar with the area) where I would walk twenty minutes to my office (DuPont Circle). This is not the way to get perfect abs, but it got my limbs moving and my heart pumping ten times per week, which ain't bad.

Again, these may not work for you, and none of these are a perfect answer. But I find that if you can use your commute to accomplish one of your daily goals, such as exercise, reading or simply staying informed, your less likely to experience the commuting hazards Lowery describes. How is your commute? How much would your life improve if it were shorter? What are your commuter survival tips?

Smaller

After fifteen years, I revisited the house of my childhood.

This was a couple months ago, while my family was still in the DC area. I was born a Virginian, growing up first in that wonderful college town called Blacksburg (I don't think I've ever heard anyone say anything bad about Blacksburg - and I honestly can't think of another town with that distinction), then, ages five through almost thirteen in a suburb outside of Richmond. After that, we moved to a flat and swampy place, which is and isn't home.

Would leaving anywhere at thirteen mean leaving with a bad taste in your mouth? That was the case for Richmond. While I missed the hills and the seasons, I had just walked through that threshold called middle school where the young and the oily exercise some primal need to create tribes and enemies. My experience was nothing unusual, but it created enough isolation and self-loathing that I was not unhappy about moving on.

Pre-Middle School, you could not have asked for a better neighborhood to grow up in, this suburb of Richmond. First the hills. There will hills on the streets, around the block, that seemed to go down forever, teaching courage 1st grade bike riders. There were other hills that went through peoples yards, between houses. Once or twice a year, God gave us enough snow to close schools and send us sledding between trees and down storm drains. There were also trees. The oak trees of our neighborhood were worthy of poetry, diminishing houses in their majesty and falling enough leaves to busy every Saturday throughout the fall. Oh, and the yards. Each house had an enormous backyard and an enormous front yard, yards that, to my little eyes, were like football fields - and to this purpose we used them, running and tackling on leaves and acorns.

Our own yard was its own wilderness. It sloped on a hill I don't know how many meters until you finally reached a chain-linked fence. At the top, there was grass, but down at the end of the hill, which we would sled down Calvin & Hobbes style (I was never brave enough to try a wagon), was a wooded area - our own forest of the towering oaks. It had a little stream bed going through it, not to mention a play house the previous owners left for us, and a garage, the roof of which was my little place of solace. It was a back yard a child could literally explore.

And then our house. Our house was multilevel - when I was a little older and our upstairs was populated by sisters and the residue of pink-lacy toys, I got my own room in the basement-lower level. We had a living room upstairs which my mom could keep presentable for the outside world, and a downstairs den with a chocolate brown carpet that children could keep as dirty as a baseball diamond. My favorite feature of the house was the exterior. The lower level was brick, but the upper level, the face of the house up to the pointed roof, was Tudor style - a white background with brown beams and brown trim around the windows. It made the house stand out as something handsome in this world, something you could point to smiling saying, this is where I live.

We returned to Richmond as spring was just awakening, because I thought it would be a shame to live in Washington for more than four years and not show my wife the house of my childhood. We stayed with some dear old friends - the sort of friends you invite to weddings whatever the separation of time and space. Then, we saw our old neighborhood.

It should not have come as a surprise. After all, I've grown. But my old neighborhood was smaller. It was as if the entire world had swallowed a shrinking mushroom from Alice in Wonderland. The hills were bumps, mere formalities between higher and lower. The trees no longer towered, naked as they were from the winter. The biggest trees, my favorite trees, the ones in the front yard in the flowerbed with the squirrel nests, had been felled. They had gotten sick, reported a neighbor. Worst of all was the exterior change to my house. The Tudor style front needed to be replaced several years and go, and so it was - with hospital-white panels. It looked like the side of a trailer. So many of the other houses were still handsome.

Something else was also smaller. Those middle school memories, my first confrontations with human nature at its ugliest - when human nature has woken up and hasn't had coffee - the memories of hate and isolation. They were tiny. They were overcome, replaced by time, space, adulthood and the power to make your own decisions. They were overcome by a God of love, who took the worst of human nature upon himself and rose again. The God who loves the young and the oily.

We had a wonderful neighbor who still lived there. She told stories of who was left and who moved on. Her front yard was peppered with wonderful toys for the neighborhood children to use. One little boy, who lived somewhere nearby among hills and trees, hopped on a scooter and, with speed and courage, road down the incline that was my neighbor's driveway. I bet he thought it was a mountain.

