3.19.98

Lederhosen

I live in Germany. Germany is a weird country. Living here is kind of funny, especially here in Bavaria. You've probably heard of the 'Oktoberfest'. Yeah, that's right, it's that weirdo festival where everybody wears 'Lederhosen'(for those of you who don't know, 'Lederhosen' are leather shorts) and drinks liters of beer just to throw it right up again on Disneyland-type rides. It takes place right around the corner from my house (well, it is about 30 minutes by train or car). I think it's the only tourist attraction Germany has. That is, if you don't skate.

Germany is also land of the Munster Monster Mastership, arguably the biggest (though not always the best) inter-national skate event, Germany's most significant achievement since Mercedes Benz. Germany, like nearly everything on earth, has it's good and bad sides. The worst here is probably the weather - it rains a lot and it can be pretty cold in winter. Next is the absence of good spots for street skating. Definitely good though is the fact that, since people here don't sue as much as in the US, there are many public skate-parks. Also it seems the cops can be a little more tolerant. The skaters worst enemy here is the gray haired, ugly senior citizen taking a walk with his crippled little dog and still believing Hitler was right 50 years ago. Just today one of them wanted to whip us with his dog leash because we told him not to let his shitheap of a dog shit on our skatepark. Yes we do have a skatepark although we live in a city of only about 40,000. You can check out some pics of it and us at www.weihenstephan.org/~alfrhoch/. I'll be writing some spot checks on parks here in the Munich area and if you need any information concerning Germany just contact me. -Alfred Hochrein