Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Peiking snooze

I overestimated German's excitement about the upcoming Olympic games. And by overestimated, I simply mean I thought that the Germans might actually muster up a little umlauted buzz about the games. I thought that they would have some sort of TV personality like Bob Costas covering the events, and maybe his name would be Helmut Spitter or something. I thought that I would be constatly seeing commercials for Olympics coverage and hear beer-soaked German Olympic cheers spring forth from crowded sports bars. But alas, I hear and see nothing. In fact, the only excitement I see about Beijing comes from the discarded McDonalds' cups lining the U-Bahn track.


But now I know why. Some German students looked at me quizically the other day when I mentioned the big games. ''Beijing?'' they asked. I told them it was the Olympic city, and the said, ''Oh, you mean Peiking!.'' How can I teach these people prepositions when we can't even agree on a common name for China's second largest city?

I was under the impression that Germans ate up athletic competitions, espcially the geopolitical kind. The country hosted the two most politically significant games (Belin '36, Munich '72) and just played host to the 2005 World Cup (ugh, I hate myself for even mentioning fußball on my blog. yuck.) But these are buzz-resistant people.

It is hot here. Like 90 degrees and really humid, feuch, and all of the little German Eis Cafes (ice cream parlors) sell one scoop for € 0.80. It's the one affordable thing in this town.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

keep the heat for my visit....please?