Europe is very serious about its football. Since one of the big teams (Dortmund) are very close to where I’m staying, some students and I decided to go to a Dortmund bar to watch a game with the locals. It was a game against the unbeatable Munich team, so we were set up for a losing match, but figured we should go for the experience. As expected, all of the bars were packed! There were people wearing yellow and black (the team’s colors) everywhere. Whenever Dortmund made a goal, the crowd went wild and everybody was singing. Whenever Munich did anything good, everybody was silent. No booing, just silence. It was different than the bars back home. To everybody’s surprise, Dortmund actually won 3-0! It was really exciting and everybody was in a terrific mood. We hope to see a live game soon, at least in a smaller division like the Bochum team.
Another cool town close to Bochum is Hattingen. It is a cute, rural area that has very old buildings from the 1500s and earlier. A couple Drexel students and I decided to visit there on one of our first Sundays here. In Germany, all stores are closed on Sundays. This can be very annoying since you can’t do any kind of food shopping. Many cafes are still open, though, so the best thing to do on a Sunday is to go out somewhere where you wouldn’t want to buy souvenirs or and wouldn’t benefit from the shopping scene (like Essen). Hattingen was perfect for this. Since it was a Sunday, there were hardly any tourists there so we got to really enjoy the architecture of the town.
The buildings there are all built in the same style. They are all white with brown borders, and many have been around for over 500 years! The whole town is built around a church, so the steeple can usually be seen, and getting lost is nearly impossible. It is a very cute area and only needs a couple hours to enjoy. The bakeries there are delicious! But I guess I can say that about all of Germany.
