World Cup fever continues

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Hi.

Lots of running around, lots of soccer and finally some time to breath!

I haven't written since Prague because I've been in intense soccer travel mode! I went Prague - Nuremburg - Kaiserslautern - Frankfurt - Munich - Rostock - Lubeck - Hamburg since! And each in one and two day increments, so it's been INTENSE! Tomorrow things will start to be a little bit more chilled out. I fly back to Zagreb to see Zvon and have 8 days undefined there where I intend on resting and perhaps making way to the coast for a handful of days before going to Denmark in July and back to Berlin for the final.

Summarizing a week of my life:

Last I wrote was halftime of the England game while we watched from the square in Prague. That night we ran around Prague bouncing from place to place and ended up in this pub that had kareoke. After Jeff told the world he was too sexy for his shirt, Cory lit up the stage with some song he didn't know, so that was quite funny. I wimped out as they didn't have Love Shack or any of my other specialties. Instead, I talked footie to the Brits, specifically to this Newcastle supporter who was shocked how much Andy and I knew about the Premiership and soccer in general. This reaction is more or less a general theme I'm becoming used to.

The day after, we hit up Prague castle in the morning on the way out of town and stayed in Nuremburg. That night was relaxing as we wanted to get up early and make to the Kaiserslautern the next day for USA vs ITALY!!!!!!!!!! And did we ever....

The atmosphere before the match was electric! I've been impressed how many Americans have traveled for the matches. Before the game, scores of Americans were chanting tunes such as "No body likes us, we don't care" set to "She'll be coming around the mountain when she comes....", whatever that song is. And other tunes as well but generally extremely positive, as to be frank, it really couldn't get any worse for our match with Italy than the one against Czech where we were flat, uninspired, and horrible.

The pre-party energy was transferred from the streets of Kaiserslautern to the stadium. We sat in one corner of the stadium with all the other US fans. Looking at the supporters colors in the crowd, we were about 20-25 percent where the Azzurri were the rest. That was just by sight though... by SOUND we were definitely ruling the place. I've never spent so much energy watching a sporting event in my life. The entire time before the match, during, and after we were jumping up and down and clapping and screaming and making noise by whatever means we could. It seemed to help as, our team came out of the gates with more energy in the first minutes than in the entire first game combined. Fortunately Italy wasn't ready for this but unfortunately neither was the referee. So endless ammounts of fouls and cards were given, as the Italians rolled around on the floor and dived to the ground repeatedly. I've never seen so many strechers in a game where 2 minutes later the player would walk onto the field. The unappreciation by the American fans trasferred into increased noise transferring into increased energy on the field! So it was quite circular. Sadly Italy got a goal out of nowhere but soon after we got an o.g. soon followed by a straight red, so we were up a man. It was here where we thought we scored by a blast by Mastroeni to the point where we were too busy celebrating to realize it missed. Then he got a straight red, then halftime and then we got another red card so we were 9 v 10 for the last 42 minutes of the match! Heroically our team endured! It was really impressive and the cycle of the fans transferred anger to noise to energy seemed to continue. Again, we thought we scored when Beasley came in, and again we cheered for a minute or two before realizing it was called back. In the end though, we were happy it was 1-1 on the one hand then, but on the other hand we wondered what could've been had we won. But we didn't. Afterwards the team came to our corner and all the US fans stayed in the stadium dancing and cheering as the players applauded us. Afterwards, we were happy to know the last game of the first 3 mattered. Plus it was electric to even be in such an intense and dramatic sporting environment for my favorite sports team of the entire world.

That night we eventually made it to a rest stop outside of the Frankfurt airport and slept in the manvan for the last night. Cory, Jeff, and Andy each flew out of Frankfurt the next morning. I, on the other hand, took a train to Munich to be present for the Brazil Australia match, and also to meet my friend Michael who I met earlier in the trip at the conference in Rhodes. I toured all around with him catching up with what had happened in the months since having last seen each other. At the same time, we soaked in the crazy Brazilians and Aussies pre-partying for the game, exactly the reason why I wanted to be there. The Brazilians were dancing and going wild and smiling and having fun, so it was generally a great time, great times that led into the night and led me straight to my night train north that left at 10:30.

I'm a little pressed for time but breifly put, I made it to Rostock and met a friend and stayed in the dorm there as she had studied abroad there. Again, I met countless Erasmus students (European study abroad program) and even witnessed some fire spinning after chilling out. Since then I spent a day in Lubeck and am now typing from Hamburg on a laptop owned by Simon, a friend of Lucienne (Vancity friend) who she met traveling in Africa. I'm rushed because we are going to the Hamburg Fifa Fan Fest to watch the Argentina Holland game tonight! We took in the Portugal match earlier in the Portugese neighborhood here in Hamburg, and the atmosphere was agian electric. I don't really know where to start and I don't even have enough time to summarize everything but I'm told I write too much anyway so I'll spare you all!

Tomorrow I'll be in Zagreb, Croatia visiting Zvon, a colleague in Vancouver who is visiting home. I fear I won't be able to watch the US game because it is concurrent with the more famous Czech Republic Italy match; but that game has heavy implications for us too! We need a US victory and an Italian victory to most simply advance. Otherwise, we just need to kill Ghana. Pray for us!

Enjoy the games regardless!

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