Widerrufen

That's right, I take back some of the things I wrote in my last post. Mainly re: Turkish fans in Germany. I spoke with my students about the possibility of Germany vs. Turkey in the semi-finals and asked who they would support. Türkiye. Auf jeden Fall! Turkey. By all means!

Of course! How could I be stupid enough to think that they would support Germany first and foremost? Well, I only recently realized that Turkey and Germany might go head-to-head. Didn't think that was a possibility. Also, Turks are riding high after Turkey's amazing last-minute win against the Czech Republic (two goals in the last four minutes to pull off a 3:2 victory).

I have spoken about this topic with several different people and most think it's odd of me to want Turkish people in Berlin to support Germany over Turkey. Everyone except for the teachers at my school. They see first-hand what it's like when kids don't identify as German. Yes, I know, most are not German citizens, but almost all of my students were born here. I think that should be enough grounds for them to support Germany. However, several are for whoever's playing Germany. And I have to clarify that it's what I want them to do. They have every right to support Turkey, and in many ways it makes sense, especially since they hold Turkish passports. I'm only talking about the way I wish it were.

To do this issue justice I would have to address many more issues than just football (and how it's not necessarily Turkish people's "fault" that they don't identify as German) , and I don't have the desire to do that now.

Instead, I'd like to talk about the German games. Germany lost its second first-round game last week against Croatia. They played terribly. I watched at a beach bar along the Spree, which was a decent venue because they had a big tent set up. Germany needed to tie or win their third game in order to go on to the quarterfinals. Fortunately, they won 1:0 against Austria last night and are now going to the quarterfinals. I believe the game was relatively lackluster, considering Austria is really not that good and Germany was supposed to win it all in the first place. It doesn't look like Germany is going to win against Portugal on Thursday night if they play like they have the last two games.

Which would be a shame, because it is awesome to see how the Germans celebrate. We watched in Prenzlauer Berg last night, and afterwards there was a huge amount of fans out on the street cheering and waving fans and setting off firecrackers. Getting home was a challenge, as the subway station was packed and the fans were rocking the subway cars back and forth, which was especially fun considering we were on a bridge and not underground at that point. But the fans I saw were not even close to the number of fans who celebrated on Ku'damm in the western part of the city. I didn't realize that Ku'damm is where you go to celebrate. Turkish fans have shut it down after their past couple games--I read that there were 25,000 there after the game on Sunday. Will have to see if I can make it over there for the next game.

One last thing: I have to mention is that I hate how Brits say Germany are or the team have and so on and so forth. A team should not be plural! It just sounds wrong.

Here are some pictures:

Football Fever. Can only imagine what the WM was like!













Typical sight these days.













Apartment building in Kreuzberg. No German flags. Where I work, if I a window has a Turkish flag, then it also has a German one. Not so here. All the cars in front had Turkish flags as well.











After the game in PBerg. If only I knew how to put video on here.












Gotta get innovative during the EM. Every restaurant and bar wants to show it. This bar backed a car up and showed the game from the trunk. Awesome!










Me with a group of 11th-grade students. A very rowdy class. Notice the Turkish flags, t-shirts, and headbands. Most of the kids in this class are Turkish (only three total are German) and were celebrating Turkey's victory against the Czech Republic the next day. The teachers found this disturbing, as they put flags on the windows and wouldn't stop chanting things in Turkish. Oh yeah, the picture was taken because they threw me a (premature) goodbye party, which I will talk about soon.



And completely gratuitous, but awesome: