Random Blogs of 2018

I wrote fewer blog post this year then in previous years, but I had plenty of notes and rough drafts of ideas that didn't grow into full blogs. So, here are the best ideas that never became blogs in 2018.

Getting my Permanent Residence in Germany

It was certainly a year of turning points. A new era in the career. A new marital status. A new dependent. In this flurry of life-changing status changes, I never got around to writing about how I became a permanent resident in Germany.

And no, this won't turn into a rant about Germany's Kafkeaucracy. There was actually nothing absurd about it. I got an email asking me to prepare my documents. I went in prepared for an EU Blue Card (a work permit) and was told that with my German language level and contributions to the national pension scheme – the stuff that really matters here – I qualified for permanent residency.

It was simple and not the slog I intended it to be. An American colleague can't believe I got mine so quickly. An old roommate took the German language proficiency test that I never took several times and didn't get his permanent residence. Another Canadian acquaintance is scrambling to get hers before her Blue Card expires.

What makes me so different? I'd like to think it's because I'm special. In reality it's probably because I was over prepared. I had all my required documents and then some, and I was punctual. That matters if you want results from the German bureaucracy.

That Hungarian Election

Viktor Orban and his ruling Fidesz party cruised to another super-majority over a right-wing Jobbik party struggling to be less like its traditional far right self and a divided opposition that couldn't agree on whose local candidates should step down to unite behind one anti-Fidesz candidate.

Watching the Euro in Europe

In its simplicity, soccer can be a beautiful, entertaining sport. 

It can also become a tremendously boring sport when you add layers of national leagues and divisions with friendlies and the exhibition games and qualifiers as they do in European professional soccer.

But once every couple of years, the haze of confusion and boredom lifts for a few weeks and I'm able to sit back and enjoy simple, fun soccer again. Sometimes, I even call it football during these lovely tournament times.

It's a bit easier to get emotionally invested in a few national teams, rather than cities with millionaire mercenaries from all over the world. There are no friendlies or exhibition games, every game matters and you can feel the immediacy in the play. They're playing for home, after all.

Yes, the Euro brings the sport of soccerball back its simple beauty, even to this ignorant North American with his hockey and baseball.


More teams, more fun

The tournament widened from 16 teams to 24 teams, so the enthusiasm level across the continent was incredibly high for this year's Euro. 

There are two opposing arguments over this. One side claims this diluted the tournament's talent pool – I heard this from two people, one Portuguese and one German, both accustomed to Euro appearances.

On the other side of the argument, this new format allowed national teams to make their first appearance – either their first ever or their first in a long time – on the international soccer stage. Hungary, Albania, Iceland, Wales, and Northern Ireland all brought a unique energy to the tournament.

Maybe it wasn't pretty for those soccer aficionados, but it definitely made the game more exciting while those teams were playing.



Germany is Europe's America

I was able to get this feel around those teams' enthusiasm largely because I live in Germany. This is one of Europe's new settler countries, where more and more people are from somewhere else.

Italians, Hungarians, Portuguese, French, Turkey – almost every nation represented has a few nationals (except for Iceland, I suppose) living in Germany. They crowd the bars, cheer in the streets, and adorn their German-made cars with their national flags.

When Portugal won on Sunday night, there was shouting and honking and celebrations up and down the busy street near our flat. Being from Toronto, this is standard stuff for an international soccer tournament – especially if you live close to Little Portugal, Little Italy, or Roncesvalles – but it's nice to see in an increasingly multicultural Germany. 


Soccer Mad Portugal 

We were in Lisbon last week and it was difficult not to notice a rise in the usual soccer passion whenever Portugal was scheduled to play that day. 

You would pass a cafe with a TV out front and it's replaying earlier matches from the tournament, usually one that Portugal won. Kids were kicking balls in the street. Adults were kicking balls in the street, while trying not to spill their beer. 

When the semi-final game started, we were just finishing dinner and awaiting the bill. After a longer than usual wait for the dinner's reckoning, we looked around and saw every waiter huddled around the computer screen with rapt attention. I don't think they were studying our bill.

