Happy Birthday to me...

In celebration of the beginning of my twentieth year, I humbly present to you the most epic thing ever created by man.

Of Beer Culture and Fish Brains

Plans have changed. This one's a written entry. 

 

Less than a week after I attended Oktoberfest, I was invited to go to the Canstatter Volksfest in Stuttgart, just a few hours north of Freiburg. It’s a nice city with distinctly modern buildings evenly mixed with traditionally extreme architecture. 

 This dome clearly requires a giant golden stag.

Founded in 1818, the Cannstatter Volksfest is an agricultural festival that got out of hand in the early 1970s. It is the second-largest fair in the world next to Oktoberfest, and attracts between four and five million visitors every year. Notable trademarks of the festival include the world’s largest mobile Ferris wheel and the fruit column, a symbol of thanksgiving.

Like the Munich Oktoberfest, it was similar to an American state fair, with rides and booths but with the added bonus of enormous beer tents. We (four IU students) managed to find a spot in the Hofbräu beer tent – one of my favorite brewers - and took part in the centuries-old tradition of sitting down with a liter of beer and doing absolutely nothing for several hours. While the German youth sang and danced in the main tent, we chilled in the biergarten section and discussed matters of great depth and significance. 

That's not a joke. We discussed violence in the media and whether attributing violent real-world behavior to the gratification of aggressive impulses through video games and movies is justifiable. That's because we were sober the whole time, despite the fact that we had access to a huge amount of German beer that's twice as strong as anything you'd get in America. 

But you're a college student,  Jared! If there's beer to be had, you'll always get drunk out of your mind! That's the most basic part of an American student's M.O. ! 

I know somebody out there is thinking that right now. First, that's a condescending stereotype that should only be held after observation of an individual or small group. Second, beer has a very different value in Germany: it's not just a drink, it's a cultural treasure that they have been cultivating and celebrating for hundreds upon hundreds of years. If you're a student who loves the culture into which you've been thrown, it is very hard not to respect the new value system regarding beer. 
 

Another effective defense against getting drunk is embarrassment. The people at Oktoberfest and the Cannstatter Volksfest who were obviously drunk were all American tourists, and that terrifies me. Thanks to them, I have to put up with a stereotype thrust upon me by tourists who don't understand anything about the country they're drinking in, and I'm living here for a whole year. There's no way I'm going to allow myself to wallow in that preconception. 

Here's a more recent example of German beer culture at work: a few days ago I had a beer with a guy who, for the purposes of this blog, we'll call Mr. A. He spotted me on the street and asked where I was headed, and I told him I was going to hit up the Feierling microbrewery because I remember seeing a dark wheat beer on the menu the last time I was there (I was introduced to dark wheats beers in Austria and have been searching for a perfect specimen ever since). After taking care of his official business, Mr. A and I sat down at the Feierling's bar and had a drink. Over the course of the next hour we discussed internet-based online behavior as it relates to a person's real-world actions and personality, and whether one's inner thoughts and motivations are more important than the tangible good one contributes to society - all in German. Because that's how we roll here in Freiburg.

Yeah, so. . . where was I? Ah - Stuttgart!

On our way out, one of the booths caught my eye: the one selling "fish on a stick," which apparently is German for "some assembly required" because there was definitely no stick with my fish. My companions were disgusted with my choice of food, and I don’t think they were expecting me to eat the whole thing, including the skull, but when they realized what I had in mind, I had their full support: 

 At first I was amused by their response, since I've eaten fish gills before and I guess it didn't seem that weird to me. But as the fish’s brain case ruptured, sending fluid and brain matter rolling out of its eye sockets and onto my clothes, I thought that maybe their feelings about eating this fish were more rational than my desire to consume it. 

After the festival we had some time to kill so we had ice cream at a café and listened to one of the most interesting street acts I’ve seen. 

Awesome = very yes.

This man was clearly a professional, but he chose not to play his classical repertoire, opting instead for modern pop songs from bands such as ColdPlay and U2. I gave him some spare change and was completely baffled by the 10 and 20 Euro bills in his money basket until I found out he was doing all this for charity, which makes him my all-time favorite street musician. 

Good people, good beer, good trip. Here are some photos; click to view full size. 

Cheers,
-Jared

This Needs No Introduction

If you want something interesting, go to part II.

Part I: Housekeeping

You want to see a video entry about Oktoberfest. So do I. I have good news and bad news regarding that entry: the bad news is that certain technical difficulties require me to restructure the whole thing; the good news is that certain recent developments also require me to restructure the whole thing, so I would have taken it all back to the drawing board regardless of the technical difficulties.

But Jared, what certain recent developments could possibly keep you from making a super-special video entry?

Please see Figure 1.

Figure 1.

