Well, tension rises also here on the other side of the Atlantic. This afternoon sitting in my office close to the historical market place, I hear the noise of hooligans chanting and singing on the square. Everywhere police vans with cops in “combat” gear, getting ready for the soccer match this night at 9!

Bremen plays against Anderlecht (Belgium), whose fans are known to be quite violent… It is such a crazy impression: once or twice a week there is a soccer match in town and you see thousands of the supporters for the local club “Werder Bremen” flocking to the stadium. The obligatory bottle beer (or a six pack) in their hand, chanting. That seems to be the German way to have a good time – even with temperatures around the fourties as today. They’re usually not aggressive, but acoustically they are taking all the space. It just sucks.

But, to be fair, beside these brain amputated soccer fans, there are also other people: today several people approached me about the lection. Asked me about my prediction, what I think about this and that, why there are some things happening, people can’t understand (i.e. the fact that the ballots look different in every state, why American have to use the stupid voting machine, being prone to mistakes, the possibility in Ohio to “challenge” voters, and so on.

People are very consciously following what is going on in the states, being aware that this election has consequences for everybody – not just the states.

Everybody is anxiously awaiting the outcome. Me too.

In an hour I gonna go to an election party of the “Bremen United States Center”, an umbrella association of local German-American Clubs, a consulate office, an American college style university and others. My big contribution was to install iTunes on their computer so that they have at least some music tonight: Along these lines of Bruce Springsteen, Zappa, Hendrix (!), Nora Jones,… Unluckily I could not find an mp3 of Ashcroft singing this unbelievably bad song about the soaring eagle….