My birthday was on Friday! Seriously, it's about time. I felt like I was 22 forever. Not that I'm in any kind of rush to get older, but, I feel like 23 is a serious birthday. It's the "out of college" birthday. I'm not just some college student anymore. I'm, uh, an overseas intern.
Physically, I still feel like I'm getting adjusted. I get tired in the middle of the day a lot. (Maybe I AM getting old!) This made the birthday celebration rather interesting...
...so. Thursday, we had a "staff dinner." That was awesome. It was all the coaches and the office staff, just there to get dinner and get to know each other. Coach Allen said stuff like that doesn't happen around the league. It seems like he really wants to promote a "family" atmosphere around this team--which is great, since all the players already get a long really well.
This was the convergence of a couple of really crazy realizations:
1. I'm turning 23. I'm not a kid anymore.
2. These people regard me as part of the "staff." I'm not just some intern who's around for the ride.
I spent lots of the night contemplating that. Seriously, I can't remember the last time I've felt so ingrained into the "team" like I am right now. Yeah, I live with the players, so of course I'll always be around them and what they do.
But, it seems like they trust me. Not that they shouldn't, but a lot of them have put trust in me pretty early on. For instance, I ask a player how he's doing, and while some guys might tell me they are okay, even if they had a bullet wound, some of these guys will actually sit there and tell me they aren't good, and tell me what's wrong. To this point in my career, I haven't been regarded that highly by a player.
They'll tell me, seriously, how they feel about certain things with the Thunder (which, honestly, have been mostly really good) and how things went with some of their NFL teams (which are extremely interesting to hear). I was watching tape before with two linebackers, Mike Mendenhall and Tim Clarke, and they were just telling me why it's so important to watch tape, and talked about the things they saw. That's so freaking cool.
..sorry, I got sidetracked about my birthday.
Staff dinner, that was cool. Friday, I took it easy too, because I wasn't going to do anything without Cem, my boss.
As it turns out, my Saturday celebration would be rather short.
We had practice Saturday morning like usual, but then, I got to attend my first live soccer game! We went to Olympic Stadium to see Hertha BSC, the home team of Berlin. Apparently, they are really bad. I didn't care, though. I just wanted to see a live game!
I had every intention of taking it slow at the game, because Saturday night, we had a team party at this club downtown. That was sure to be fun.
...well, I had two liters of beer at the game. This picture is me and Cem, each with one of our liters of Warstiener. (Apparently, it's the popularity/frequency equivalent of Bud Light, but, not a light, and it doesn't taste like water.)
I thought I was such a big man. I thought, hey, whatever, two liters of beer, what's the problem?
My stomach disagreed. Three bratwursts later, and after the game, not only was I tanked, but my stomach was killing me. I figured I should lay down for a while.
What a drunkenly stupid idea. The bus to the club left at 8. When I opened my eyes at 9:30, I started to get ready until I saw a clock. I still felt a little drunk, too. Man, I'm such a lightweight.
Got to work on that.
The game itself was pretty bad. The team Hertha played was one of the worse teams in the league, and they only managed to tie. Getting to see the stadium rocking, though (at a little over half capacity) was pretty sweet. I bet that place was nuts for the World Cup.
Today, the team made an appearance at a promotional event called "Run for Fun," which sounded like a 5K kind of promotion thing. (This one was 3 miles, which our head coach and GM ran together). I got to see the team mascot for the first time: it's a big bird named, appropriately, T-Bird.
As a side note, at the end of the season, I will probably never want to hear "Thunderstruck" by AC-DC ever again.
Oh, hey, I managed to get my first photo album up with the Kodak camera. This is the stadium tour and the arrival into Berlin. I believe you can access it here... or if that doesn't work, try here.
Pretty soon, the U.S. Thunder site will have some Andy Lutzky-errific updates. I'll keep ya posted.
Random things that are different so far in Germany:
1. On keyboards, the Z and Y are flipped. Typing "Lutzky" is an adventure.
2. In German, the term "Happy Birthday" is nonsensical. On someone's birthday, you say the equivalent of, "Congratulations and good health."
3. Beer. Wow, beer. So far, the best I've had is the hefeweizen (a Bavarian beer). Warstiener is pretty good, too. We had some incredible beer on Thursday night, one that you can only find in two places all over Berlin (which was also Bavarian).
4. How could I have come this far and not mention Euros? Besides things just costing more in general over here, less Euros just mean more. Like, 20 Euros is a big deal. I got two liters of beer at the game for 12 Euros. 12 bucks at a Yankees game might get you some flat soda and peanut shells from the floor.
Things I miss (besides the obvious, like family, a car, etc.):
1. Sorry, the top of the list right now is the Playstation 2. Not being able to play God of War 2 is killing me. I did get a great Madden fix in today, though (oh yeah, I bought a PSP). I played Jameel Dumas, one of our linebackers. I won one game in OT, another he ended at halftime (it was really bad), and we had a great game cut off at the third quarter.
By the way, Jameel is a great guy. He went to Syracuse. It looks like he'll be one of our starting linebackers. He will be one of the subjects of a weekly blog on the U.S. site.
2. Chicken parm.
3. April baseball.
4. A consistent internet connection. The one here at the hotel is spotty, at best.
5. The NFL Draft. I really don't know what I'll be able to do without watching that.
Those are the toppers right now. I'm sure the list will grow.
I've got to get to bed. Big day tomorrow; we have our team photo, and "Fan Fest" at the stadium. More to come.
First game this week. At the Rhein Fire, in Dusseldorf. Get pumped.
1 comment:
Cuse - Hollerrrrrrrrrr.
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