Not in Barcelona...

This is the weekend we would have been in Barcelona, meeting up with our friend Erik for the last
few days of his three week tour of Spain. But then the McCarthy Austerity Plan happened, and the tapas restaurant we went to last night was the best we could do.

Here is what often happens on a Friday: After school, Brian and the guys go to the biergarten down the street, to have a few beers and solve the world's problems. I, of course, am doing something really productive, like studying or doing consulting work, or going on four hour lunch dates with my desperate housewife friends. After a few hours, Brian either a) comes home, b) calls to say he will be coming home, or c) calls to see if I want to come to the biergarten too (there's sort of an unofficial hour when it's ok to start inviting wives, girlfriends, etc.). Last night's option was C, so I headed over there on my bike.

On my way there, I was surrounded by a hordes of soccer fans. Some of them had German flags and German face paint, but the rest were waving a flag I did not recognize. It looked like someone had taken a Danish flag and colored on it with a blue marker. This flag, I learned, belonged to the Faroe Islands, and the people waving it were speaking some vaguely Scandinavian language. I'd like to think that I know a lot about the world and have at least heard of most of the places in it, but this was a new one for me. So today, of course, I looked it up on the internet. Remember, if it's on the internet, it must be real.

I learned that there are Faroe Islands are a protectorate of Denmark, but they are actually located in between Iceland, Norway, and Scotland. That's also known as the cold, wet middle of nowhere, and it is nowhere near Barcelona. The islands part of Norway for 800 years or so, then part of Denmark. Now they are officially autonomous and have their own queen. There are about 50,000 people in the Faroe Islands, which makes me wonder how hard it is for them to face the German national soccer team. And if there was a horde of Faroese-speaking fans in Hannover (not kidding, that's what the language is called), then there must have been a huge evacuation of the islands to get them here. Hannover should be honored, really. Though maybe the Faroese pulled in some Danish supporters too.
The game was a qualifying match for a the 2014 world cup. I guess they start early. Germany won the 3-0, but we didn't stick around to watch.

Instead we went to dinner with Andrew and Katja. There's something carefree and exciting in a little-kid way about getting on a bike with your friends are riding somewhere in a group. It's like riding bikes to the pool in the summer or to go get ice cream cones, except you are an adult and you are riding somewhere to drink beer. We ended up in the Linden neighborhood of Hannover, in the Spanish part of town, at a restaurant where they weren't terribly impressed that I spoke Spanish but served up some good calamari anyway.


So sitting at a German biergarten, watching Faroese fans, eating at a Spanish restaurant with our Australian and half German/half Dutch friends... it was a good night. You might be thinking, "out to dinner? that can't be part of the Austerity Plan." You see, the Austerity Plan is a little flexible. It's not a 'we can't have fun anymore' plan. It was a lot cheaper than going to Barcelona to eat tapas.