In the summer of 2007, I flew to Barcelona for the European Olympic Baseball Qualifier Championship. When I arrived at my first venue and was buying my ticket, I noticed someone from inside the gate waving to me. After getting to the turnstile and presenting my ticket, I realised who it was:
Tambourine Woman (with her husband Noisemaker Man)
Who are they?
A retired couple who attend Bonn games.
And many of the other Bonn fans (of which I am one) don’t really care for them because all the noise their instruments make. They’re the only ones that have instruments, the rest of us cheer our team on vocally.
Tambourine Woman (conversation all in German): ‘HI! I didn’t expect to see any other Bonn fans here!”
J: ‘I just arrived.’
TW: ‘You have to sit with us!’
J: ‘No thanks, I’ll be sitting on the other side.’
TW: ‘Germany is playing.’
J: ‘Yes, but I’m not German.’ [which she knew from Bonn]
TW: ‘You live in Germany.’
J: ‘Ỳes, but I want to sit on the other side where I can speak Spanish to people.
TW [put off]: ‘Oh. Are you here for the week?’
J: ‘Yes.’
TW: We are too. We’ll watch a game later.’
J: ‘Fine with me.’
Now, before you start in on me, their instruments weren’t the only reason I didn’t want to sit on the German side.
The additional reason was due to the fact that after getting off the city bus that brought me to the area of the game, walking across the Olympic grounds and down the stairs, I noticed a long distance bus with German plates on it and lots of German flags in the window. That meant that there was a good chance a lot of obnoxious and drunk Germans on that side too. In Germany, I’m forced to deal with things like this regularly, so I wasn’t about to subject myself to that when I had another option.
This turned out to be true. The bus people showed up in a pack, acted like complete imbeciles and were incredibly drunk the entire time.
An aside: I did end up watching a game with the couple a few days later when Spain was playing (not against Germany). They were also rooting for Spain (at that game).
Posted by: J
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