Football, Friends, Fellowship

We've played two more games since my last post. We split them so our record is now 1-2. The defense continues to play well but the offense has not been able to play consistently. It's always difficult to be the quarterback on a struggling offense. Eyes turn first to him for answers as they should. I'm used to the quarterback being accountable for much of the offense's production, but I think it's even more accentuated here. I'm the only American on the team and supposed to possess superior knowledge and skills of the game. So the expectations are quite high. I invite the challenge though and look forward to a winning streak that should start soon. I remember too that football is pure joy to play. I try to work hard and be prepared and after that, just have fun. Attached is a picture of the coin toss before the game. Notice the "A" that all Americans must have sewn on their jerseys.

The highlight of this last week was having Mandy, Phil, and Ashley, three good friends from Davidson, visit for four days (more about the visit later). I was especially blessed to have them here because my Grandma Jean passed away on Mother's Day. Just their presence here provided a connection with home that I desperately needed at that time.

Grandma Jean had been declining for the last two months. Although she's been on my mind quite a bit, I've felt so removed from her suffering and its effects on home. I didn't make it back for the funeral but I think I'm still learning how to healthily celebrate life and mourn death. I've spent much time reflecting on her life and what she meant to my family. She was a strong, independent, hard-working woman, and she carried an irrepressible pride for her children and grandchildren. I'll remember the big pots of chili she would make for our family and the US bonds that me and my brothers would receive every birthday and holiday. I don't consider my relationship with her especially close but I loved her dearly and always felt certain of hers in return. She will be missed.

I'll try to capture my visitors' experience in two paragraphs and a few pictures. We started Sunday morning when they arrived in Frankfurt. In what must have been the longest day of their lives, we visited castles and courtyards in a few towns in the south and then came back to Griesheim for a late BBQ with my host family. The first picture comes from Heidelburg, a simply beautiful city. Its cathedrals, downtown area, and of course the castle that you can see in the background make it a popular stop for tourists. The second picture comes from a castle/courtyard in Schwetzinger. We spent a few

hours walking just half of the courtyard. It was very beautiful with its statues, bird sanctuaries, fountains, streams, and the greenery all around. Here is a sample of what it looked like. Monday was in Darmstadt, Tuesday in Frankfurt, and Wednesday back on the road to see a remodeled Roman fort. In its original existence, it stood along the Northern border of the Roman Empire. This was as far north as the Romans came and the fort was clearly built for military purposes. Its positioning on high ground, the moat around it and its high walls made it a difficult place to attack I'm sure.

Highlights of the trip. First, while walking in Darmstadt, I suggested stopping to eat some döner, a Turkish sandwich that's very popular here. Phil, thinking I said "doughnuts," agreed and was very confused when he saw the Turkish menu with only Kebaps and Pizza on it. Second, on our first dinner out at a beer garden, we resolved to only speak to the waiter in German, trying to conceal that we were Americans. We were all very excited when he gave us our menus and we replied with "danke" (thank you) without him noticing. When we tried to pronounce our dinner choices, however, I didn't get out the first syllable of "putenschnitzel" before he smiled and asked, "English, Irish? Where are you from?" We laughed and enjoyed some great German cuisine. Third, while walking in Darmstadt, it dawned on us that we couldn't possibly look anymore like tourists. It was raining and a little cold. We were the only people on the streets with shorts (yes, all 4 of us), without umbrellas, and with a giant map of the city I had to pull out at every intersection. Fourth, hearing Phil and Mandy try to pronounce every German word written on signs and advertisements throughout the city. Hilarious.

I will be more regular with my posts. I've been very busy catching the train every morning to Frankfurt. I just finished training to become a Berlitz instructor. As soon as I get my working Visa, I'll be teaching in the classroom and hopefully taking a few German lessons.

Take care and God bless!

Season Opener!

First off, check out the uniforms! I think they look great! Only problem: our big sponsor is Entega, and their bright orange logo dead center on our helmets doesn't exactly match the blue and silver.

Ok, with less than two minutes remaining and down by eight, we received the ball around our own 20 yard line. This was a familiar situation for me, and one that most quarterbacks love--the chance to lead the team the length of the field to tie (and eventually win) the game.