Plochingen

"Plochingen is beautiful," quipped my father-in-law with his twinkly, mirthy grin. We were driving from the Stuttgart airport to his hometown, which is now our hometown. One of the first things you see when you drive into Plochingen from the Autobahn is a bulking junk yard filled with scrap metal, like a magnified steel-wool forest. It's pretty ugly. Hence, the quip.

From where I sit, it's different. I'm sitting in my wife's old bedroom, which is in the basement level of their house. She grew up in the bedroom a floor above us, but when she was finished with high school, she and my father-in-law rebuilt the basement into a comfortable living space. My father-in-law built every part of the house. He builds and manages houses - even though he has the equivalent of a masters in engineering, he would rather be outside working with his hands then designing in an office on a computer.

The basement level actually has a door into the backyard. That's because the house was built into the side of a small mountain, so the front door, facing towards the summit, is a good three stories above the backdoor. One level up are two rooms, once and now bedrooms for family members, however far they wandered before. Above those rests a bright and spacious living room. On every level are balconies and wonderfully big windows that ensure the sun is a daily guest.

If I step out, I stand in the backyard, which is, to be more accurate, a garden. The side of the mountain is lovingly shaped with stone and grass and trees until you walk down, step by step, level by level, to the next row of houses and apartments. These include, incidentally, the residencies of my wife's brother, aunt and uncle and grandmother. It also includes an empty apartment where my family will begin its life in Germany. Blessing and grace, abundant.

Beyond those houses, I can see the town center (the aforementioned junk yard is, happily, beyond my line of vision). Plochingen invites the small town sort of life that I never experienced in the suburbs. It's a little place, but I can still walk downtown and find civilization: coffee shops, stores, cobble stone, statues and a big church. Where I sit, all the houses in the city below have matching red-tiled roofs, each with a high, pointy peak in the middle. They make their own spiky mountain range through the river valley, trying to keep secret the fact that they are individual units, made by the hands of man. The afternoon sun casts his golden blessing on the whole scene. Plochingen is beautiful.

Would You Believe Him If He Told You?

I once met a man who saw Jesus in a vision. Let me explain.

Some years ago, I took a weeks vacation to Istanbul with a group of friends. The Turks are always hospitable, but the tourism industry was especially happy to see us. First, the weather was cold and snowy, which is not something we associate with onion-domed mosques and Ottoman palaces. Second, most tourists were doubly scared because of a terrorist attack on Istanbul just two weeks earlier. Needless to say, my group of friends plus one lusty Australian backpacker were the only lodgers at our youth hostel.

The youth hostel itself had seen better days, not just from the weather or the bombing, but 9/11 had hurt the tourist industry worldwide. They had failed to pay their taxes, so the government had sealed their front door shut. However, the hostel owners were chummy with the man who ran a dry-cleaners downstairs in the basement of the same building. To get into the Youth Hostel, we had to walk, almost crawl, through the dry cleaners between rows of hanging coats and white walls and climb a stair case into the comfortable lodging, presumably helping our new, grateful friends to stick it to the man.

The youth hostel owners were a group of five or six men. Actually, I don't know how many of them worked with the youth hostel and how many of them were just friends there to hang out. I did know that they sat in the lobby, ate delicious Turkish food and drank Vodka and water and gave us Turkish beer to drink. Istanbul was a great city, but hanging out with these guys each evening was a highlight of the trip.

I know that the youngest of the group did help manage the hostel. He was particularly suave and handsome, and charming as he was, he was the first to offer me a beer and a bowl of the most delicious lentil soup. When he found out that we were Christians, and that we were working in Christian ministry, he began to talk with me about Jesus. He told me how Jesus appeared to him in a dream.

You see, during his stint in the army, he fought Kurdish separatists in southeastern Turkey. He had seen death and explosions, and he feared for his own life. Every night, before we went to sleep, he pleaded with Allah and Mohammad to let him live, but he found no comfort. Finally, in a dream, he saw a man he had not seen before, beckoning him to follow. He knew exactly who it was. It was Jesus, and from then on, he prayed for Jesus to save his life. He finished his military mission unharmed. Since then, he always talked to travelers about Jesus, and my friends and I were not the first Christians who had passed through. Smiling, he showed me his plastic bag full of Gideon Bibles and evangelistic tracts.

I'm told it is not an unusual experience for people in the Muslim world to have visions of Jesus. Personally, I know one other Turk who repented and believed after seeing Jesus in a dream. The difference between him and the handsome youth hostel manager is that the manager did not repent.

