Thursday, November 10, 2005

hockey night in deutschland

tonight's the hockey game, canada vs. usa. i'm pretty excited about it, the tickets are meant to be good, so here's hoping we'll be able to see canada kicking the usa's butt all over town, really well. it also means that there will be a lot of obnoxious americans there. now, i'm saying that because in heidelberg there is a large population of american soldiers from the army base here. my experience, to date, has been that most are very obnoxious. i think it might connected with the military experience specifically, but it's hard to say. there is so much cheating on spouses, being loud in public, stating loudly that everything america does is the best, and barely any can speak more than a few words of german. i've met one guy that speaks a little bit. i think he's been here for three years.

unfortunately i sometimes find myself being thrown back 12 years around them. i'm constantly asking them not to say racist comments around me, and mostly they don't understand that saying something is "queer" or "gay" would often be seen as being homophobic. so i feel like i'm in a pretty defensive mode when the americans come over... there's a lot of, "please don't say..." going on. they totally think i'm the thought/speach police, but oddly, i'm still well liked. i don't get it.

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