We marched the ball down the field and inside the ten yard-line with nine seconds left. I called for double slants, our most effective play in the second half. Marc, our best receiver all game, got inside his man right as I released the ball. He trapped it against his chest and fell into the end zone with two seconds remaining--just a two-point conversion away from tying it up.

Here's where the story takes a detour. I found out at practice earlier in the week that our starting center, Sasha, would miss the game for a school project. It required him to spend the weekend in a city several hours away. Stephen moved from Guard and filled in nicely as a replacement. As anyone football fan knows though, every play begins with the Center to Quarterback exchange. So to switch up Centers two practices before the first game is not ideal.

We had our third fumbled snap of the game at the worst possible time. I tried to pick up the ball and run it in myself but was stopped short. The two-point conversion failed and the Diamonds lost, 15 to 17.

I could list probably 50 reasons why we lost, but my main reflection is not about technical or schematic failures. My concluding thought is this: given some time for young guys to develop and for the offense to start connecting and playing better together, we'll soon be a very hard team to beat. And we're gonna have a lot of fun no matter what.

In other news, I received a job at Berlitz language school and will begin training on Monday. So my car washing days are finished, praise the Lord. Teaching English really is a great opportunity here. It gives me a lot of flexibility in what days I work and we'll connect me with resources to continue learning German.

Rumor has it that some Davidson boys and girls will soon visit me.... Looking forward to some adventures with Mandy, Phil, and Ashley starting May 10.

God Bless!

To Milan and Back

One thing I'd like the US to adopt from Germany is the vacation time. As a German employee, you receive six weeks of vacation in addition to the national holidays already allocated. And the holidays are quite nice by themselves. For Easter weekend, everyone takes off Good Friday and the Monday following Easter Sunday. So with my unexpected four-day weekend, I hopped on a train and headed to Milan, Italy to meet up with a friend.

I know Jaime through Campus Outreach and met the family she nannies for when I arrived. Spending a weekend with some Americans was a real blessing. Jobey and Kristen and their daughters, Isabella and Elisabetta, have lived in Italy for seven years now I think, but they haven't forget their Southern roots. Kristen made chicken dumplings for dinner on Sunday, a wonderful reminder of Southern cuisine.

The highlight of my time was a day-trip with Jaime to Cinque Terre, an absolutely beautiful arrangement of five towns along the Mediterranean Sea (pictures at bottom). The small towns are positioned along the rocky coastline wherever the steep cliffs allow. Jaime and I walked on the sometimes wide and flat, sometimes narrow and steep paths that connected each town and witnessed some of the natural beauty of the area--the lemon trees, vineyards, steep cliffs, and wild flowers. Although too cold to swim, the beaches were also some of the most beautiful I've ever seen.

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Quick story: as Jaime and I walked nearly two miles from Monterosso al Mare to Vernazza, we climbed from the water level to nearly the top of a mini-mountain, a brutal hike. The path winded through the terrain and at many times was simply too narrow for more than one person. So when two parties approached each other at a narrow point in the path, one party would retreat to a slightly wider area and hug the cliff as the other group passed.

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But when one pack of six or seven teenage girls approached Jaime and me, they showed no signs of stopping or even slowing down. I didn't have time to retreat so I tried to be a gentleman, and take the ledge side as they stormed through on the cliff side. There simply wasn't enough room and I took a 5 or 6 feet tumble off the ledge before a bush halted my fall. No worries though, besides some dirty shoes and itchy legs for the rest of the day, there was no damage. On other parts of the path though, I could have been in big trouble.

The other very cool part of the trip was seeing Milan. The massive cathedral in the center square was the most interesting/impressive site I visited. I could have taken and posted thousands of pictures of this magnificent structure, but I chose to include a picture of David slaying Goliath carved on the cathedral's exterior. Probably hundreds of Biblical stories are carved in marble all over the outside. From what I gathered from Jaime and my own limited knowledge of the Catholic church's history in Italy, these images served to tell the great stories of Scripture to the common people before mass literacy and access to the written text existed. So interesting to see not only the beauty but the utility of this art.

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First game is next Saturday--my next post I'm sure.

God Bless!

Working at the Car Wash...

Not exactly what I had in mind for my 9 to 5 job four months after graduating from Davidson, but any job is a good job in this economy, right? The Diamonds offered and I accepted an opportunity to wash cars for a big Opel dealership to make some extra money. I've been there for two weeks now and have acquired all the necessary skills to make cars shine like they should.

