Austria 2011 – or, Two Americans with Very Little German Between Them Move to Innsbruck for Four Months
You, me, and Bode Miller
A couple of weeks ago, as I was passing the hotel in which we stayed the last time we were in Innsbruck, I happened to notice a sign advertising a Super Bowl watching party:. €35; all you can eat and drink; American food and Jack Daniels; live bands. Somewhat amused — how many people in Innsbruck could one possibly find who would actually stay up to 4:00 AM to watch an American football game, after all? — I mentioned the party to Julian. Julian mentioned it to Peter. And the next thing I know, I’m buying three tickets for The Hotel Grauer Bär‘s Super Bowl watching party. Seems Peter is a big fan of American-style football, and although Julian is hardly a rabid fan of anything, he does like to watch the Super Bowl. Additionally, Peter told us that Bode Miller, who spends a lot of his time in Innsbruck, occasionally shows up for this kind of shindig. I’m not sure we believed him, though.
I bought our tickets — ticket numbers 6, 7, and 8 — the Thursday before the big game. Three days before the game, and only eight tickets sold; I was beginning to envision a sad little cluster of expats huddled around a flatscreen TV in one of the Grauer Bär’s large lounges — and since the word “expat” always puts me in mind of Hemingway, make that a sad little cluster of absinthe-drinking expats. Maybe, in fact, it would be just Peter, me, Julian, Bode Miller, his ex-Miss Austria girlfriend, and a couple of middle-aged businessmen from the Midwest, drinking absinthe and discussing politics in a world-weary manner.
The party was scheduled to begin at 9:00 PM. Peter said he’d be there around 9:30. Julian and I got there at about 9:45, and found the line to get in reaching out the door and down the block. Nine hundred fans, almost entirely Austrian fans, and mostly under 30 years of age, had shown up at the Grauer Bär to watch this strange collision sport we Americans insist on misidentifying as football.
We got in, checked our coats (numbers 343 and 344) and began wandering from room to room (to room to room to room), looking for Peter. The Grauer Bär had rented additional meeting rooms from the technical school behind the hotel. There were three or four large viewing rooms with multiple screens (and buffets and bars along the walls), a dance/concert room, two or three other rooms with bars and buffets, a smoking room, and a VIP room upstairs from the entrance, where, presumably, there was more food and drink and music and viewing screens.
Amazingly, Peter found us, among the twenty-somethings and the Tirolean Raiders cheerleaders and the Tirolean Raiders (the top-ranked American-style football team in Europe, or so I am given to understand), and we found ourselves food and drink and (eventually) seats in one of the viewing rooms.
Every now and then, we wandered into one of the other rooms to see what was happening there.
 This band was playing hits from the ’50′s and ’60′s. |
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| Occasionally, we got ourselves something more to eat or drink. |
 The American-style food on offer included hamburgers, french fries, onion rings, baked beans, pizza, potato salad, pasta salad, American muffins, and donuts. |
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 Fortunately, Austrians do draw the line at drinking Bud or Miller. This was one of three bars serving Austrian beer and Jack Daniels. |
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 Guests of honor included members of the Tirolean Raiders American-style football team, along with the cheerleaders. |
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| And, sure enough, sometime around 10:30 or so, Bode Miller showed up. |
 Bode Miller was followed around everywhere by a TV crew and a gaggle of fans . . . |
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 . . . and, apparently, by me. |
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 . . . or, to be fair, by me and our friend Peter, since Peter took at least half these shots. |
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 We were spotted as genuine Americans, and got to talk football with rabid Tirolean fans. Above, Julian tries to remember which the hell city the Cardinals are now playing for. |
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 I’m sure we’re all glad to read that partying until 4:00 AM didn’t mess up Bode’s training. (It would probably be bad manners to mention that Bode lost his next race, badly. Really badly.) |
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Eventually, of course, the game got started. We missed all the commercials, which were not shown on Austrian television, and the announcers spoke German, but otherwise I expect our experience of the game was pretty much like everyone else’s.
I thought the half-time show was okay, by the way. The Black-Eyed Peas beat the heck out of over-the-hill British rockers.
Useful things learned:
- It is faster to walk home at 4:00 in the morning in Innsbruck than it is to find a bus.
- Austrians put mayonaisse on their french fries. If you don’t speak up quickly, they’ll put it on your fries, too.
- On the other hand, Austrians do not put mayonaisse in their potato salad. Vinegar, yes. Oil, yes. Mustard, maybe. But not mayonaisse.
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