Tennis Spielen und Rauchen (Playing Tennis and Smoking).
Dave scouted out a tennis club last week that was willing to hook us up with a one-month membership, so we’re now playing tennis every two or three days. The club has 8 outdoor clay (they call them ash) courts, all well-maintained and usually available for play. I had never played on clay courts before, so the experience of playing tennis here has been particularly interesting. I was expecting a more uniform surface, but the clay is actually underneath a layer of small gravel (they call it ash), kind of like you might see on the warning track on a baseball field. When you play your feet push the gravel aside and reveal some of the slippery clay underneath. The strange thing is that through the course of a match you actually build little gravel hills that produce strange bounces on the court. On top of that, the ball bounces really differently on clay than it does on a hard court; instead of bouncing and popping up and toward you, the bounce is smaller and with less horizontal motion. The lines are actually rubber strips set into the clay, and when the ball hits a line directly it usually bounces out to the side in a way that you totally can’t return it. On top of that, when you’re finished, you get to drag little fences behind you like you’re a field maintenance guy at Yankee Stadium during the 7th inning stretch (only without getting to dance to the YMCA song).
On top of the courts being different, Dave and I also find the habits of German athletes a little but strange. Call us crazy, but when we take breaks on the changeovers we usually like to take a drink of water, sometimes eat a bit of granola bar, banana, or some other healthy snack. In contrast, from our observations, it seems like the Germans prefer to drink a beer and smoke a cigarette on their breaks. We’ve seen this a few other places too; for example, my German teacher is a young guy who plays competitive rugby, eats nothing but fruit for lunch, and chain-smokes before, after, and during our breaks from class. One night he came out to play American football with the Buka gang, and he ran circles around everyone before retiring next to the keg and smoking about 20 cigarettes. Another time, in Berlin, Dave and I walked by a couple of bicyclers all decked out in their Spandex gear, leaning over their bikes after a ride and taking deep drags off their Lucky Strikes. Maybe we’re crazy, and instead of smoking regular cigarettes, these people are inhaling some new health supplement during their exercise breaks that increases their performance…although I find it more likely that all the “Rauchen kann tot sein” [“Smoking can be deadly”] signs on the cigarettes, printed much bigger than the actual cigarette logos on the packages, are just completely unconvincing to the Germans.
Dave scouted out a tennis club last week that was willing to hook us up with a one-month membership, so we’re now playing tennis every two or three days. The club has 8 outdoor clay (they call them ash) courts, all well-maintained and usually available for play. I had never played on clay courts before, so the experience of playing tennis here has been particularly interesting. I was expecting a more uniform surface, but the clay is actually underneath a layer of small gravel (they call it ash), kind of like you might see on the warning track on a baseball field. When you play your feet push the gravel aside and reveal some of the slippery clay underneath. The strange thing is that through the course of a match you actually build little gravel hills that produce strange bounces on the court. On top of that, the ball bounces really differently on clay than it does on a hard court; instead of bouncing and popping up and toward you, the bounce is smaller and with less horizontal motion. The lines are actually rubber strips set into the clay, and when the ball hits a line directly it usually bounces out to the side in a way that you totally can’t return it. On top of that, when you’re finished, you get to drag little fences behind you like you’re a field maintenance guy at Yankee Stadium during the 7th inning stretch (only without getting to dance to the YMCA song).
On top of the courts being different, Dave and I also find the habits of German athletes a little but strange. Call us crazy, but when we take breaks on the changeovers we usually like to take a drink of water, sometimes eat a bit of granola bar, banana, or some other healthy snack. In contrast, from our observations, it seems like the Germans prefer to drink a beer and smoke a cigarette on their breaks. We’ve seen this a few other places too; for example, my German teacher is a young guy who plays competitive rugby, eats nothing but fruit for lunch, and chain-smokes before, after, and during our breaks from class. One night he came out to play American football with the Buka gang, and he ran circles around everyone before retiring next to the keg and smoking about 20 cigarettes. Another time, in Berlin, Dave and I walked by a couple of bicyclers all decked out in their Spandex gear, leaning over their bikes after a ride and taking deep drags off their Lucky Strikes. Maybe we’re crazy, and instead of smoking regular cigarettes, these people are inhaling some new health supplement during their exercise breaks that increases their performance…although I find it more likely that all the “Rauchen kann tot sein” [“Smoking can be deadly”] signs on the cigarettes, printed much bigger than the actual cigarette logos on the packages, are just completely unconvincing to the Germans.
posted by Erin at 11:10 AM
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