Germany Update
So I'm in Berlin.
Bumped into Dave's sister Bronwyn by chance at the Berlin Main Station when we came in. Gotta change accom today as the cheap apartment we were in was only available for 2 nights. Tomorrow we train early to Frankfurt, maybe get an hour or 2 to wander then Mike has to check-in and jet-off to Aus. I will stick around on my lonesome and watch the mega-clash Germany v Argentina at the Frankfurt Fan-Fest which is on both sides of the river facing a massive 2 sided TV screen on a barge. After the game I'll head back to Wurzburg and stay another few nights with my relos in Gibblestadt (my lil cousin Lilian is so cute!) before finishing my trip in Munich and visiting the last of my cousins there.
The Fan-Fests are very cool. They are large, well equipped public viewing areas in each Host city that accomodates upwards of 10,000 spectators. The Berlin one is the largest by far, unfortunately we came in on the last day of Second Round matches and watched them elsewhere. They packed in 700,000 for Germany v Ecuador last week!! Pictures will go up in July as I'm out of bandwidth on Flikr for the moment.
Berlin has multiple viewing areas. We should have come to Berlin earlier and spent less time in Munich (we thought the accomdation prices would be prohibitive). The Adidas World of Football is FREAKIN COOL! It's the mini-stadium you might have seen on Telly that the fans can pack into and watch on 2 large screens at either end. Well it's only 'mini' compared to the real thing! It holds at least 5,000 people!! We got off the train and charged over to it pronto to watch Brazil overcome brave Ghana, twas very groovy. Mike was tight and wouldn't let me go in the half time Dance competition (which I would have won!)(although they only chose people on the lower level, booo) and score tickets to the Black Eyed Peas who were performing in it the night after! (Mike doesn't like the BEP, can you say freak?!). Also in addition to the center-piece which is the stadium, the fan-park around it (which is free) had the most football amusements so far - 3 or so mini-fields for 1v1, 3v3, 5v5 - a free-kick and speed kick enclosure, a Heading enclosure and a goal accuracy thing that was elevated in 2 towers for maximum dramatic effect. Also an X-Box 360 dome with 10 systems, 8 of which were playing endless rounds of challenge football, an Adidas split-screen AV area with the various +10 adverts running as well as behind the scenes of them, and the actual matchballs from the games lined up at the front.
Our Italian Boycott lasted only a few hours, as the nearest Restaurant to our place with a decent screen was an Italian restaurant where we watched France regain form and knock out an impressive Spain side. I can't remember if I mentioned it, but while in Munich, we spent most of our time wandering from viewing area to viewing area for the different games. One day we watched Swiss v Togo in a German pub, then Ukraine crush Saudi in a beaut little Biergarten, and finished off (probably - dates blur together, I remember locations by what game I watched ;) ) at an Irish pub to watch Spain defeat plucky Tunisia. Also we watched a hatful of fixtures at the Munich fan-park including Sweden v England (the only english game to raise any non-englishmans heart rate above 'sleeping'), Mexico v Portugal, Ghana's awesome attack annihlate Czech Republic, and the most dramatic game up to then, 9 man USA draw 9 man Italy.
Back to Berlin... Other viewing areas we could have, should have been to had we come earlier include a massive Television broadcasting arena a local station have set up in Potzdamer Platz, and also there is a music festival somewhere in a park you can also catch the games at.
While in Stuttgartt... we caught the Italy v Czech match at the Fan-Fest (the same fan fest where the German and English fans had a bit of a mini-broohaa the day after). Croat fans vastly outnumbered the Aussie contingent - and us Aussies started with no football chants at all a few weeks ago, where as the Croats are well versed and practised at supporting their team. Nonetheless the Aussies have surely but steadily increased their singing repertoire and gave a good performance against the Croats! A very different story vs the I-ties (see below).
In Kaiserslauten... we caught Portugal v Niederlander (fiery!) in the evening, half in a tiny pub which was plastered with 1.FCK stuff (local team), and staffed by a huge, brutal looking bartender who was actually quite genial (so long as you payed...), and then the other half in an ice creamerie in the middle of town while Mike joined in the drunken aussie's who had taken over the square and were dancing and singing to continuous aussie pub music all night! Earlier that day we watched England's dour win over Ecuador, the big screen's satelite feed cut out the instant after Becks hit the ball, and resumed with the Keeper picking it up out of the net! What a time for an interruption lol! We watched the final minute of extra time in the Americana restaurant nearbye after the Fan-Fest was closed due to lightning much to the annoyance of the English fans who are very vocal despite the utter shite their team is playing.
The game itself was preceded by a crowded walk up the hill of the stadium. K-town is only 100,000 population (and is a beaut little place - what Canberra ought to be!) and so the 46,000 going to the game completely filled the streets. I managed to lose Mike on the way there and took 2 photo's of what I had to search through to find him - but being eagle-eyed and awesome, I located him among the throng after climbing on a telephone exchange where I took the pics from.
The Italian fans don't seem to be very passionate at all, which I thought was very odd. Despite their team dominating the first half, we drowned them out from start to finish. They didn't even seem to celebrate very intensely after the game, possibly out of politeness and an immense feeling of guilt over the manner of the win... The Aussies also sang loud and hard at the Brazil game, but the Brazilians got going after the goals and didn't stop which was more inline with expectation.
Sat down with 2 German guys (I pretty much invited us to join them unilaterally) to watch the Swiss miss all their penalties against Ukraine that night in an Asian restaurant where I had the frogs thighs in chilli and lemongrass and got sloshed after TV replays from the Aus v Italy game confirmed what you in Aus would have known instantly (we were at the other end of the ground from the penalty). The Italian family infront of us consolingly said we played very well - and didn't mention the penalty.
My German is both surprisingly good (I can read), but also very poor (when I actually try and make conversation). It would be nice to maybe come and work in Germany and spend a year or two picking up the language fluently. Nearly all Europeans are bilingual it seems, and my cousins here are tri! (deutsche, english, chinese) - completely puts us to shame in Aus!
Oh yeah, and I scored a cheap Niederlander strip yesterday! Woot!
posted by lordstok @ 8:25 PM
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