As a Bucs fan and Tampa native myself, I was immensely excited to have the opportunity to see my favorite team play in Munich. Heading into the trip, I was most interested to see how the fans would react to a Bucs win. When we won the Super Bowl in 2020 in Tampa, the atmosphere was absolutely electric. People were climbing trees and street lights, running around in traffic cones… so I could only imagine how the fans in Munich might celebrate.

The hardest part of traveling to and from Germany was the sleepless flights, but I was pretty prepared for that when our study abroad advisor told us to “sleep when we’re dead.” We definitely took that phrase to heart on our trip.

My favorite food in Germany was the fresh baked pretzels, they were so good. I am vegetarian though so other than that it was a little hard to find food. I did eat jackfruit curry wurst though which was interesting.

I found the beer halls like Hofbräuhaus and Augustiner to be super fun. It was definitely a time of bonding with our group as we all sat at the long bench tables. I also met many football fans from the United States, Germany, and even Mexico.

My favorite part of the Olympic park tour was seeing how they repurposed the Olympic village to accommodate today’s students. Munich is a very expensive city and this helps keep housing costs down. Olympic stadiums in many countries end up going to waste so it was nice to see the Munich one still lively.

As for work, the story I wrote in Munich focused somewhat on history, so I was able to write a portion of it before I left, which was nice. While in Germany, my main mission was to find at least one fan from the US and one from Germany to tell me about their motivations for coming to the game and their relationships with the teams. It was much easier than I expected to get my interviews done because there were passionate fans everywhere.

Before we traveled, we completed preparing assignments, which were helpful in forcing us to think about what we wanted to accomplish while in Germany. However, some of the impressions I had about the country during the preparation assignments were incorrect. I thought we would have to actively seek out fans, but in reality they were everywhere. At first, it was a little weird for me to approach people and just start talking to them because I’m naturally an introvert, but after a few times I got it down. In the future, I think it would be helpful to have students who went on similar trips previously to come talk to the class about what helped them best to prepare and execute their tasks.

On game day, I spent time at the fan fest outside of the Allianz Arena where different activities were set up like a 40-yard dash. I took pictures of the atmosphere and fans, recorded videos of some casual interviews, and enjoyed the energy. There was virtually no language barrier for me because the fans all spoke English. I did have some difficulties with technology because we couldn’t get the microphones from our mobile kits to work, so I should have played around with those more before we left. Later I watched the game at Champions sports bar with some friends from class.

At the end of our trip, I was surprised to find how accepting Germany was of American football. They all seemed pretty interested and knowledgeable about the sport. When talking about culture and their acceptance of the sport, I had an interesting interaction with a local from Munich one night at a bar and restaurant called Prygoshin. Essentially, I was talking about football with the man and said how I found Germany to not be too different from home compared with other countries in Europe. I think he was kind of offended by this, but I tried to explain that the English-speaking nations (British Isles) are the most similar to us, and I didn’t find Germany to feel as foreign as somewhere like Italy or Greece. This launched him into a whole tangent about German kultur, and our lack thereof.

Back home, I’ve loved connecting with professors, family, friends and strangers to tell them about my experience. Covering the Munich game was not only an amazing opportunity in itself, but has helped me develop professionally, think about my career goals and network.

As a history major, Tampa native, and Bucs fan myself, this game was really special to me. Being able to turn headlines into history is something I’ve always wanted to do. After this trip, I think I’ll always feel a special connection to Munich, the Bucs, and all my amazing classmates.

Posted: December 5, 2022
Category: CJC in Munich