THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2006
I haven't gotten around to writing about my trip because I've been so tired every night. I always get jetlagged after a long westbound flight. For some reason, eastbound flights don't affect me as much. Even though I'm still a little tired, I guess I should probably write some things down. Especially since my next trip(Chicago and Indianapolis) starts tomorrow. So here goes...
The People (Nobody Everybody Likes Us)
Everyone that I met on this trip was amazing. First of all, the organizers, volunteers, and police who coordinated everything to do with the World Cup did an amazing job. Everyone was unbelievably nice and helpful. I could not believe how prepared the cities were. I don't think any other country in the world could have pulled this off as well as Germany did. The fans... it was so much fun being around thousands of soccer fans from all over the world in every city that we visited. Everyone got along... making friends with fans of other teams... taking pictures together... it was great. The slogan for this World Cup was "A Time To Make Friends" and that was exactly what happened. With the exception of a few Berliners who didn't like the fact that I was wearing a rival club's jersey in their city, all the Germans that we met were great. If we were in a city and looked lost, people would come up to us and ask us if we needed help. A special thank you to our friends and family who gave us tours and places to stay: Isabel and her mom (Leipzig/Dresden), Ben (Wiesbaden), Kerstin and Annette (Munich), and Miriam and Christian (Berlin).
The Matches (We're Here For The Football)
The matches were amazing. All the stadiums were beautiful. Every match was sold out. We were lucky enough to go to seven matches - more than anyone else that we met. During the USA matches, we got to sit in the US supporters section with all the other US fans. I couldn't believe how many fans we had! And good fans! Everyone was dressed up and cheering, singing, chanting. They were really into it. During two of the three USA matches, everyone in our section stood up for the whole match cheering on the team! My favorite match was USA vs Italy. It was a really exciting game and the US played very well, and apparently I made it on TV during this match when they were showing US fans. It's unfortunate that in two of the three US matches the referees completely ruined the game with bad calls. Besides the USA and Italy, we saw several other good teams: Czech Republic, Ghana, Ukraine, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Angola, and Tunisia.
The Food (Mmmm...Beer)
Although Dave had some trouble (he doesn't eat meat or drink alcohol), I had some great food in Germany and Prague. The beer was excellent everywhere and cheap in Prague (less than $1 for a beer!). I had plenty of meat dishes, dumplings, sausages, currywurst, and other things I don't know how to translate. We also had some great Turkish food which is very common in Germany.
The Sights (A City A Day)
With all the matches that we went to, we didn't have a lot of time in each city, but we did get to see a lot. During the first week, we visited Wiesbaden, Cologne, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Leipzig, Dresden, Hannover, Kaiserslautern, Frankfurt and many cities in between. Luckily, we had rented a car for this portion of the trip or we wouldn't have made it to our matches. Driving on the Autobahn was fun... driving 115 miles per hour and getting passed by people going twice that speed. There is no speed limit on most of the highways, but they are much cleaner and well taken care of so you can drive fast safely. And the drivers in Germany are much more courteous than they are here. The cities were all great, I can't begin to describe everything I saw. Lepizig was probably my favorite that week because it was my first time in East Germany and the architecture was really cool. Plus we had an amazing tour guide (Isabel). The pictures you see of rock formations were taken at a national park near Dresden called "Sachsische Schweiz" that Isabel took us to. The second week started with three days in Prague. A beautiful old city that everyone should visit. And then on to Munich, Nuremberg, and Berlin. Check out the pictures below in my previous post, but be warned that there are a lot. And that's not even counting Dave's pics! He's got a lot more pics of fans which are great. Hopefully we can get them online soon.
