Anne in Berlin - Saturday 15 November

Jack and I spent Saturday afternoon at Olympic Stadium in Berlin watching the soccer. There were heaps of police around, some in riot gear, which made me feel a bit nervous. I kept thinking about a story that a friend of Jack’s told us about being beaten up in the outer suburbs of Berlin for looking ‘posh’. There were certainly plenty of blokes around who looked like they could beat the living daylights out of you. I tried really hard not to look posh, mainly by walking like a man and looking angry. I think I pulled it off because we made it to our seats safely.

Five minutes into the game I was bored and freezing. I tried to follow the action but my short attention span got the better of me and I started looking for distractions. Eavesdropping on the English couple sitting in front of me helped fill in the time. They thought they were surrounded by non-English speakers so the topics being covered were of a particularly high quality, like how she feels when he keeps catching up with his ex-girlfriend. Bingo!

Then I spotted the most amazing thing. There, through the crowd, a girl was carefully making her way back to her seat from the kiosk carrying the biggest, steaming pretzel I’ve ever seen! I could see its giant grains of salt shimmering under the stadium lights from twenty rows away. Whacky do! Things were looking up.

I started nudging Jack: “Jack, Jack, look at that pretzel! Look how big it is! Oh my god, I think it might hot. Want one?”

Now what I really meant when I said ‘want one?’ was do you want to a) go and get me one or b) come with me while I get one. Jack’s been learning German and knows how to order things. I’m hopeless and didn’t like my chances of finding an English speaker at the soccer kiosk.

Jack, without looking away from the soccer, said: ‘Nup, I’m fine’.

Reluctantly I got out of my seat and headed for the kiosk and I’d almost made it when the half time whistle went. Suddenly, out of every stairwell and doorway, came thousands of men, all holding empty litre beer jugs and charging towards the kiosk. I decided this probably wasn’t the best time to stand at the top of the queue drawing a picture of a giant pretzel and returned to my seat.

Berlin scored a couple of goals at the start of the second quater and I got involved in some terrific German-style knee-slapping dancing to music that went ‘Dum, dum, dee, dum, dum, dee dum dum, dee, dum’. The excitement made me temporarily forget my giant, twisted friend.

Not for long.

“You know what would have made that even sweeter?” I asked Jack upon returning to our seats after the second round of slapping.

“What?” he said.

“A giant pretzel”.

“Just go and get one”, he said.

So off I trotted once more. This time the kiosk was deserted. I went straight up and asked the lady behind the counter if she spoke English.

“Nine” she said.

So then I did what I always do when they say that and started speaking English with a German accent.

“Do you ave zie pretzel?”

“Vas?” she said.

“You know, zie preeeetzel”.

“Ah, brezel”.

“Yes, yes!” I shouted.

I started hopping around from foot to foot and chanting “Brezel! Brezel!” while she smiled in amusement. There was a real air of celebration around our shared understanding.

Then her face changed. Suddenly she became very serious and said “Nine brezel. Nine, nine”

“But…”

“Nine brezel” she repeated.

“But I …”

The guy behind her, probably sick to death of me by this stage, shouted out, “Nine Brezel. Brezel over. All finish. Over!”

I returned to my seat empty-handed.

“Where’s your pretzel?” Jack asked.

“Um, it’s called a brezel and they’ve sold out”.

He put his arm around me and said: “Come on, we’ll get you a nice donut on the way home”.

“Can you order it?” I said.