Fußball and Toilet Paper

As most of you are likely aware of, the UEFA soccer tournament is now underway in Europe. I had the pleasure of watching two of the matches over the past three days. Of course, EVERYONE in Germany tuned in to watch their beloved Nationalmannschaft  take on Portugal last Saturday night. Shivalik thought it would be cool to watch our host country’s opening game at the Schwimmbad Club, which is just down the road from the hospital. The club organized this giant outdoor public viewing venue complete with a jumbotron, standing room for hundreds of fans, and indeed beer stands dotted around the perimeter to complete the scene. After making to the front of a long line to get in, we squeezed our way through the jolly spectators to get to a spot where we could see the screen. Beer, soccer, and even free admission! What could be better than that?

The first half was pretty uneventful. Shivalik and I ran into some girls he knew through his roommate, but we lost them in the crowd soon after they said hallo to us. In the second half, however, as anyone who watched the game surely remembers, German striker Mario Gomez scored the one and only goal of the game off a header. The place went wild. Fans young and old were jumping up and down, screaming, shooting off fireworks. It was quite the scene to take in coming from a country where soccer is more synonymous with minivans than a national pastime. As one might imagine, that was only the beginning of the celebrations that night across Germany. Riding home after the game along the Neckar (sober and with a helmet so my folks back home don’t worry), I was surrounded by the sounds of car horns and people singing in the street. Needless to say, I am looking forward to the games against the Netherlands and Denmark this upcoming Wednesday and Sunday respectively.

Now, on to my story about toilet paper! What could toilet paper possibly have to do with watching a soccer game Jonathan? Other than the fact that both experiences happened last week- gar nichts! One day in the bathroom that I share with two other guys in my fraternity, I saw a new note on the wall. Lieber Klogänger! Wenn du das Klopapier das auf der Toilette liegt benutzt, solltest du auch mal dran sein welches zu kaufen! Das nur als kleine Gedankenstütze! Vielleicht denkst du ja beim nächsten Einkauf an diesen Zettel! PS: Nimm gleich das vierlagige! All right, I know I’ve been neglecting to translate throughout this post, here is a rough translation. Dear toilet goer! Since you use the toilet paper that lies here, you should also be responsible for purchasing some once in a while! Just to remind you! Perhaps think back to this note the next time you go shopping! PS- Just get the 4-layered kind! So the next day (Tues) in Aldi (cleanly wiped so my folks back home don’t worry), I bought a pack of the 4-layer toilet paper that I was fairly sure Justus, my roommate who lives down the hall, requested. I stashed it away in the bathroom cabinet once I got back and put a big checkmark through my roommate’s message on the wall. End of story, so I thought. On Saturday, I noticed that someone had scribbled a new note underneath the original. Also bitte?! 3-lagig und recycling? (Really?! 3-layer and recycled?) I looked underneath the note and noticed a pack of 3-layered, recycled toilet paper. Where did that come from I wondered? I knew that I had bought the right kind already, so I didn’t think much of it until I saw the third and final note later on Sunday night as I was getting ready to go to sleep. Mind you, all of these notes had been anonymous up to this point and I still had no idea where the other toilet paper came from. Klogänger die aufgrund übermäßigen Analverkehr eine wurde Rosette haben, seien doch angehalten sich dem Popo mit Waffetapfern zu reinigen Now this note scared the s*** out of me (excuse the pun) because there is a lot of slang in it that I still don’t fully understand. It is something like Because of the excessive anal traffic of one with an asshole, this s**** toilet paper can still be used to clean yourself. At the time though, I had only understood the very first part of the message. Excessive Analverkehr? Is my roommate accusing me of using the bathroom too often? Has he even seen the good toilet paper that I already put in the cabinet? After running back and forth between the toilet and my room several times to try to translate the message, I figured I had better just talk to one of my roommates and see what the heck was going on. I knocked on Justus’s door and timidly asked him what the new message meant. He looked at me kind of quizzically and then I showed him the new note in the bathroom. He burst out laughing. It turns out that Justus only wrote the first two notes and Florian, my roommate who lives upstairs by himself, was the one who bought the lower quality toilet paper and wrote the third angry note. I showed Justus the good toilet paper that I bought and he appreciated it, since he is the one normally supplying all of the toilet paper. He gave me the general idea of what all the slang in the note meant and that is what I tried to convey up above. Even after eight months of living here, it is interesting that I am still experiencing mildly traumatic misunderstandings from time to time with the natives. I guess the moral of the story is that you can never have too much toilet paper!     

Well hopefully you found that last story worth your time. It may have been one of those things where you had to have been there. Go Germany! Danke fürs Lesen und bis nächstes Mal!