You see, beside his Gideon Bibles, he had another collection: girlfriends. His suave good looks and his position managing a youth hostel allowed him to collect girls from all over Europe. He showed me his photo album. A girl from Finland, one from France, one from Germany - they all could have been Bond girls. He knew this was sin. The reason he approached me about Jesus was, like a lawyer reading a contract, he wanted to find a way to be a Christian and continue his conquests. "Can I still be a Christian and have the sex?" was how he put it. I told him God's grace was free, that this sin would not prevent God's love. I told him to commit himself to Christ, and to trust him with the rest. I told him that to repent from his sin, he would need to be willing give up that part of his lifestyle. I told him it would be impossible on his own, but with God, with the support of other Christians, he could. I told him if he would contact me, I would do some research and find a good church for him. I wanted to tell him about God's design for sex. I never heard from him.

Last Sunday, my pastor highlighted Jesus' response to the question from the religious authorities, "are you the Messiah?" in Luke's Passion. Jesus replied, "If I tell you, you will not believe me." In other parts of the Gospels, different people ask Jesus for signs, and he rarely concedes. Why? There's a skeptic in me that wonders why Jesus doesn't simply do something wonderful and magical to silence his critics once and for all, as if the Resurrection was not enough. The Turkish hostel manager is a good example for me as to how signs and wonders are insufficient for true faith.

Think about it. He was utterly convinced that he saw Jesus in a dream, beckoning him. He knew for certain that it was Jesus, not skill, luck or circumstance, that preserved his life in combat. Yet, he refused to follow. He did not trust God for the intimacy and satisfaction that he found having sex with pretty backpackers.

Would you believe Jesus if he told you who he was? Messiah. Savior. Son of God. God's Word made flesh. All in all. All that you need, all that you want, beyond anything we ask or imagine. Would you believe him if you saw him resurrected? Would you believe him if you witnessed miracles?

I'd like to say yes, but I'm not sure that would have done it for me either. What did it for me was love. What did it for me was that, whenever I saw myself, I saw something unlovely. But I learned that, as Zephaniah prophesied, God is with us. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in us. He will quiet us with his love. He rejoices over us with singing. In our unbelief, when we refused to acknowledge God, whether we experience him through word, creation or miracle, he died for us. He rose again, all that he could be with us. He calls us, and whether we see him in a dream or not, he beckons us to follow him.

I hope something finally clicked for the Turkish hostel manager. I don't know if it would have been the message of love - I heard somewhere that "God loves you" isn't the best place to begin with someone from a Muslim background. Clearly, miracles were not enough for him. I hope he repents, and I hope he believes, that he may follow Jesus in life, in death, and, as we celebrate every Easter, in Resurrection.

Beer, Downstairs

Beer is best consumed in two places: outside, under the sun, at a picnic table with friends or downstairs, in a basement bar, at a small table with friends.

While I look forward to this summer's biergartens here in Germany, my final round in Washington was in the perfect downstairs environment. Two days before our departure, a few friends huddled with me around a table at the Beer Baron, what Brickskeller near DuPont Circle used to be. It's essentially the same thousand-beer bar with some minor improvements in the important areas, such as service, cleanliness and having beers on tap available downstairs.

Downstairs bars should be dark, but not in a lost or oppressive sense, but in a way that is warm, welcoming and comfortable. In such an environment, we check our worries around the same time that the girl at the front checks our IDs, leaving them to choke on city streets filled with cars, haste and the need to be going somewhere. Beer Baron fits the bill. Golden light trickles from each lamp like a back yard stream. The walls are brick. Downstairs bars should have brick walls, or stone, or something that, in the old days, would have looked presentable caked in cigarette smoke.

An important point: where we sat, we could not see a television. So many bars these days have TVs in every direction. Given the American attention span and our appetite for sports and news, I suspect that any bar not bricked with glowing screens puts its bottom line in serious danger. Don't get me wrong; I do enjoy watching sports at bars, with friends, where we can hear each other shout at the players and refs, but bless the bars without televisions. Televisions perniciously distract from what the best bars can do. They allow men to talk, to bond, those two mysterious things we observe women doing pretty much everywhere else. So we sit at our table with delicious, carefully-brewed beer, warm light and bricks shortening the path between our hearts and our mouths.

DC is a city of monuments and museums, green space and French architecture. I love walking around it, breathing in accomplishment wherever I go, being carried by the idealism, the expertise and the ambition. Two days before my departure, however, I left all of these things on the surface. Instead, I descended into a basement to drink beer with friends.

