On Monday I went with Janina to a practice space for bands that was located in the very far east reaches of Berlin. The building had a real 80’s Robocop vibe from the outside. A black nameless box. A battery charger. We walked inside and it was a labyrinth of hallways and sounds that ranged from okay to awful. Janina was getting a bass lesson from a friend in his practice space which was not so different from the ones I have been in in America. One of the walls is covered in gear, (more big black boxes.) There were cords scattered about everywhere, a couch where I decided to do some homework and a analog recording set up on the other side of the room. After she finished her lesson we all played together. In order to be jamming on the same embarrassment level, each one of us played the instrument we’re least comfortable with. It was really fun and as Janina pointed out some ‘good’ sounds were actually made from time to time. We had to call it quits when this skinny older metal guy came in to record vocals with Toby, the person who’s space it was.

Janina and I wandered over to her friend Adam’s ‘flat’ which was set up in one of the practice rooms. When he opened the door the first thing I saw on my right was his bed, then a little hallway in front of me. I walked on expecting the hallway would lead into a room as it turned left but it just dead ended right their and I realized his flat was just an L-shaped hallway with a cubby just big enough to fit a bed. Adam is a very nice, short and stocky boy who just moved to Berlin recently from Edinburgh, Scotland. Janina had told me he was bragging to her about his cooking and said he would prove it by making us dinner. Adam began the preparations by taking us to his ‘private bathroom’ to wash the dishes, which ended up being the old women’s bathroom with a lock on it and a shower hose installed for the two guys who decided to pay 20 euros a month to live in L-shaped hallway rooms. It smelled awful but I really liked how proud of it he was. He even mentioned that he brought his mom there to show her all the facilities. We went back to his flat and he made us poor man’s pesto made of oil, garlic, peanuts, and arugula and some salt. We had it with Rotini pasta. It was not so bad tasting, actually kind of good but I felt like I had placed a bag of sand in my stomach afterwards and so shared with them the great American term: Gut Bomb. Realizing it was going to take an hour to commute back home Janina and I said our goodbyes and talked all the way until we had to change U-bahns, missing a couple of transfers in the process.

I am going to try and write this more like notes about a story that could be written.

⚀ On 4/8 I found my way to my first punk gig in Berlin, it was off of  Kotbusser Station though that much could be assumed I think. 

♙With the help from my only contact for the show who met me on the street, I was lead through the opening terminal of a car garage, then to the left through a metal gate and up a set of outside stairs, and then through a door and up some more stairs into long, dirty white-tiled room. 

♝The bartenders were three guys crammed in this little hand-made bar/giant cupboard. They all were stern, slack-shouldered and funny but only in a way where they would never smile. I saw them drop and smash three bottles on the floor while trying to hand them to people and every time they just shrugged their shoulders, faces mute with neither dismay or enthusiasm.

❀Stiff and sober with no friends to weave into and around myself I paced slowly through the venue having friendly but brief conversations until I really hit it off with a German girl named Janina. More about her later.

☻I only saw the last two bands play which were Good Throb from UK and Nadie from Spain. I don’t know why but I feel so uncomfortable writing about their sounds, maybe its because I have cringed so much when reading how people have described the musical acts I’ve played in. I don’t want to inflict that one anyone else

☠I think I got a rosey-tinted first impression of the Berlin punk scene because those two bands that played were made mostly all women and that always brings out a lot of women/queer people to the show. I have heard since then that it is considered by some cool guys in the scene that to bring up gender inequality in the scene is reactionary and down right uncool! (booo)

⚰Regardless I ended up having a really good time. Music began playing after the bands stop which is a pretty normal thing for someone to plug in an ipod and amateur dj for their friends after the show but it was the special German edition and I ended up being totally compelled to dance until they through everyone out at 2:30am which I think for Berlin standards is pretty early in the night.

☛ ☜

I have recently discovered more about the league system here in Deutschland. The Berlin Liga, or 6th tier, had been the lowest levels I had been able to find. Now, however, it is clear that the tiers go all the way down to 14. From roughly 7-10, maybe farther, are various ranges of what are called the Bezirksliga and the Kreissklasse, in that order. Because this is so far down on the food chain, I doubt that e scope of the leagues ranges anything past a single city or small cluster of villages near each other. Berlin is a big city, so it can warrant its own league, but when you get to the smaller areas, then you will have fewer teams in total.

After seeing my first game in Germany the day before, I still didn’t know what to expect. All I knew that this game would be between the first and second place teams in the regionalliga, the fourth tier of football in Germany and the highest semi professional level, just below professional. Sure I thought there might be a few more people there and that tickets would cost a little bit more, but nothing drastically different. I was way off.

