Just back from nine days in Washington D.C. It’s an 18-hour day to get there from here (Germany) and a 15-hour day coming back (go jet stream!). The journey included a car ride, two bus rides and an airline flight. Just a few observations from the trip, mostly done with tongue in cheek but I figure you’ll spot the ones I mean business on:

• From bum to hustler, from politico to pollster, everyone is D.C. has a wireless phone. EVERY FREAKING ONE. And the thing is, everyone seemed to carry it in one hand or the other. Not on the holster. Not in a purse. Right on the palm. That also meant that when people weren’t on their phones, their heads were down awaiting some text, Facebook update, Foursquare beep or scrolling through Twitter. Inevitably, if they hadn’t had phones in their hands, all of these people looked like their dogs had been run over by cars. And by the way, there just aren’t enough ads for wireless phones on television. A few more, please. PS, I did not have my iPhone for the week. It was refreshing.
• Better than a week in the U.S. still proves one thing: we ain’t gonna care for soccer anytime soon. We just don’t like it. Soccer to us is piling the kids in a minivan, taking them to a field and letting them kill two hours on an event where the score doesn’t matter. It’s easily played and easily won or lost with little consequence. We groom our children for football, baseball and basketball because, in the United States,  the money moves that direction. Further, we simply don’t have ahistory with it. Baseball history dates back to the 19th Century and football to the early 20th. There’s also this: the circles that control gambling on our big three sports have no hand in betting on soccer outside the United States, and vice versa. There will be no gentlemen’s agreement anytime soon on that. So, until it’s worth making a bet on, soccer in the U.S. is nothing more than less curious version of Michael Phelps every four or so years.
• If a first-class hotel whose namesake also gave Mitt Romney his first name is going to round out the full guest experience, then it should do one thing and not do another. The thing that it should do is have an Internet connection that is slightly faster than the 2400 baud modem I had in high school. This Internet connection made morning traffic on the Beltway look like a George Lucas-made pod race. Now, The thing that the hotel should not do is paint the building while it’s filled with guests. It smelled like a chemical bath in a woman’s nail salon and almost forced two of the people I was traveling with to get another hotel room for the night. It would have made “The Biggest Loser” dirty workout laundry bin smell like a flower shop.
• For the first time ever, my ankles swelled up when I got home from the trip. Now, this has nothing to do with our particular airline turning into the ‘Sanford and Son’ of passenger carriers. Nor did it have anything to do with the American side of boarding the airplane, from ticket counter to seat, which was surprisingly smooth. Rather, I forgot to get up and walk around. However, I blame two other things. First, I am a full 75 inches tall. A six fot three inch drink of water. My seat is apparently made toddlers, Hobbits and anyone Tom Cruise’s size. I have to fold myself like a patio chair just to get into one of the seats. It’s not pleasant. if and when my knees do fail me, I’ll have them removed below the ankle if only so I can sit comfortably on the next generation of economy seating. Who am I kidding? They will be stacking us like plywood and serving us nonpotable water with a ladle and calling it “service” by then. The other reason is simply that I did not drink enough water. In any case, my wife saves me again (elevate and hydrate). Be sure to do the same for yourself.

Also, thanks to everyone who made it out for the extravaganza Saturday night. I wish I could have stayed longer, but jet lag told me to go get my shine box. I didn’t have much of a reply.

Any similar experiences? What’s on your mind?

The stadium looms like a smashed, opaque marshmallow. The grey skies surrounding it don’t dim the throng of fans filing off the subway and into the arena where we’ll watch TSV 1860, a Munich soccer club, and another German team square off for the Germany National soccer league’s opening day. 

Inside, the stadium is cavernous. The pitch is a sheet of emerald in two shades. There are the usual security guards and personnel roaming the field prior to the start of the match. The season ticket holders and soldiers for the TSV 1860 cause get seated on the north end of the stadium. They wear the turquoise, white and black colors as warpaint. They are, for now, a quiet sleeping army. 

About four minutes before the start of the match, TSV 1860’s manager appears in front of the north end. In stunning unison, the army erupts. “Sechzig! Sechzig! Sechzig!” This is very much how Duke basketball fans or Penn State college football fans look through the lens of ESPN — a crazed colored enthusiastic mass. I get goose bumps and the game’s not started. Meanwhile, the lower ring of seats slowly fills in.

By game time, pomp and circumstance begins. The team’s anthem is appropriately one anyone could drink a large stein of beer with filled with oompahs, smiles and hearty German pride. There are a few of these faux fight songs that come on. I’ve heard “You’ll Never Walk Alone” has the same effect for Liverpool FC fans — a bonding sort of song that keeps sporting hopes afloat and unites them.

The team gets introduced. Giant flags wave and the north end becomes a colored collage as fans hold up large tracts of cardboard, forming a blue-and-white checkerboard. The TSV 1860 banner with the attacking lion logo, looking more like ancient heraldry than sport, rolls down from the second level. Someone else in the north end lights a flare. 

The teams roll out. As they take the field, the north end banner gets rolled up and the cardboard gets crumpled and tossed out. Then, shirts are pulled off. In the center of the north end, a sea of singing, jiggling man flesh. The jodies and song begin almost immediately. Fervent, anxious and loud, the north end is alive now even before the the first ball is put in play. 

About 17 minutes in, an American, Kenny Cooper, scores the first goal. He’s been in Germany about five days. The stadium explodes. The announcer offers his first name over the public address. We fill in his last. “Coooooooooper!” 

TSV 1860 scores again later and goes on to win 2-0. In between, there are bratwursts, two beers, a hundred photos, several Twitter updates and a hundred jokes. 

Thousands spill out of the stadium. The last carousing goes on through the subway ride back to the central train station in Munich. Echoes of a day that belonged to the lion.