Word for the Travel Wise (04/27/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

It’s coming… The World Cup that is and it’s time to start prepping for the big journey over to root for your country’s team. Now in my mind there is no better way to cheer the team on than in your native tongue, but it’d also be pretty nice to know some of the local vernacular. To stay in the theme of things you can skip right over all the unimportant jargon like “Where’s the bathroom?” for something a bit more useful when you’re in the stands like “Go for the pill!” With the games approaching so fast there is no time to waste. Click here for cool World Cup phrases.

Today’s word is a German word used in Germany:

Bolzen (s) – To kick about. Playing just for fun in your spare time.

You can find audio and German slang at BBC Languages, who continue to impress on the online scene. They probably have one of the BEST FREE German language guides on the net. Make no mistake in passing this one up! When it boils down to it there are several good sites to learn the Deutsch lingo. Deutsch Lernen and German for Travellers are two other good picks. First Step World offers study abroad courses in Munich and Berlin.

Past German words: vorglühen(s), krieger

Red Corner: East European Soccer Hooligans

by Neil Woodburn on

In its rush to catch up with the rest of the world, Eastern Europe now lays claim to a particularly violent brand of soccer hooligans. There was a time when England had the worst reputation for crazy soccer fans, but the Brits are slowly being overshadowed by their up-and-coming colleagues from the east-especially in former East Germany and Poland.

Why do we care about this on a travel website, you ask?

With the World Cup occurring in Germany this summer, law enforcement officials are gearing up for an undesirable tourist invasion of these very soccer hooligans. It is particularly worrisome this year because hooligans from the former GDR are already in the country, and hooligans from Poland are just across the border. To make matters worse, Polish television stations refused to pay the high cost of telecasting the games so soccer fans from Gdansk to Zakopane will have to journey to Deutschland if they want to watch any of the action.

Police officials estimate there are at least 9,500 active East German hooligans and 20,000 Polish ones in their files. Although the total number of hooligans will only be a small percent of the estimated 1.5 million soccer fans traveling to Germany to attend the events, their presence will definitely be felt.

Germans Say Nein to Brits

by Erik Olsen on

The invasion of Germany begins later this year
with the start of the World Cup, and who are the Germans most afraid of? The
Brits.

Ah, what a delightful turn of history that reflects the shift in perceptions. At the root of the
story here is the desire of some to build housing for visiting soccer, um, football, fans in Germany for the world’s biggest sports event. That makes
sense, right? Lots of lots of people are coming, after all, to cheer on their favorite teams. But it turns out that
residents in various small German villages in the countryside are saying NIMBY (not in my back yard) to the idea of
having fans come to their peaceful places and have expressed specific fear of hordes of hooligans who they say…I
kid you not…might damage their pine tree through singing and chanting.

The oddest part to me is that
the British fans were to be housed in what is being termed a “fenced encampment” near the local race track
in the village of Iffezheim.

German Destinations: World Cup or No World Cup

by Neil Woodburn on

In the next coming weeks, you can expect a slew of ink and pixels in the international media highlighting all the wonderful tourist locations that Germany has to offer. Why Germany? Because during the summer, Germany will host the most widely-watched sporting event on this planet: The World Cup. Thousands of maniacal soccer fans and hooligans will descend upon various cities throughout Germany to cheer on their national teams in an orgy of fanaticism unparalleled in the sporting world.

Naturally, some of these fans might want to see what else Germany has to offer outside of soccer matches, and perhaps even experience some culture! Two recent articles in Britain’s, Independent (UK) newspaper have taken an early jump on summarizing hot locales in Deutschland that includes such suggestions as Berlin, gardens, Mozart, Dresden, Bauhaus architecture, wine tours, the lake district, theme parks, bars, museums and more. In short, these two articles are wonderful primers for anyone planning on visiting Germany—especially when the World Cup is not occurring.