But before I get into that, I thought it would be worth mentioning that after spending Saturday and Sunday catching the u Bahn every where I saw a lot more people wearing athletic gear and bringing large gear bags with them. I even saw people carrying footballs around a couple times. Weekends are definitely the time where this city unwinds and the the people get out and play. If only it were always the weekend! Anyways, this time, though, I would not be alone. My classmate Ian decided to join me.

The crew commeth.

Anways back to this game, if you could even call it that. Tickets were 10 euro, 8 with student id, so sweet. While I got it one of the first things I noticed was that there were cops EVERYWHERE. There were tons of the politzei vans every where that packed like 8 of them together. What was going on, I thought, am I going to a game or a war? They were probably there were tons of people there. I thought maybe 500 max, but there were thousands of people there. I couldn’t even guess how many. Anyways as we tried getting into the stadium, I kept seeing a lot of people with injuries; arm braces, leg braces, crutches. These were the people who loved the game and played it all the time, yet had suffered from it and now wanted to watch a good match to make them feel better.

As we were going in, we realized that the game had already started. To add on to this, while we were going through security the crowd had erupted. Apparently a goal had been scored, and from what I coul tell it had been the away team that scored. When we finally got into the game we realized that we had accidentally entered into the away fan seating section. They literally had their own section, completely separate from the home fans, and also lacking any kind of roof or protection from the weather at all, well played. This seating area, if you could call it that, had no seats. Simply wide and flat concrete steps with the occasion metal bar for leaning on. I wanted to photograph and document the whole situation more, but someone came up to me and said something about ‘keine fotos’ in German. Damn, oh well. I managed to sneak a couple good ones, but not as much as I would have liked.

The notes I had taken from the game before had given me a good baseline to work off of. This was pleasant as I would not have to be making so many notes through out or concentrating on all the little things and would be able to really just watch the game and enjoy the atmosphere. So me and Ian grabbed some beers and took in the game.

Notes on the game: these guys were waaaaaaay better than the day before. The pace was truly exciting and a thrill to watch. All of their touches were great. These guys could probably beat the best team in America/mls if they played them. The aggressiveness in the midfield was still just fantastic and amazing to watch. They were so fast and able to cover so much ground so quickly. This type of movement would have to be achieved through lots and lots of sprints. Better get to work. There was one occasion were one team had a goal kick, and right before the keeper kicked it he motioned his defense to push up. They did so, however the right defender had not tucked in centrally. Half the team called to him and waved him over. Interesting. Keep the integrity of your teams shape at all times. Two more goals were scored and the game ended 2-1, but we had mistakenly thought that the away team had scored the first goal, when actually it was the home team. Ian and I both thought the fans we were sitting with were in the winning side the whole game. After all they were estatic and full of energy the whole game. Especially when they scored a goal and people started rush the fence and shaking it. When the game ended, the crowd we were with went silent to our surprise. Amazing, simply amazing.

It was an awesome game, I wish I could watch it over, but I know that my game experiences aren’t over yet. It just might be hard to match that atmosphere between the two teams I first and second place! We’ll see.

Today we visit the Boros Bunker near the center of the city. This bunker had actually been transformed into an art gallery though! How cool yet strange, probably the last thing you would expect to find in a giant concrete bunker. 5 floors, 130 works, 23 artists later and I would have to say my favorite exhibit was definitely the popcorn machine. Just looking at the piles of popcorn and realizing it was only going to keep growing was so interesting. Plus I just really wanted to roll around in it, don’t know why, it just looked so inviting.

This weekend I went to my first German football matches. This was a very big and important step for my overall comprehension of Deutsch football. I have seen so many matches on tv, but now it was time for the real thing. The first game I went to was a Berlin Liga, 6th tier, game at Ludwig-Jahn – Sportpark. I had heard about this complex, and for good reason. The first thing I saw when I arrived was the giant stadium. I had hopes that the game would be played there, but those quickly went away as the stairs up to the seat were all locked. Moving on I saw two more turf fields side by side, this is a common sight for complexes. These could be practice fields, or for games of lower Leagues. Past these fields though, I saw my destination. There lay the beautiful grass field reserved for the higher profile matches. In case you had not realized this yet, grass is by FAR the best surface to play on. There was a relatively large building I had to pass through in order to get to the field. In here there was a guy selling tickets. The original price was 6 euro, but with a student id it was down to 3, what a great deal. The seating area was small, and restricted to one side of the field, but as I found out later that section would get packed. The view was great, though. The grass looked great, wanted to run around on it so bad. And the location as awesome as well! There were apartments all around which gave the field a very urban feel. A lot of the time urban fields are in the middle of parks or forest areas so there aren’t very cool views around the field, but I found the view here to be quite enjoyable. If someone wanted to, they could easily look out one of the windows and watch a game.