A few pluses about this job:

1. They're new! I only wash brand new cars (on rare occasion I wash a rental). They come straight from the factory and we rip off the plastic, wipe it down with Windex, and spray a light coat of wax on it. These are how cars are supposed to look--every angle shines, no scratches, a pristine interior with that new car smell.

2. Driving. I park the cars after we finish. Ok, it's probably less than 100 yards and I rarely get out of first gear, but it's still fun to drive the new cars and rev the engine every now and then. Sometimes I get to drive a car with some muscle (see picture).

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3. Co-workers. My partner in tackling the new cars is Ahmed, a Muslim in his early 60's originally from Pakistan and one of the most interesting men I've met in Germany. Besides being an absolute pro at shining cars, he also speaks several languages (including English), is devoutly faithful to his religion, and holds some interesting, sometimes crazy opinions about American politics. We have covered the spectrum of conversation. My favorites have been hearing his objections to the Christian faith and his trouble expressing his own in Germany.

You might think I would never want to leave this job, but you'd be wrong. I have an interview at the Berlitz language school this Wednesday for a teaching position so you can pray this goes well. The car wash is ok, but I'd love to interact more with people and use my English degree.

Yesterday I drove to Frankfurt to watch a Fußball-Spiel (soccer match) with another co-worker, Leelan. Frankfurt has a decent team in Germany's first division and 45,000 very serious fans that were ready to go. My favorite part of experience was seeing the cage they put the crazy fans into. Seriously, the loudest, wildest fans all go inside a fenced in area with probably a dozen security officers who separate them from the field. When a goal scores, the fans scale the fence, shaking it and yelling. I also realized that the stadium never stops singing the whole game. The crowd utters something that fluctuates between song and chant for all 90 minutes. I love it!

Today was our first live scrimmage and although our opponents backed out, we had a very productive innersquad practice. The offense ran over 90 plays and started showing signs of becoming a very capable unit. I'm feeling more comfortable with the starting eleven and the top several receivers. The best part about it for me though, was speaking the only language I know over here. For a few hours every week, I play football. This is a game I know well and I speak its language fluently. Those few hours of familiarity feel very much like home.

God bless!

Beautiful Country, Terrible Weather

The countryside in Germany has been breathtaking for me. The roads that run around it do not line up with precision and order like we're used to in the states. A developer didn't take a mass of land, divide it up neatly, and build the most efficient transportation system around and through it. There is definitely a feeling of an old country here. This land was worked long before the cars and autobahns existed. And the streets seem to submit to the land's precedence.

This weekend, I traveled with the Youth team (high-school aged kids) to the mountains outside the city of Fulda--basically the middle of nowhere. It was truly a beautiful place. I included a picture which cannot nearly capture the beauty of the village of only a few buildings surrounded by massive farms and seated on mountain side facing more and more mountains as far as the fog would let you see.

The team practiced twice on Saturday and once Sunday in what looked more like a cow pasture than a football field. We stayed in a hostel which housed a few other groups (none nearly as rowdy as the 25 teenage boys we brought). In addition to the limitations with the field, we also had to deal with the weather. It has rained just about everyday here (reminds me of my Western Pennsylvania roots a little...) Except in the mountains, we dealt not just with rain but with just about every kind of precipitation--steady rain, a few flurries, and a 15 minute shower of hail--the kind that badly stings any flesh exposed. I wondered how much good work the team could get done in these circumstances.

Football plays weren't the most important part of the trip though. I learned we brought these boys here to become a team more than learn to play football. We opened up practice with full-contact soccer. Interesting sidenote, these German kids are crazy. They don't mind getting absolutely blasted by other players. The mud was soft enough to lighten their falls but the hits still hurt me sometimes to watch. These soccer games usually had a handful of devastating hits usually followed by laughter and helping the recipient off the ground.

In the hostel, the kids are like the American high school football players I know. They shave each other's for no good reason, they peacock for any female in sight, trying to flash their brightest feathers, and they are loud and generally obnoxious except for the few hours on the football field. During practice, I work with Conrad, the youth team's quarterback. He's a great kid--very coachable, a natural leader, and, thankfully, an English speaker. He's a pretty good player too, although most of his skills were dampened this weekend by the mud-caked balls and swampy field.

