“Let’s make hot love.” Greg had just stumbled into the kitchen where Jan was heating up a bottle of Glühwein (mulled wine) that he’d bought at the grocery store.

“What?!” Jan asked, shocked. “Are you drunk?”

“No, of course not. I just want to make hot love with you.”

“Are you kidding me? What’s gotten into you? I’m in a relationship.”

“But I brought amaretto.” Jan’s eyes bulged. He and Greg had known each other for years, and this was out of character.

Greg pointed at the Gluhwein. “You’ve already got the Glühwien, and I have the amaretto. What’s the problem?”

The Bundesliga goes into hibernation as the winter break is upon us. Time to take a look back at the first half of the season.

Bayer Leverkusen have won the Pyrrhic “Herbstmeister” (Autumn Champions) -title. Vizekusen, as the club is derogatorily referred to (akin to Michael Ballack’s record of coming second best), will hope that they can replicate their form of the first part of the season in the new year. There are good reasons to believe that they can: a coach that has instilled real belief in the team and returning players from injury (Renato Augusto, Simon Rolfes, Patrick Helmes) will further boost the quality of the squad.

Living in Hamburg, you get quite a lot of visitors. After moving to Germany and before living here, I spent some time in Dortmund, Düsseldorf and Münster, and this has given me a circle of non-Hamburg friends with whom I have absolutely no difficulty keeping in touch.

This is because, as soon as they get a Friday off work or uni or, where applicable, get their girlfriends’ permission, they’re up here visiting. It’s not that this last category live in unhappy relationships with horribly complicated partners, of course; no, the reason is more that when Germans hear “young man” and “going to Hamburg” they think one thing: Reeperbahn.

The Reeperbahn: half a mile of clubs, bars and brothels (Flickr: PCHH photography)

Attempts have been made to make football calculable: Opta index; chalkboards with crosses and lines more abstract than a Kandinsky painting; video analyses; and training sessions dedicated to the correct movement with and without the ball. Little is left to chance, yet notwithstanding there are moments of pure individual genius that defy systems and tactics. Logic goes out the window and football returns to what it is – a game whose outcome is unpredictable.

Specators of this weekend’s Gladbach vs Hannover fixture were treated to a game that provided just such moments. But it wasn’t pure genius that made this an occasion to remember – it was the blunders – howlers of the most cringe-worthy kind – that defined this game. Eight goals in total. Three own goals. A fourth goal that is at least half an own goal.

Globalization has started to blur many of the fine cultural differences between countries in the western world.  As EU standard after EU standard passes into law, standardization is becoming more and more common and acceptable.  But differences remain, despite the Euro and the spread of Starbucks and McDonalds.  The differences are in the details.  These are a few of my German favorites.

1. Animals here speak a different language.  That is, the noises they make are interpreted differently by the humans.  Some are similar to the English interpretations, though they are spelled quite differently: cows say “muh,” dogs go “wuf wuf,” and cats say “miau.”  But frogs go “quak” instead of “ribbet,” pigs go “grunz grunz” instead of “oink oink,” and when the rooster crows it says, accordingly to the Germans, “kikeriki” instead of cockledoodledo.”  I wonder what the animals themselves would have to say about all this…

“I have never experienced something like what happened on Saturday in my whole career. Four weeks after the Robert Enke tragedy shows that the fans and the football scene have not learnt a thing. The events on Saturday tell me that it’s all hypocrisy.”

These are the parting words of Markus Babbel – trainer of VFB Stuttgart – as he was shown the door on Sunday afternoon. His side had been held to a 1-1 draw against Bochum on Saturday. Following the game some 3000 ‘fans’ attempted to storm the club’s premises and were only prevented from doing so by the police.

Saying hi courtesy of Aidan Jones (Flickr)

We all know that learning another language is hard work. Even after over twelve years getting to grips with German, I still hear myself make the odd mistake – infuriatingly often in the very simple territory that I was supposed to have conquered many years back. Nevertheless, after having lived here for a while, simple things like greetings and pleasantries usually just roll off the tongue without requiring too much effort – “Guten Tag” and “Wie geht es Ihnen?” and so forth.