Kegeln

Kegeln is bowling with a few differences.

First, everything's smaller: You can cradle a ball in one hand, the pins are miniature and the lanes are about a foot wide.

Second, the pins are on strings, like marionettes. After you knock them down, a machine pulls the strings taut so that the pins stand up straight again.



Third, there are only nine pins and they are arranged in a diamond shape, making it impossible (for me) to get a strike.

One thing that is the same, however, is that I suck at both.

I was disappointed that neither the Germans, nor the French, nor the Italians seem to have a special name for the Bulls eye. The Germans have redeemed themselves, however, with their term for rolling a gutter ball, which, according to my friend Tobias, is known as Pudel werfen, that is, "throwing a Poodle".