Burns Supper II

This is over a month late, but regular readers (cough) may remember that I gave the Toast to the Lassies at the Robert Burns Supper party my Scottish flatmate threw two years ago. At the risk of being outdone, my sister gave the Reply on Behalf of the Lassies at event this past January. It describes the dating life in our own hometown of Washington (something I'm sure Robert Burns would have sampled had he visited), and is based on Burns' own poem, "The Rights of Woman."

This evening, I would like to read to you my adaptation of Robert Burn’s speech, the Rights of Woman. He wrote the poem for one of the many women he had his eye on, Louisa Fontenelle, to deliver at a benefit dinner. My version takes a slightly different approach, though one I believe our poet would have approved, to reflect the places and the means by which DC’s men and women carry out their romantic affairs. Please feel free to follow along on the papers provided, and then keep them for personal reference in the future.

DC’s Romantic Undertones

An Occasional Address

While the Nation’s eye is fixed on mighty things
The fate of health care and the fall of left wings
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp Afghanistan
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
DCs romantic undertones merit some attention.

The first, in the sexes’ intermixed connection
Happens in the heat of presidential election
The tender flower, who delivers her debate
Makes helpless the man, and seals his fate
He may think partisanship renders their nexus a fling
Until it’s yearly rekindled at State of the Union bing-o.

The second connection – but ladies please take caution –
WMATA can offer the most thrilling option
Each man who embarks on his morning commute
Can be sure he’s observed and deemed unattractive or cute
There are, indeed, several different types
From politician to hipster, a lass can choose what she likes
Furtive glances over the top of a book
Shy smiles, batted lashes, sweep him away with a look
Now, foolish man, if you choose not to act
It is only your loss, for she’ll keep her posture in tact,
She doesn’t fret (though you find yourself quite the catch)
For at the next stop, there’ll be a whole new batch.

Our third and our final, could happen to any Washingtonian,
So never underestimate what could happen at the Smithsonian.
A man who gazes at the Hope Diamond so bright,
Or a woman “admiring” the work of the Wrights
Neither is present for their respective exhibits
There’s only one goal, and that’s to gather some digits
As on the train, the same tactics apply,
A smile, a wink, a flirtation, a sigh.
Whenever we use our museums to charm
It takes only a moment for us to completely disarm.

So in a city split upon party lines,
With do-gooders and cynics, and many great minds
To what really unites us we must all raise our glasses
And toast the romance, the seduction, of DC’s lads and lasses.

Football Teams Should Be Named After Local Industries

Rick Reilly points out that the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers, who (you read it here first) will play each other in the Superbowl this evening, are the only two remaining NFL teams named for local industries. Way to support the American worker, AFC and NFC champions! This is the sort of boost the American economy needs. In fact, I think other teams should follow suit and re-name themselves after their local industries. Here are some suggestions:

1. Houston used to be the Oilers, before the Oilers became the Titans and moved to Tennessee and the Texans took over in Houston. Changing the Texans to the Oilers, and bringing back the ketchup on pail-blue uniforms would be a start.
2. Speaking of Tennessee, it is nowhere near Greece or their mythology, so Titans won't cut it. Tennessee is known for the music industry, so here are some ideas: The Banjo Pickers; The Record Producers; The Elvises; The Partons; The Tennessee Twang
3. Wait, aren't the Cowboys a local industry in Dallas? Maybe I'm wrong...
4. Piracy is no longer a thriving occupation in the Tampa Bay, moving to Somalia in this era of globalization. As the church of Scientology has bought up most of the Clearwater area, one idea would be to change the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the Fightin' Hollywood Stars. This works especially well as LA no longer has an area football team.
5. Atlanta is known for Coca Cola, not for Falcons. So let's change their name to the Secret Formulas. Or the Corn Syrupers.
   
6. The Bay Area is home to the new engine of our economy, the tech industry. So change the 49ers or the Raiders (again, piracy has long been outsourced) to the Techies. Or the Red Bull Consumers.
   
7. Detroit already has a car-themed basketball team, but the Lions could still change their name to the SUVs, or the Engines, or the Hummers (please add your joke about them not lasting as long as a Japanese football team here).
8. New York has two teams. The Giants should represent the beleaguered finance industry. They could be the Financiers or the Hedge Funders. New York Jets could change their name to the New York Hipsters, representing that other great NY industry, and attract players who are "over" the whole sports thing and want to show you their vinyl collection.
   