Once the game started it was down to business. I watched everything closely, from their formations to how many players were on the bench. Each team had roughly 5 or six players on their bench, so a total of 17 present. This made sense though as I realized that here they would follow traditional substitution rules with only 3 subs per game. I have never played in a game that follows these rules, in college there are free subbing basically.  Overall the level of quality as approximately that of two good college teams playing. I found their pace to be quality, but not overwhelming in any way. One of the most immediate differences I noticed, though, which continued throughout the game was the utilization of free kicks. For both of these teams, every free kick presented a huge opportunity that wa taken advantage of fully. This means complicated runs around the ball for misdirection and most importantly, QUALITY SERVICE. I can’t tell you how often, even in my games that the service is sub par. These crosses were whipped in, not floated, and all of them were dangerous. There was constant communication as well, which is always the sign of a well organized team. The chatter latex all game and it showed, the defensive organization was phenomenal for both squads, all the way to the end, even when they were getting tired. One of the words that I was able to pick, from what they said was ‘zeit’ which means time. There was a lot of English used as well, but all of the German was hard to pick up. Shame, this is something I need to learn.

There were lots of little details that were interesting to note as well. For instance, when ever someone got injured and went to the sideline, and thus that team would play with ten men for a little, they would completely collapse on defense, drop the forward back and protect the goal first. Good choice I say. The players in the midfield were the most fun to watch, although the overall level of everyone’s touches was quite phenomenal (far better than a college game) the most inspiring moments were their turns with pressure on their backs. The ability to use strength to hold of the defender as well as play the touch into the right space was something to admire. These battles in the midfield are where I need to take notes. The play there was so aggressive. It almost seemed like, the was a foul on every play, but only half the time it was called. You gotta want the ball! This aggressive attitude translated into headers as well. Every aerial play was hard fought with two players going up and reaching the ball at its highest point. Very impressive. I did notice, however, that a lot of players had a knack to force the play in one direction with the ball at their feet. I have seen this often, this may have been because they are more comfortable with one foot, but regardless, the game could have used a lot more Cruyff turns. I will need to practice this. Like most teams I know of, the home team definitely had a trouble maker as well. The type of player who would get into it with any one any chance he got, he got yellow carded and deservedly so. In fact I could have sworn he got two yellows, but I guess I was mistaken.

 I’d guess around 110 people were there. Pic doesn’t do justice.

As far as the actual game went, this covered most of the important details. The fans on the sideline were always into it too. On one occasion when the home team had a corner kick during the closing minutes of the game, there were some people who started a slow clap for it. This was the only time, though which makes me think, was that their only corner? The store for food and beer probably earned the club a couple more dollars too. I wouldn’t be surprised if they made over 1000 euros on the day. This really isn’t enough to pay the players though, considering field maintenance costs as well as kits, etc. Another discovery I made was how in depth the clubs here can get. The building I had walked throu to get to the field was actually the headquarters of the home team. Here they had locker rooms, offices and even a cafeteria where there 1st, 2nd, 3rd and u19 teams could eat, I’m assuming after practice. In the pamphlet they handed out, I discovered that they practice 3 times a week. This is good, but not enough to play at the next level. You need to be able to play every day before you really start getting better.

When the game ended, I left quite satisfied with my discoveries, but still still quenching more. I was pleasantly surprised to find a cool statue waiting for me which I had walked passed earlier. And just passed that I found a pleasant game of pick up going on. They were playing on a dirt basketball court, with hoops in the middle that they were playing around, but people had brought mini goals, so they had a perfect field. Watching them was fun, but I couldn’t last long, for it just made me want to play more. These are the times I curse myself for not bringing my shoes. This is an interesting topic though, which I often consider. In order to step in and play with these guys, I would have wanted a completely different change of clothes as well. This may have been a lot to carry. Anyways, I will be sure to visit this Sportpark again in the near future, I really enjoyed the time I spent there, but I knew my weekend was not over yet. Tomorrow I would be going to another game for the regionalliga. I could not wait.

Marianne und Juliane:   [note: film contains graphic Holocaust footage]

Wiki re the director: “Margarethe von Trotta (born 21 February 1942) is a German film director who has been referred to as a “leading force” of the New German Cinema movement. […] Von Trotta has been called ‘the world’s leading feminist filmmaker.’ The predominant aim of her films is to create new representations of women. Her films are concerned with relationships between and among women (sisters, best friends, etc.), as well as with relationships between women and men, and involve political setting. Nevertheless, she rejects the suggestion that she makes ‘women’s films.’”