Watching the Super Bowl this year was a bit anticlimactic. The KU-OU game had been played just a couple of hours before – with a thrilling one-point victory for the Jayhawks – so the Steelers-Seahawks game was going to need to be really competitive to compare.

Also, I actually cared about the outcome of the KU game. But the Super Bowl has way better commercials, so I decided to join everybody else celebrating our unofficial national holiday.

This year, I was a guest at party filled with Germans and friends of Germans. And I kept a running diary:

5:03 p.m.: As expected, there is a lot of cheese, chips and beer here. Luckily, the Germans celebrate the Super Bowl in much the same fashion as we do in America. Bonus: Ritter Sport, a European chocolate. Plus, the beer here is better than at most of the parties in town.

And Rotel cheese dip. Best. Stuff. Ever.

“I’m going to gain 5 pounds today,” Becca says. “That’s the goal, right?”

5:35 p.m.: Room is apparently not full of football fans. The game has begun, but everybody’s talking about Janet Jackson. It’s turning into this generation’s “Beatles on Ed Sullivan” moment. Where were you when Janet flashed the nation?

5:49 p.m.: We’re watching this in HDTV. This looks more vivid and colorful than actual real life. That’s it: Time to abandon reality.

5:55 p.m.: The Bud Light commercial airs, the one where one guy tries to use a Bud Light to calm an attacking bear – only to have a friend steal the beer. Much discussion in the room about the appropriate response to such a dastardly friend. Americans would just laugh at the commercial and forget about it in 15 seconds.

7:17 p.m.: Mick Jagger wiggles his bum. The Germans are disgusted.

“He’s older than my dad, and I would kill my dad if he did that,” says one woman.

7:36 p.m.: Second half starts. Hungarian guy asks: “Why is this super?” No one can answer.

8:12 p.m.: The Hungarian guy who asked why this is “super” actually understands nothing about American football, and his frustration is growing. I offer consolation: “I still don’t understand everything about soccer.”

“Soccer is very simple,” he explains. “Soccer, there are not so many lines.”

Yes, but I still don’t understand offsides in soccer. And it’s been explained to me frequently.

8:14 p.m.: The soccer consolation was a bad move on my part. Discussion in the room has turned to the World Cup.

8:39 p.m.: Hungarian (reacting to a shot of Steelers on the sideline): “I envy those guys. They appear so full of confidence.”

9 p.m. (or so): The game ends. Steelers won. What have we learned?

¢ That, despite all the hype, the Super Bowl game itself can be quite boring.

¢ That American football sounds ridiculous if you try to explain it to Europeans.

¢ The World Cup starts in June. Are you ready for some futbol?