9. My local team, the Washington Redskins, has plenty of options. The Presidents, the Senators (once Washington's baseball team), the Congressman, the Justices, the Battlin' Bureaucrats, The Military Industrial Complexers, the Lobbyists, the Protesters. Perhaps the Kansas City Chiefs could move to the D.C. area and change their names to the Commanders and Chiefs...

After what local industry would you name your local team?

As a Bears fan who thinks Troy P. (sorry, didn't want to look up the spelling) has amazing hair, let me say, Go Steelers!

Fraport

Earlier this week, my wife, daughter and I landed in Frankfurt Airport, owned and operated by Fraport, which is fun to say and looks good on the local soccer team's jersey. If you are a world traveler, chances are, you've been there too. Fraport is sort of an industrial Wonderland maze of stainless steel and colored lights. It somehow feels both unmanageably huge and cramped at the same time, like hidden passages in the Death Star or the layer of a 60's James Bond villain. Can't you picture Bond, pistol in hand, bikinied foreigner by his side, racing through the passages to dismantle some sort of exotic weapon of mass destruction before it's too late?

And yet, in spite of these discomforts, I love it there. There's no other building that awakens my Reiselust in the same way. Fraport is a journeyman engine moving travelers of all kinds, uniting us briefly along the way to Munich, Chicago or Johannesburg. The silver labyrinth somehow produces people of every size, shape and color, every tongue, tribe and nation. Stressed but determined, tired but adventurous, business suits, sweat pants, hijabs, high heels, jeans, cowboy boots, turbans, baseball caps. All of us, regardless of where we come from, united in that we are going somewhere, pulling, pushing and bearing our belongings with expectation.

My Oktoberfest Memory

200 hundred years ago, Crown Prince Ludwig I and Therese of Sax-Hildburghausen organized a horse race in Munich, Germany to publicly celebrate their marriage. Somehow, this translated into filling liter-sized mugs with lager, and squeezing enough bodies and picnic tables into circus tents to give any fire marshall a heart attack. Combine with oompa music, stinky un-washable lederhosen and a carnival to make any mid-western mayor envious, and you've got Oktoberfest.

Yes, it usually starts in September (though the original did indeed start in October). And yes, thousands of sweat bodies in a near-suffocating tent dancing on picnic tables with bier-steins in each may not be your idea of a good time, but there's something about it that draws you in, splashes your teeth with beer and makes you dance with total strangers.

Actually, the one time I was in Oktoberfest, I wasn't even able to get into the tents. The lines were too long for the evening. I wasn't even planning to go. I ended up at the Oktoberfest celebration only after a botched attempted to take the LSAT. (don't laugh)

Let me explain. It was the fall of 2004, and I wasn't sure what I would do with myself after my second year in Germany. (Anyone out there sure of what to do with yourself? Please explain to me what that is like. Feel free to use the comment section.) Law school seemed as good an option of any. I crashed near Munich's university with a contact given to me through my organization the night before, ate the cheesy noodles he gave me, and got up early to clear my head. When I arrived to the test location, I found about thirty livid American 20-somethings standing before a door alternating between the two most celebrated curse words. With no prior announcement, the test had been postponed two days. I didn't have the cash to change my train ticket, so I viewed that as God telling me law school wasn't my best option. What to do with a free evening in Munich in late September?

I arrived at Oktoberfest intending to drink an enormous consolation beer. As I implied above, it is not just one tent or beer hall, but rather an enormous carnival with several beer tents sponsored by Munich's beloved beer establishments. And all of them were full, and the countless people in line looked like they had been waiting there since Ludwig's horse race.

But the Bavarians would not allow that to prevent a beer-sale to a tourist. There were plenty of outsider benches, the NIT of picnic tables, the merry planks for those of us who have not been consuming beer and weisswurst since breakfast. That's when I discovered how few Germans are actually at Oktoberfest (or at least they knew to show up early and get their lederhosen-covered bottoms in the circus tents). I set at a table with some very friendly Italian men, where we shared jokes and travel stories while clinking the enormous beer steins.

Sudden, from our left came an angry shout. A short, red-faced Australian man wanted to fight my new Italian friends. He accused them of stealing his hat. The Italians threw their hands up (just like their soccer players) and pleaded their innocence (just like their soccer players). I decided not to take sides (and made sure my wallet was safely in my front pocket). The Australian's voice grew louder, even as his voice grew hoarser. I noted that one of those liter-sized steins would make an effective weapon (or shield, for my purposes). The alpha-Italian, his beautiful brown eyes flashing at the Australian's purple face, insisted we were all friends here and we should enjoy our drinks.