When the final started between Portugal and France, we were in the air returning to Germany. We landed thinking it was over. Almost every male on the plane fumbled for their phone, deactivated flight mode, and rushed to the exit when they realized the game was well into overtime.



Ode to Gabor Kiraly and the Sweatpants

I am also a grey sweat pant aficionado, yet I don't think I have celebrated the Gabor Kiraly enough in this space. 

This is a goalkeeper who wears sweatpants because they are more comfortable than the standard long socks. He kept Hungary in a couple of games, which is clear proof that comfort affects performance. It might be a good reason to start wearing my sweat pantaloons to the office.

Comfortably watching the match.

Hungary's Huge Year in Sports

My new soccer hero, Hungarian goalkeeper Kiraly Gabor,
who always plays in sweat pants.

There are few sports fans who have lived with as much angst and despair as the Hungarians – especially their soccer fans. The angst and despair are all the harder because the country was once one of the best in the world.

The Magnificent Magyars, led by Ferenc Puskas, won gold in the 1952 Olympics and defeated Italy to win the 1953 Central European Championship. 

Later that year, in what is now called the Match of the Century, the Hungarian team played England in front of a 105,000-person crowd at Wembley Stadium and picked a heavily favoured English team apart 6-3. The next year, the English tried to get revenge, but managed just one goal, and lost 7-1 in Budapest. 

The Hungarians were now recognized as a soccer powerhouse and came into the 1954 World Cup as the favourite. They beat Brazil and cast aside the defending champions Uruguay. They faced West Germany in the Final, whom they had already beaten in the first round. It was a tougher game than expected. With six minutes left and the game tied 2-2, the West Germans scored the winning goal. Hungary lost the World Cup, in what the Germans would call the 'Miracle in Berne' and the Hungarians would dub the 'Disaster in Berne.'

The team still dominated international soccer, winning a few more international matches and seemed posed to win a championship until 1956. The team was abroad when the revolution erupted against the communist dictatorship in Budapest. After the Soviets invaded Hungary, the team stayed abroad, but eventually broke up. Some players returned to Hungary, while the rest scattered across West Europe. 

Over the next few years, the national team might occasionally break out of the first round of a tournament, only to be  defeated in the next round. Eventually the team stopped qualifying and faded into obscurity at international soccer's second tier.

When I sat down on Tuesday evening at a German beer garden with Kata and another Hungarian friend in town for business, you could say the mood about being at the Euro was "We're happy to be here."

The first half could have gone either way, but Austria seemed in control. In the second half, a Hungarian player in Austria's goal box looked as if he lost control of the ball but managed to slide-kick it into the goal before the Austrian goalkeeper could get to it. GOAL! 

We were on our feet. The rest of the beer garden didn't seem to be watching the game, except for a grumpy old German who grumbled something in German. On the TV, as the players jumped into the crowd, we heard how loud the crowd was at the stadium and they were chanting "Magyarok" or something like that. 

Now even Kata is paying attention as the Austrians tried to tie up the game. We saw a yellow card, a close Austrian attempt, a close Hungarian shot, and a brutally twisted ankle. Finally, Hungary scored the second one and the victory was confirmed to be no fluke.

The game ended. The grumpy old German at the next table grumbled and we watched the post-game analysis from German TV announcers. They didn't know what to say. They clearly prepared notes about Austria winning, but knew nothing about the Hungarian team, not even the pronunciation of their names. So they talked about what Austria didn't do during the game.

On the other hand, our social media feeds were filled with photos of Budapest streets brimming up with celebrating fans. Remember, it's been decades since something like this has happened.

Earlier this year, Hungary's hockey team participated in the World Championship in St. Petersburg. Aside from a brief appearance in 2009 this was their first appearance there since 1939. A massive contingent of Hungarian hockey fans followed their team there and sang the national anthem after every loss. 

