Red and Black and Gold and White and Blue

What a lovely, double-patriotic weekend.

After that long, dark, cold, dark, long, cold winter, followed by a wimpy drizzling spring, the weather gods -- exasperated with our pleading -- finally slapped us with a sarcastically hot summer weekend. "Here! Are you happy now?!"

It was great. I know most people around here find the mid-nineties ridiculous, but when you have enough cold Weinschorle, breezy shade, and brand-new string bikini at your disposal, it felt like vacation.

After sleeping through the morning heat on Saturday, we gathered at Lui's in the afternoon to watch the German national team give the arrogant Argentinians a lesson in teamwork. The energy was amazing. Everyone in the shady beer garden was decked out in jerseys, cheeks streaked with black-red-and-gold paint, wearing flags like clothing, warding off the heat with cold beer and ice cream sundaes, and leaning forward in tense unison to watch that big screen. Each time the German boys magicked the ball into the Argentinians' net, you could just hear the whole city erupt into a cheer that practically lifted you off your feet (because you were already out of your chair). If the USA couldn't go any further, I'm glad Germany is now in the semifinal!

Today, we decided to escape the heat by driving an hour out of town, up into the cooler Odenwald and to a little lake that we'd discovered on a hike a few weekends ago. The temperature was definitely more pleasant than in the Rhine valley; we lay in the perfect sun and dipped in the cool water, and watched kids play badminton and football on the grass, while families prepared a summer dinner with their portable grills. It was a perfect 4th-of-July sort of day, except that no one was celebrating the 4th of July...

That's something I do miss. I always liked the 4th -- who doesn't? -- with its family and grill parties and fireworks and festive flags that make everyone feel like one big community. It's the ultimate summertime holiday. And now that I've, well, expatriated, I have developed a much more personal understanding of what it is to be American. As a result, I find I get more and more wistful for a real Independence Day celebration with each passing year.

Yet I also give up just a little more each year, because it's just not the same when no one else is celebrating anything. I imagine it's what Christmas in Egypt must be like: attempting to actually do anything just makes you a more wistful than satisfied. So this year, when people asked me if I had any plans to celebrate my national holiday, I said, "Not really; it's not the same outside the States."

So here we were at this lake today, with families grilling and the sounds of splashing and playing, with grass and a beach towel prickling my sunwarmed skin, and I thought, hey, maybe it would have been nice indeed to have a little barbecue, and too bad we hadn't made any plans in advance. Oh well...

Okay, I had not made any plans in advance. On the drive home through the gorgeous summer evening, however, I discovered that my scheming boyfriend had just happened to pick a lake in the vicinity of a place he had espied one day last year and had kept in his head since then: an American diner in the middle of the Odenwald!

The sneaky little thing. I was terribly pleased to suddenly find ourselves at a table on the patio, wearing our barely-dry swimsuits under our clothes as we enjoyed a delightfully authentic feast of charbroiled burgers, chili cheese fries, and coleslaw, washed down with lemon iced tea and cherry coke. We could have been in the States! There were American flags waving in the setting sun and everything.

After we got home, we sat on the balcony and lit some sparklers. I hummed an American tune or two, watched my sparks cheerfully burn down -- "...le-et freeedom ringg" -- and then we went inside.

Thanks, baby. Go Germany! Go USA!