Karsten Floegel packed three bags for his trip from Germany to the United States. As an organized traveler, he checked the baggage weight allowances so he could max it out.
The hand baggage was for his clothes. The rest, minus five pounds, was for German Christmas delights – desserts, snacks, beer. He loaded up 78 pounds and several hundred dollars worth of German treats to bring to America.
Floegel's trip alongside fellow friend and Ravens fan from Germany, Anna Hochhalter, is to see two Ravens games – their first on this side of the Atlantic. They were at Sunday's blowout win over the Giants at MetLife Stadium and they'll be at Saturday's AFC North slugfest against the Pittsburgh Steelers at M&T Bank Stadium.
But their mission is to deliver Christmas treats and well wishes to the entire Ravens organization. Why, you ask? We have to start at the beginning of this international love story between fans and team.
Floegel, 38, and Hochhalter, 40, met last year during the Ravens' game in London. He basically followed the Ravens' marketing tour, including the Flock Party at the Counting House, where they became friends. After such an exhilarating experience, they kept in touch, separated by about three hours (he's from Berlin and she's from Hamburg) but connected by their fandom.
Floegel became a Ravens fan after a friend introduced him to playing American football. He played in an amateur league and liked the team bonding aspect of it. In 2012, he and other NFL fans in Germany started a tradition of watching the Super Bowl in an American bar. Their first was the 2012 HarBowl, and Floegel gravitated towards John Harbaugh and the Ravens.
"I felt like Jim, he was the quarterback and he was so successful in the NFL, and John went the coaching route and had to work his way up," Floegel said. "It felt like John was the underdog."
Floegel joined The German Flock, an official outpost of the Ravens Roost (No. 500). That's the group he was with when he met Hochhalter, who was newer fan. She had a friend that was into the New Orleans Saints, and watching the game interested her because it seemed like a mixture of chess and military. She read the rules and taught herself about the game and started watching regularly in 2019, the rise of Lamar Jackson and the Ravens' magical 14-2 season.
"Lamar did things no other quarterback did," she said. "It was super special. It was new. It was unpredictable."
Hochhalter is also an avid reader/writer, so the Ravens' connection with Edgar Allen Poe sealed the deal. She was a Ravens fan.
"I'm not a fan because I'm a girlfriend and my boyfriend is a fan of the team or something like that," she said. "I'm a female independent fan that found her team. I'm super proud of that."
She and Floegel had such a good time at the Ravens' game in London last season that they decided they needed to take it to the next level. They had to go to America. When the schedule was released, back-to-back games in nearby New York and Baltimore made for the perfect chance to double dip.
"After the London game, I knew I wanted to go to Baltimore right away," Hochhalter said. "It was such a great experience. It was like the whole London city was purple. And then you had this beautiful podcast and the whole situation in that pub. So I just knew I needed to go 'home.'"
But that wasn't the only takeaway from the schedule. They, like everyone else, noted that the Ravens had to travel for a second straight year on Christmas – a Grinch-like move by the NFL schedule makers. Last year it was San Francisco and this year it's Houston.
Given that Christmas is such a big deal in Germany (it's celebrated over three days), Floegel figured they would bring some German Holiday cheer.
"Honestly, I felt really bad about that," he said. "So I had this idea because of what the team gave us, especially in London last year – this feeling, this emotion that was so awesome. I wanted to give it back. And that's why I thought, you know, what could be a nice idea for Christmas?"
Floegel reached out for help and donations from other German fans to buy all the snacks – including spekulatius, christstollen, pfeffermusse, chocolates, and much, much more. He wanted to deliver enough snacks so that everyone in the organization could have a taste, so he pulled up the team's front office list and did the math on how many treats it would take.
"Christmas is a family holiday," Hochhalter said. "And we're a football family."
Floegel also told German Ravens fans that he would hand deliver any letters they wanted to send to their favorite team. He got more than a dozen, including a drawing from a 5-year-old fan with autism, and a note from Marcel Ploziki, who met Jackson when he fixated Munich last offseason, and is battling cancer and epilepsy.
"Through the passion that the Ravens inspire in me, I always find the strength and courage to face life's challenges," Ploziki wrote. "The football club has shown me how to never lose faith in myself even in difficult times and that there is always hope as long as you fight for your goals."
Floegel and Hochhalter had a blast in New York and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the Ravens' 35-14 blowout win (though they couldn't understand how many Giants fans left early). Now they get to come to Ravens-Steelers at M&T Bank Stadium in one of the biggest games of the season.
"I'm here and I'm happy and I'm shaky and I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm just happy to go to Baltimore tomorrow," Hochhalter said Monday. "I'm still emotionally done after yesterday's game. I can only imagine it will be like 10 times bigger [at M&T Bank Stadium]."
"I feel like they're laser focused," Floegel said of the Ravens. "I have a feeling and I hope I'm right that they'll beat the Steelers this time."
That would be the icing on the spekulatius.