I had the good fortune to celebrate the Cannstatter Volksfest in Stuttgart, the city’s answer to Munich’s Oktoberfest and the second-largest beer fest in the country. While I deeply desire to post an entry about it as soon as possible, my better judgment tells me to do something else instead and give myself time to think about all the ways I can clearly communicate just how amazing these last two weekends have been. In order to experience as little stress as possible during the project as a whole, I will develop it as a two or three part epic to be released soon after this entry.

So yeah, this one isn’t about Oktoberfest. It’s not that funny, either. My apologies. If you really want me to make some funnies, I’ll try to throw in a picture or something. But don't get greedy. Funnies don’t grow on trees, you know.

Part II: The Good Stuff

I had a fairly vague understanding of German politics and social issues before I came here. That’s not to say that I’m an expert , which I guess is my point – everything I’m about to say is probably wrong simply because of my Midwestern American viewpoint. There’s my disclaimer, now here’s my analysis.

In the late 1980s the government of Baden-Württemberg decided their train system needed an upgrade. Over the next 30 years the idea ballooned into the Stuttgart 21 project, a high-speed train line that would connect Paris with Vienna, Budapest, and Bratislava. Stuttgart would be right in the middle, the new central hub of inter-European travel. The proposed station would be built underground, boasting state-of-the art architecture and a battery of energy conservation techniques. The completed station would introduce energy-saving high-speed trains that would drastically cut traffic, travel time, and energy consumption; and building an underground station would open up a whole new quarter of the city for urban redevelopment and environmental initiatives. According to the government’s estimates, the city would be wealthier, cleaner, more beautiful, and more sustainable than ever before.

Artistic rendering of the approved final concept, unicorn petting zoo not pictured.
 

The government’s original cost estimate was 4.5 billion Euros, a price tag the citizens of Baden-Württemberg reluctantly accepted. After the ruling party (which promised a 4.5 billion budget) was elected the estimate rose to 4.8 billion. Shortly thereafter a non-government agency did its own study of the plans and announced that Stuttgart 21 would require at least 7 billion Euros, not including long-term upkeep.

Further evidence that the government made their calculations using a single abacus.

After decades of design and cost negotiations, construction began on February 10, 2010. At this point the people of Stuttgart realized that making Stuttgart 21 a reality also entails the demolition of a wing of the original train station, a stretch of the Schlossgarten, and many of its ancient trees.

Possibly inspired by Japan’s urban redevelopment strategy.

Upon seeing the destruction of two of their interwar relics, a section of Stuttgart’s population ignited a protest movement. Hundreds and eventually thousands of citizens took to the streets, aggressively but legally asserting their say in the matter. Before the recent negotiations, things had gotten darker and bloodier with each rally as children joined the protests while the adults around them took greater and greater risks. In the chaos many police officers and certain protesters took opportunities to escalate the conflict, and the release of many violent and generally unflattering photos of the riot police in action has led protesters, reporters, bloggers, and politicians to proclaim a spirit of martial law and totalitarianism in Stuttgart. Standard media sensationalism aside, there appears to be a good case for excessive force on the part of the riot police. The protesters have met with considerable if only momentary success: demolition has temporarily stopped and a mediator has been appointed to reach some sort of compromise, although many believe it to be impossible.

With all of this information now acknowledged, one must wonder where the outrage was in 2007, when Stuttgart 21 was approved all the way down to the city council and where there should have been the greatest level of transparency between the people and their representatives. It turns out that in 2007 a petition was signed by 67,000 citizens asking for a popular vote to determine the approval of the project. After submission it was promptly caught in the finest, densest, and most impenetrable web ever conceived by man: bureaucracy. The politicians and businessmen paid no attention and negotiated without it.

That event raises a disturbing question often posed by reporters and supporters of the opposition: how bad must the system be, how strong must the influences of party politics and big businesses in Baden-Württemberg be that the people were not heard in 2007 despite the names of 67,000 people? Well, what I perceive the answer to be is not nearly as exciting as the lead-in. Stuttgart is a city of 600,000 people. A petition with 67,000 signatures is 11% of the population – hardly enough to be influential. Two surveys taken in the last two years suggest that the citizens’ opinions on this matter are currently split pretty close down the middle. Despite all the negative hype, thousands of citizens want the Stuttgart 21 project to happen, and while the opposition was treated unfairly in 2007 when the government negotiated with the rail companies behind closed doors, there really was no reason to stop all negotiations on account of what appeared to be an 11% opposition. A petition of that size indicates that had the document’s request been honored, Stuttgart 21 would have been approved anyway.

So it is the act of ignoring a petition that outrages them so much. It’s not all about money or space or preservation of historical sites; it’s the principle of the thing, the belief that their right to be represented was denied by the politicians they elected.

Here’s a question for you: should the government have accepted the petition even though it was signed by only 11% of the population, an indicator that a popular vote would have almost certainly ended in the approval of the station? Or did they, as elected representatives, have the right to ignore what was at that time a minority and decide what was best for the city?

Post your thoughts in the comments.

-Jared