Pinnacle

Munich, Germany -- It's the 2006 World Cup. And the World Cup is a beautiful sight.
We're here, both of us, happy.
Around dusk, just after dinner, we are walking down the main walk in the Old City with three story buildings on each side of us (no one bigger than the other) and it is warm and the sky is purple and rust and the sun is glaring behind the rows of buildings to our right and there are people all around, each talking another language, and we are all smiling.
The World Cup does that to people.
Munich is old and charming, like the postcard you would think any European would be, and each building looks like someone took about 20 years of their life to design it. Everywhere you walk you walk straight into an architectural masterpiece. And now, as the dying sun reflects on their facades, I feel at peace.
I feel like I could die in Munich and be content.
In Munich, on a night like this, you begin to wonder if you are in the middle of living the happiest day of your life, the pinnacle of your existence, and that thought is baffling. And as you walk past the two-story high marble statues of lions (the city mascot), and arching cathedrals reaching to the purple and gold sky, and cafes with small chairs and tables set out and a flower and candle on each one, and as you walk down the cobblestone sidewalks that wrap through the city, you do feel like this is the pinnacle of your existence and it wouldn't be that bad if you died here, tonight, because it really only gets worse after this, but then again, your not thinking about what comes after this.
I'm stuck in the moment. I exhale and then breath in the night air.
And I'm thinking that it's funny that this is the place the Nazis started out. But then again, why not? On a night like this you really do feel on top of the world, like you can do anything. How about a revolution!
We walk and end up at the Hofbrauhaus, a Munich tradition, and the atmosphere there is electric, much like a circus. Like a United Nations circus. Everyone is screaming in a different tongue. In front of me are some Mexicans, waving a flag. To their right, Costa Ricans. Koreans or Japanese off to the side (I don't know the difference). There are some Americans in the middle of the room, arguing with Italians, and the rest of the room has written those two factions off, as they should, because they are making fools of themselves, as those two factions usually do. A German girl walks by and smiles.
We buy beer and we are drinking and we find a seat and all of a sudden we're surrounded by Australians and they ask to sit with us.
The Australians look starstruck. The Mexicans begin singing their national anthem. The Australians are smiling.
"That's a damn good chorus," one says, like Crocodile Dundee. I ask him to say Dingo.
"Dingo."
And I laugh and we drink and they drink fast and hard and soon they are ahead of me and drunk and are talking about singing themselves.
"Sing 'Waltzing Matilda'," I say.
"Should we?" He says.
"We should."
And then, just as quick as I said it, two of them are standing on our table with beers in their hands, arms around each others shoulders spitting out, "....will you go a 'waltzing Matilda with me....'"
And then some Koreans come and I know they are Koreans because they are wearing Korean jerseys and they are further along, drinking-wise, then the Aussies and they sit and laugh at the scene and take pictures with their Kodak cameras that won't be available in the U.S. until next year.
They talk to me, in mostly-fluent English.
"Where are you from?"
"That's hard to say," I say.
"Where do you live?"
"Kentucky."
"Like the Chicken?"
"Better."
"What?"
And I hold up my drink and he holds up his drink.
"Gunbae," he says.
"What?"
"It's...host...or...no...."
"Toast. Cheers."
"Cheers."
And we drink and to my left a Korean girl is running her fingers through my hair and it's weird for me, but, culturally speaking, blond must be weird for her, too, and the guy I just...er...Gunbae'd with is telling me he's from Singapore and I tell him, "You all look the same to me."
"What?"
"That's the alcohol talking."
"Who?"
"You're from Singapore?" And he proceeds to tell me that he knows six languages and that his group has made an odyssey of coming from Korea to Germany for the World Cup and he's in the middle of telling me their adventure traveling from India to Spain and how they were mistaken for friends of the Korean president, who he tells me is also here, and as he tells me the story I stop listening and focus on the carnival scene around me.
The Aussies are teaching the other Koreans the first half of "Waltzing Matilda" and taking pictures with their Kodak's and I get up because my drink is empty and as I do I feel high and weightless and I drift away from the table and a French woman stops me and asks something in French, then German, then some other language and I just nod and walk away and then into a mob of Costa Ricans and they envelope me and I'm walking with them, all of a sudden, and they're singing something, shouting the lyrics at the Mexicans who shout back. I'm holding up an empty beer glass and trying to keep up with the alien lyrics and all of a sudden my posse is in lyrical harmony and the rest of the place is quiet and...is that?...yes!...one of the Costa Ricans is attempting to scale a wall to plant their flag higher than the Mexican's. Two of my compatriots lock arms with me and start swaying so I start swaying and then the chorus stops and I'm just smiling and high fiving people and one man, who is euphoric and introduces himself as Carlos, embraces me and says: "Where are you from?"
Sweat is dripping from his brow.
"That's hard to say," I say.
"I'm from Costa Rica."
Another man buts in, "I am German!" he says in a typical German accent. He had been singing, too, and his blue eyes were alive and smiling with the Latin's and the Costa Ricans kept running their hands through his blond hair.
"I'm half German," I say, pointing to myself.
"Nobody's perfect," he says. And I think that's funny because he's Aryan. And laugh again, thinking about the Nazis.
And we hug as the Mexican anthem is started and the Asian version of "Waltzing Matilda" echoes from the back.
"In football we are all friends."
Everyone is taking pictures with Kodak cameras, a thousand flashbulbs and my world is in slow motion as I'm wondering, through the haze of it all, if this moment is everlasting.