'A time to make friends' with FIFA

(Hermann posing for his home country in his Costa Rican bar 'Pura Vida' in the Dresden Neustadt...one great place to celebrate this World Cup's opening match. Sorry guys..you played well, but...)

DEAR FIFA,

please don't sue me for using your slogan ('Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden') in the headline of this post. We all know that it is one of the thousands of carefully staged trademarks surrounding this worldcup. However, I am still delighted by the mere fact that only American beer (what a fantastic choice!) is allowed to be poured out in all the World Cup Stadiums and in a 'safe zone' of a few kilometers around them...wonderful idea that paves the way into the very German heart..and protects all guests from the ridiculous idea that Germans have beer themselves. Please make sure with the appropriate measures that no non-German leaves the safe-zones and encounter German pubs!

Also, I am very sorry to hear that your serious attempt to trademark every possible word, saying, pun or picture related to the worldcup turned out to be unsuccessful. Protecting the term 'World Champion' ('Weltmeister') in German was certainly a great idea and should have proven successful. However, I REALLY have to admit that I am shocked to see how inventive many companies are in circumventing your well thought-through rules. One example..Emirates is the official airline sponsor of the cup, but due to the fact this airline has only landing rights on 5 airports in Germany they are simply not capable of shipping all the participating teams around the country. Which brings our Lufthansa in the game, who (how dare they) painted a better part of their fleet with a football-nose WITHOUT PAYING!

And, well...it is a shame for my country that a High German Court finally decided that a word like 'Weltmeister' is too common to be protected and therefore voids many of your expensive contracts with some advertisers. I certainly do hope that you and your fine lawyers find a quick way to prevent hazardous developments like 'Weltmeisterbrötchen' ('World Champion's Buns') that are produced in some bakeries I've seen recently. Evil usually shows itself in small things first.

Please stay on the alert!

Your sincere supporter Maik

(hopefully, we will have a colorful festival here in summery Germany. It's not gonna be a stage for the mindless, brown people...why mindless? A scientific explanation can be seen above (has proven true countless times)! - picture found in a male toilet in the university canteen 'Mensa Bergstrasse' in Dresden)

HOW TO REMEDY BALL-INDUCED FEVER

Yes! Germany is in Football fever. And we managed to WIN OUR FIRST MATCH. Wow..That day, Sandy, Ronny (my two best friends and flatmates here in Dresden) and me turned the fact that we had no TV in our new flat into a tangible advantage by watching the opening game in a Costa Rican pub in town. The place was packed, the atmosphere awesome..'unfortunately' the owner and staff of the pub had to watch their own boys lose. Well, many say that our 11 performed worse than they could and should, but (reciting the common cliché) the Germans do best in tournaments and always adapt beautifully to the opponent's capabilities, be it good or bad. Ok, enough of this warm beer..

World Cups turn even me, a non-beer-liking person (Ok, that changed a bit in my time in Singapore thanks to YOU LEIF!) who is usually not even remotely touched by ANY development in the football world into someone who screams upon missed chances and waves around with the second beer of the evening (Yes, that IS a lot for me). Even plenty of women seem to be drawn to the TV sets (Hey, whatever you might say...it IS a fact that it is somewhat unusual..I have plenty of first-hand experience!). However, it is widely perceived that a female 'Wow, that looked good!' was not in fact related to a clever move in the game but to the awesome hairstyle of one of the players ;-)

Maik

(try to walk a German city wearing a T-Shirt with this picture..you will be delighted from the warm reactions you will get. Germans are nowadays extremely conditioned to linking any feeling of proud to nationalism. World Cups and big sport events are truly the only times when it is 'permitted' by society to be officially proud of the own country. This is when you can walk with a flag in your hand without being automatically associated to rightists and looked down upon. Sad, but true. Our sense of patriotism is a bit distorted as a side effect to all the badly needed campaigning against rightist stupidity.)