In their final game, they scored five goals to Belarus' two and won their first game in 77 years. Look around online for video of fans after the game and try not to get a little emotional. 

If Hungary does well in water polo, it's like Canada wining gold at the World Junior Hockey Tournament, it's expected. But watching both their soccer and hockey team win their first game in eons is a huge thing. We're witnessing a huge year for Hungarian sports.

Shooting St. Andrew's Links

Day 1 – Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Friday began with a 6am wake up to catch a train to Cologne. From Cologne we would catch a flight to Edinburgh. From Edinburgh we would rent a car and drive through the Scottish countryside to reach St. Andrews.

We were actually using planes, trains, and automobiles. 

The purpose of this trip was to shoot footage for an Allianz film. Friday was a travel day, Saturday was for filming, and Sunday was a little bit of filming before our noon-time flight back to Germany. There was no time for lolly-gagging – this was work. 

They say you get four seasons in one day in Scotland. The locals repeat it like a mantra. If its true every one of their seasons is bloody cold. The other seasons? Windy, cloudy, and rainy.

We went up and down fairways and into bunkers on the Old Course looking for the exact scenery we needed. The course was open for a normal day of golf so we were dodging play balls while we were looking around. No injuries, so we never had to find out if a German film crew is in play.

When we were finished, we punched the address for our bed and breakfast into the GPS – no rooms available in town.  We followed the directions, going from a main road to a side road to a dirt road, until we arrive at a horse farm. The GPS was either unreliable or our B&B was very remote. 

Stuck in the middle of nowhere in Scotland, we called the B&B. This did not help because I didn't know where we were and that's a good starting point for getting directions. 

Google had the right answer in the end. We arrived at our countryside, wifi-free B&B, which was run by a kind mother and a son. 

The director, sipping the host's homemade beer, thought it felt like a really fun sitcom. The producer squinted suspiciously around at the farms that surrounded the house and said it was more like a horror movie.

Scouting for spots as golfers play through.

Day 2 – Shooting the Course, Drinking Irn Bru, and Remaining Conscious

Today is the day I also discovered Irn Bru (pronounced Iron Brew). A fluorescent orange energy drink that got me through a day that started at 5am.

It was already bright out when I awoke to begin the shooting day. But the brightness didn't bother me as much as the cold did. 

It being June, I didn't think I would need any wool sweaters. Amateur move, Bellamy! Not only was it as cold as balls on the coast, it was windy as well. I had several layers underneath a windproof jacket, none of those were a match of the fierce Scottish weather. I learned the hard way why all those Scots wear wool sweaters.

And those clouds! The sky was a uniform, thick-as-pea-soup grey, which maintained its gloom all day. Oh, and there were bleachers and TV camera towers littered all over the Old Course for the British Open, preventing the clear landscape beauty shots that we required.

But! We progressed and persevered in the face of wind, rain, sleet, and British Open infrastructure. We got our shots and I got the chance to chip one out of Hell bunker. It's famous, but it also reminded me that golf can be an easy way to get angry.

Plus, despite the rain, our film crew managed to unpack its drone and buzz it around for a few shots of the Old Course, which was closed for maintenance that day. It's a loud contraption with eight propellers and a moveable camera. 

I thought it was pretty cool, while all the St. Andrews' employees were unfazed as they worked away on the course. When you've seen one flying spider robot, you've seen them all, I guess.

The German film crew sneaks up on the unsuspecting groundskeepers.

Making sand castles in one of St. Andrews Links' infamous Bunkers.

A flying spider robot has been sighted over St. Andrews.

Day 3 – Scotch Tasting on the Run 

Sunday. A day of rest for some people in some parts. Not for us. 

We came to the 18th hole at the Old Course bright and early at 6am to get some rare St. Andrew's footage with no people in it. But we got it, just as the first tourists were approaching to get their photos with a stone bridge.

Oh, and we managed to get a homemade Scottish breakfast at the B&B in the process – something we missed out on the day before.

