"World Cup Edition 3-Layer Toiletpaper with Colorful Soccer Motifs. With Soccer-Field Scent!"

"New...Especially easy to open...Open here..."

Considering that the plastic in which this stuff is packaged is so flimsy that you’re lucky to just pick it up without showering fellow shoppers with loo rolls, a “new easy opening” tearaway strip just seemed to court disaster. Then I considered that a soccer fan who had been drinking all day in support of his/her team might just appreciate a quick route to the loo paper. So it is in fact a World Cup feature. And I had to admit, it *did* open easily.

Shortly after opening, I encountered the “Rasen-duft” (“soccer field/grass scent”) for the first time.

I'm not a fan. Of soccer, yes, but not of "Rasen-Duft".

Hmmm how to describe it…it smells exactly like what a chemist who wanted to make a chemical that smells like grass and sweaty footballers would imagine that grass and sweaty footballers smells like. *Imagine* being the key word, since a geeky chemist is unlikely to have ever actually BEEN to a footy match. And that’s exactly what this smells like: a chemist who’s never been a to a football match. Strong suggestion of generic cleaning product with perhaps a slight bouquet of dying vegetation. Oh and of course a hint of toilet paper.

But if you don’t enjoy the smell (I don’t) there’s always the colorful football motifs to distract you.

Not exactlly sure what's going on here but it looks like a foul to me.

I think the levitating guy about to get beaned by the falling trophy looks kinda kid-sized....perhaps that's Lahm?

There’s a few others, but that’s enough to give you the idea, and to be quite honest, the Rasen-duft is making me a bit lightheaded. Off now to store it into the bathroom (in fact the least-well-ventilated room in the house, uh oh) where it will serve as a tribute to Jogi’s Jungs.

I’m aware of this day’s significance to the Christian calendar, but it doesn’t hold much personal meaning for me.  I never really gave much thought to it;  it’s a day when my Catholic friends sport dirty foreheads, my morally-uplifted friends announce what they’re giving up until Easter, the entire population of New Orleans googles for hangover cures, and apparently Joe Biden gets clumsy. But my opinion changed when I moved to Germany.

Here’s the thing: in the US, politicians kiss babies in photo ops. On this day in Germany, they drink beer.

Every Ash Wednesday the political parties in Germany hold rallies. The leaders give stump speeches while their supporters…well…drink beer. It’s a tradition dating back 50+ years, and now officially dubbed “Politischer Aschermittwoch” (translation: “Political Ash Wednesday”). What I find so astounding, coming from the United States, is that every  TV news broadcast, newspaper, and magazine is filled with pictures of every leading politician drinking an obligatory beer at their respective party’s rally. Entire montages are made my media outlets documenting who drank what, where, and from what sort of container.

Ash Wednesday photo ops: German policians drinking beer. Yes, even Angie (top left). Click the image to see the full article at http://www.politik-visuell.de/

Some politicians, supposedly wishing to highlight their belief in a counterculture, make sure they are photographed drinking something unorthodox, like tea, milk, or water. Sometimes also from beer glasses.

Bottom right: no beer for me thanks. From the informative article at Deutsche Welle (http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4053889,00.html)

Standard American political photo ops do sometimes run to odd subjects: pardoned turkeys, groundhogs, and friendly handshakes between enemies. But definitely not beer. I find it amazing that alcohol is such a fundamental part of German culture that beer itself is a photo op used by politicians to endear them to their constituents. And that it all happens on the first day of a period of abstinence! Sometimes I really love living here in Germany.

Here’s some more photos of drinking politicians for your enjoyment (and believe me, I cut this list down. There are loads!). The sites are in German, but you get the idea.

• From Der Spiegel (extra bonus photo op with pretzel and sausages!)
• From the Hamburger Abendblatt
• From Welt Online

One final side note for my German-speaking friends:  I always have to look twice at the headlines…my brain swears it’s reading “Politischer Arschmittwoch”

Whoppers of 2009

Oktoberfest is a great tourist mecca, but who wants to shell out big bucks for traditional Tracht that will be worn once a year somewhere that they will be subject to the rigors of organized drunkenness?

One Austrian has the answer: swimming trunks designed to look like traditional Lederhosen.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,649490,00.html

I can hear the Bavarians crying into their beer.  Oh, and don’t miss the accompanying  Dirndl Bikini.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2009/09/fair_explores_new_frontier_in.html

Can’t help noticing the creator has a sense of irony as thick as his arteries:

“I mean, butter by itself does not taste good,” Gonzales said. “Nobody just grabs a stick of butter and eats it. That would be gross.”

To be fair, Deep-Fried Butter beat out a large amount of deep-fried competition:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/090209dnmetfairfood.40824cb.html

I think I need now to go jogging or brush my teeth or something.