After the last practice, the kids played in the mudpit that developed throughout the weekend in an especially soft spot. Here's the boys posing afterwards. And here's another reason why these German kids are crazy. You can't see me, but rest assured I have my hood over my head, jacked zipped, gloves on, etc. It was freezing. And these boys took off their shirts so they could slide better in the mud. It made me wish I was 15 again.

God bless.

A Shared Journey

When I decided to come to Germany for six months, I knew I would have a life altering experience. I would leave with a bigger understanding of the world and a better perspective of my own culture. I didn't (and still don't) know exactly the ways I would grow, but was certain that profound personal growth would occur. What I didn't know was who I would share this experience with. Who would accompany me on my journey, my heroic quest? No other Americans are on the team. In fact, I've yet to meet anyone from the states.

In these first 10 days, I've started to answer this question. You see football teams have a funny way of welcoming and embracing their members. It uses practice stations, conditioning sessions, team showers, and the McDonalds dollar menu after practice to build connections that pour quickly and set firmly (thankfully, these connections go deeper than something a language barrier might tear apart).

The roster of the Darmstadt Diamonds contains 19 year-old kids fresh from the youth program and high school studies and also men in the 30's with families and established careers. Despite coming from a wide variety of life stages, the team seems close--close enough that the middle-aged guys won't leave the game when their bodies are begging them to and the young guys find their best friends among the short roster. These men will share in my journey. Actually, it's more like I'm joining their story for a season rather than them contributing to mine.

Last weekend, I had my first traditional German meal in my town's small Bier Garten (no translation necessary I hope) with three of my 30+ teammates. We talked football, American politics, and German history over generous portions of schnitzel and potatoes. A group of 12 or so met up later that week at the apartment of one of the college students on the team. We had a 3 hour barbeque where I consumed more meat than I had ever dreamed I would. We sat outside and told stories for hours. Even though they spoke almost exclusively in German, story-telling can sometimes transcend the language in which it's told. At least, I think I know what most of them were about...

This weekend, a pair of defensive backs, the Kozak brothers (picture above), took me to a youth/young adult service at a church in Darmstadt on Friday night--a very interesting experience seeing the an evangelical service in this country. It was a welcoming, warm environment. The next morning, Nico and Phillip (other picture), another set of brothers on the team, took me to an old castle only a few miles from my home. Its name is Frankenstein but I haven't found out if it's connected with Mary Shelley's famous work. I've also included a picture of me with a catapult at the castle--very cool.

I'm blessed to have teammates so willing to walk me through life here. They are eager to share their worlds with me, and I thank God for them.

God bless!

First practice

This is my third day in Griesheim, Germany, a small town a few miles west of Darmstadt. My host family, the Gade's, live in a tidy four-story home connected to a string of homes on either side. My teammate, Nico, lives on the same floor as me. Andrea and Matthius live above us in the master bedroom. Thankfully, the family speaks wonderful English and go out of their way to include me in conversation.

I arrived here around noon on Tuesday and found out immediately, that we had practice that evening. After unpacking and taking a quick nap, I drove to the practice field with three other teammates.

We arrived at the field around 7:40 for an 8:00 practice. It was already dark and the Junior team was finishing up. One of the guys pointed to an abandoned set of shoulder pads and helmet for me sitting in the middle of the small locker room. The helmet doesn't really fit, but the shoulder pads and red jersey feel familiar.

When I got to the field, the head coach handed me the install sheet for that day. It diagramed the four passing plays that we were putting in that night. I thanked him and without instruction, he took off towards the defense. The receivers, running backs and a handful of lineman loosely gathered around me and looked to me like they expected me to start practice. "Ummm, alright" I said, "I guess let's run through them?" So I pretended like I knew what I was doing and started calling plays, lining people up, and barking signals at the line. Before long, we had a nice rhythm working through the four plays with the first and second offenses.

As you can see, the program is a bit unorganized, but the team seems full of great guys. I have no doubt that great friendships will result because of this trip. Besides the jetlag I was fighting all evening, the rest of practice went well.

After practice, the team manager gave me a cell phone, television, and keys to the car I'll use while I'm here. It's the smallest car I've ever seen in my life. I love it. I've posted a picture of it.

Days will be slow before I start my job next week. I'll wash cars for a local dealership. If they're all as small as mine, it should be easy work.

Take care and God bless!

Ryan