Then! Everything was hauled into the rental vehicles and we automobiled to Edinburgh to catch our plane to Cologne where a train waited to return us to the Dorf. But! Before we boarded our plane, we managed to sneak in some scotch samples at the Duty Free, chased with Irn Bru.

See you again Scotland, hopefully in a non-work-related manner.

Hockey Night in Prague

Like so many Canadians of my generation, my first brush with European hockey was in hockey card sets in my younger years.

O-Pee-Chee had its special Red Army set, filled with long polysyllabic names and those cool CCCP jerseys. When the Berlin Wall came down, we were treated to more strange unpronounceable names in the card sets and on the hockey broadcasts – the French announcers on Radio Canada had real trouble with the Slavic names.

As the years went by, Swedes, Slovaks, Finns, and Czechs all became a part of the game in Canada. Everyone became accustomed to the names, even those tongue-tied French announcers. No matter what any facemask-hating hockey commentator might say, and no matter how long it took Noreth America to notice, there has been good hockey in Europe for decades.

That sentiment took Teak and I to seek hockey in Prague.

Lev Praha is one of the Russian Kontinental Hockey League’s recent expansion teams in Central Europe (Zagrab is another new one, Bratislava’s first season was last year). Watching Lev Praha play some good old hockey was going to be our original plan, but they were on a road trip into the vast wastes of Russia, and road trips in the KHL can last as long as a month because of the distances between franchises. We settled on watching Sparta Praha, a 113-year-old team in the Czech Extraliga, the Czech Republic’s national hockey league. Sparta is first in the league, and we bought tickets for a home game against the Pirates of Chomutov, the league’s last place team.

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It was a blow-out, 9-0, but it was damn good hockey. Not as physical as we’re accustomed to in the North American game and its smaller rink. They move the puck fast and set up great plays, despite the big ice, plus there was almost a fight – on two occasions. Good hockey.

Back in Toronto – my apologies for comparing, but I can’t help it – if I wanted to catch a professional hockey game, like the Maple Leafs of Toronto, I would be shelling out $100 per ticket. If I wanted to drink a beer (and sometimes you need several watching the Leafs), that would be $12 a pop. I couldn't tell what a hot dog would cost and I'm afraid to find out.

A better Toronto option would be watching the Leafs’ minor league team, the Marlies, who consistently play good hockey. Cheap seats are about $15 a ticket. Beers, unless you’re sneaking in travelers, aren’t cheap though.

In Prague, we spent about $10 for good seats. We had little time between the game and our arrival in Prague to do anything more than check into the hotel and rush to the arena. This meant we ate eat at the arena, something I usually avoid. We managed to get a decent sausage with a slice of rye for $3. Then there were the beers: $2 a pop.

Sorry, Toronto.

What made the game special were the fans. This is a 113-year-old hockey club, so there is probably a lot of heritage. Sparta Praha’s following is incredibly enthusiastic. The standing booster section was at the end, with banners, flags and, thankfully, no vuvuzelas.

Everyone in the arena chanted, well, chants that everyone in the arena seemed to know and wore the team’s swag. Everyone save for the two foreigners – although Teak bought and wore a Sparta jersey. There was a real energy in the place. For every goal scored – and remember there were nine unanswered goals – the crowded erupted as if every one mattered as much as a sudden death overtime goal.

There were families with young children, young couples smooching between plays, drunken high schoolers double-fisting beers, and old guys who looked like they were around for the club’s first game – oh, and the two aforementioned foreigners.

After the final buzzer and the handshakes, the entire Sparta Praha team stayed on the ice for a while and saluted the fans, who were all on their feet and singing what I am guessing was the team song (my Czech isn’t so good).

I went from a casual hockey fan to a Sparta fan right there.

"Dobrý den venku! Jsme na vzduchu,
 Je to Hockey Night večer..."
--Stompin' Tom in Czech

A near fight,
which is as close to a fight you will get in European Hockey.

The team came out and sang a song, it could have been the Hockey Song

Teak looking like a real Czech hockey fan in his new jersey.