Thankfully, and anticlimactically, the Australian staggered away, his grumbling unprintable (mainly because I couldn't actually hear what he said), and I wondered how many empty beer steins he had left behind him. He did look at me and said not to trust "these guys" (the Italians), because they were "thieves."

From inside the nearest tent, pop music, rock standards and traditional German folks songs played intermittently. I walked away, ignoring the smell of puke by focusing on the pleasant aftertaste that only a Bavarian lager could bring, happy to cross another cultural experience off of my list. Somewhere, Ludwig must have been smiling, however ironically.

Best/Worst Case -- Florida State

The nation rejoices - college football is on the television, on the radio, and on the hats, polos and jerseys everywhere the eye can see! And, of course, it's all over this here Internet thing I get to write on.

So, in the spirit of ESPN and 24-hour sports coverage (and with apologies to my favorite sports blogger), I present to you the best case and worse case scenario for my alma mater's 2010 college football season.

BEST CASE

Florida State University roars out of the gates with an amazing upset of Oklahoma, and right on your humble blogger's birthday to boot! From there, the Noles demolish the ACC competition, humiliate the out of conferences foes and the in-state rivals (including a last second, upright-splitting field goal to send Miami packing) and whup up on my father's alma mater in the ACC championship. Christian Ponder, after claiming the Heisman Trophy, delivers a tearful acceptance speech so good that it resolves the Israel/Palestine conflict, and all nations, from rogue states to democracies, beat their nuclear weapons into plough shares (no accidents take place). After crushing a resurgent Notre Dame in the BCS championship, all of the nation's top recruits reject their previous commitments and clamor for Tallahassee, while the rest of the nation's elite programs can only watch, pray and fight over the remaining spoils.

The great FSU dynasty ensues, taking home championship after championship. Their success makes them so beloved, that they leave the Atlantic Coast Conference and sign an exclusive television contract with NBC (which decides not to renew its contract with the ailing Fighting Irish). Not to be outdone, ESPN pays Florida State University hundreds of millions of dollars for "College Game Day" to be broadcast live from Doak Campbell Stadium every week (they change their theme song to "We're Coming To Your City - if you live in Tallahassee").

Meanwhile, all the extra sports revenue swells the endowment, attracting the best faculty and students for every conceivable field. Academic excellence increases exponentially and within five years (and five BCS championships), Florida State is considered the Harvard of the south. After five more years of success (and five more championships), Harvard is the consensus Florida State of the north. Academic flourishing trickles into every aspect of life, and along with sport and learning, art, business and authentic Christian spirituality thrive, from Tallahassee, to Florida, to the United States and to the world.

WORST CASE

Florida State is humiliated on opening day (tomorrow) with a last-second, loss to Samford, thanks to a missed field goal in the closing seconds that sails wide right. From there, the rest of the season goes down the toilet, with each loss more humiliating. All of FSU's top recruits end up in the hospital or in jail, and the remaining players desperately try to transfer to Florida International University. Coach Jimbo Fisher is fired in shame and takes a job cleaning Renegade's stables.

Bowl-less, winless and shamed, Florida State is kicked out of the Atlantic Coast Conference and demoted through the ranks of college football, where, after five years and five goose-egg season, the Noles find passing success at club flag football level. Desperate Florida State athletic officials waste all sorts of money trying to secure coaches and television contracts, but to no avail, and other university sports suffer. The athletic demise starts a rot which infects the school academically, as department after department lose faculty and quality students. This phenomenon prompts U.S. News and World Report to create a "Just Say No" list of national universities, with FSU ranked at the top every year.

Meanwhile, the combined forces of industry, government and Mordor turn a now impoversihed Tallahassee into a dark, post-apocalyptic city, which pollutes the Gulf of Mexico more than any BP oil spill ever could. The resulting filth hastens the effects of Global Warming. The Polar Ice Caps melt, and the state of Florida sinks into the sea, prompting residents to flee to Kentucky. The environmental and humanitarian calamity causes all countries to go to war with one another over scarce resources, starting when Finland invades Sweden. In the process, all forms of art, culture and beauty vanish and are forgotten, and once again, every human being has only one goal: survival.

PREDICTION:

Somewhere in between. Happy football watching, everybody!