Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Soccer Fever (and Happy Birthday Tys!)
Firstly I want to thank everyone for my birthday text messages, emails and e-cards, so great to hear from you all and I apologise that I can't reply to each one individually. That also includes emails for the time being but I want you to know that I read every word that I receive and LOVE logging in cos I always know I'll have a heap of emails waiting for me from you all. Thanks again.Been so busy the last 9 days so I'll try and keep this email as brief as I can. 10th of June left for Berlin at 6am. Arrived at the airport and went to Budget where Kate and I had arranged a hire car for 9 days. It was an auto, and pretty intimidating when I first got in. Left wheel drive, driving on other side of road, and no english signs anywhere. After nearly turning into oncoming traffic on my first turn out of the airport I did ok and made it to our hotel in the West of the city. We checked in to our plush hotel room, we were only there a night so we booked a relatively expensive hotel room (the only half decent accommodation I'll see for 3 months!!) Spent that day at the FIFA Fanfest, in the big strip where Live 8 was for those who watched it. We watched England's first World Cup there with the other 10's of thousands of people. After that we walked around, got some dinner and went back to the hotel. We were spent and were asleep by midnight.
Saw the sights the next day including Berlin Wall, Charlie's Checkpoint, Secret Nazi Police bunkers, Alexanderplatz and the Brandenburg Gate. Just before 4 we took off on our long journey from Berlin to our campsite which was an hour south of Stuttgart near a town called Ulm. I got the hang of driving the German roads fairly quickly and before I knew it I was on the Autobahn and loving it. Our car was a little girly thing but I managed to sit on 180km for a long time, I was passing a lot of cars but just as many were absolutely flying past me. Awesome experience. Anyway 8 hour drive, got to campsite at midnight, night early, luckily they were up and let us check in a night early. Outside our tent we were greeted by about 15 pommys blund drunk trying to start a fire. That set the scene for our time there!
Up early on the 12th of June, and by 7am we were back in the car heading for Kaiserslautern, 3 hours away for the Socceroos first game. The city is pretty cool, it's in the middle of a mountain range. It was phenomenal the amount of Australians, and due to the
city being pretty small we were all packed in together. Party atmosphere everywhere! You all saw the game, it was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced. We had great seats, 8 rows from the front, behind the goals. That entire half of the stadium were Australians, and after the first goal everyone went nuts as you could imagine, we got our voice back. After the second it was even more insane, I'll never be able to describe the atmosphere, I was shaking I was that pumped, we were just jumping, screaming, yelling, it was awesome. Just when I thought it can't get better than this, the 3rd one goes through and it was a frenzy. We were hugging complete strangers, high fiving anyone within reach and we just sang and danced around for at least 45mins after the final whistle. My vocabulary isn't great at the best of times, so nothing I can say will ever do justice to the feeling in that stadium that day. I've got goose bumps thinking about it. Anyway, as you could imagine the party after was huge. The city being so small made it so intimate, and the streets were so packed with green and gold that you literally couldn't move for most of it. We spent the night drinking and singing Aussie songs, and ended up dancing on a table in front of a live band and amongst thousands of Aussies into the early hours of the following morning. Slept for a few hours in the car and drove home in the morning. Probably go down as the greatest day I have ever had!!Technically I spent the start of my birthday partying in the streets of Kaiserslautern, but spent the whole day at our campsite where we just relaxed, sunbaked, swam and slept. Nice recovery day which basically set the tone for the next 5 days. We did spend a couple of days in the town of Ulm which was a lovely city, very quaint, and surprisingly full of very attractive German women!!!!!
Yesterday we had the Aus V Brazil game. We arrived in Munich in the morning and spent a few hours in the city centre amongst the activity. Again, very loud supporters, especially the Brazilians, who danced all afternoon. The train ride to the stadium was funny. It was jam packed, and I mean that literally. One half of our carriage were Aussies and the other half Brazilians. We had a big sing off, we'd do one of our chants and then they'd do theirs and so on. We killed them with some of the funnier ones involving lines such as, "you're just a third world country" "we've got clean water in our taps" "you've got the fattest striker in the world," basically Aussies being Aussies. The stadium was amazing, you've probably all seen what it looks like from the outside, if not I'll post pics when I can, it was phenomenal. Had great seats, in line with the corner flag, 12 rows back, and even though we were 4 rows further back than last time, we were actually closer to the action. I won't touch on the game, the score didn't reflect how close it was, so proud to be an Aussie right now, the support was awesome, so much louder than the Brazilians and I have no doubt we'll beat Croatia and go through to the final 16.Had to drop Kate off at Stuttgart airport this morning at 6am and return the car. She has gone back to London to work. I'm in charge of selling her ticket to the Croatia game to someone before the game. I'm going to demand minimum 300 Euro for it. Should get that I reckon. Kate is planning to come visit me on my travels at some stage so hopefully get to see her again in a few weeks.
Scott and Jade picked me up from the airport and instead of spending the next 3 nights at the campsite by myself, I decided to go with them back to Lille - France, to stay with them till next game. More company, and get to see another city so I'm glad I chose to do that. Took us 7 hours to get here, but worth it, they basically stay in a mansion so will be good to FINALLY get a half decent sleep.
Anyway my brief email has turned into a very long winded one, sorry about that, so many things I don't have time to tell you all about. Kate is going to update my site for me with her pics so I'll send a link shortly, but I'll try my best to update with my pics but may be tough over the next few months. Having an absolute ball in Germany, and can't wait for the next game in Stuttgart. Going to be huge, it's a night game so should have a lot of "pre-drink" time. That next day I'm on my own and off to my next stop Vienna - Austria so looking forward to that.
Until next time, take care, thanks again for all your emails and stuff, love getting them all, and I'll jump online ASAP. Go Aussies!!!
