World Cup Fever!

Well I just finished up my first semester in Vienna! It was a really fun semester and I made a lot of really good friends who I was very sad to leave behind. However I plan on visiting many of them next semester so that made the farewells easier. The night before I left a group of my closest friends did a little farewell thing for me so that was really nice. They bought me a shirt and all signed it and then we went out to an amusement park first and then into the city to a few pubs. It was a really nice send off and I am very lucky to have had such good friends this semester. I just hope that next semester I meet people as nice as them!

The next day JC and I started out on our 2 month tour of Europe together. Firstly we went to Salzburg for 4 nights so that JC could get a bit more of a feel for Austria and the beautiful landscape it has to offer. We spent a lot of time walking around the town and exploring all the different sights. I won´t go over them again as I already did a blog on Salzburg earlier in the year. On the 18th we decided to take the train to München for the day to support the Socceroos in their group stage match against Brazil. We were amazed by the number of Australians everywhere as we walked around the centre of the city. Hearing the Australian accent so often almost made me feel like I was back home! We explored the city a bit going to one of the biggest parks in Europe but soon left as we discovered that nude bathing was quite popular there... However before we had managed to escape we were witness to one of the most disturbing scenes I have ever seen... Two men running around naked playing frisbee... I won´t go into details...

We then decided to take the U-bahn to the stadium and soak up some of the atmosphere there. It was really amazing to see that many people all dressed in green and gold parading around the entrance. We hung around for a while but then thought we´d better get to the Fan Park and try find some decent seats before it got too busy. On the U-bahn there we were interviewed by a Scottish guy so hopefully we´ll appear in some Scottich publication. :)The Fan Park was even more crazy than outside the stadium and we found it very hard to find seats. In the end we had to stand up the whole time but it didn´t matter because we found a group of Aussie guys to hang out with. We were definitely the most vocal group in that part of the park and JC and I had a really good time chanting every song we could think of.

I had brought a blow up kangaroo from Australia and it attracted a lot of attention. In particular one Italian guy was completely infatuated with it. He started by stroking it, then hugging it, then kissing it, and then he got a bit carried away and things got a little more intimate... Needless to say I was quite happy to give it to him at the end of the match. :P

At the end of the match even though Australia had lost 2-0 most of the Australians continued to party for a while. JC and I both thought that the Socceroos had played particularly well and we thought that was worth celebrating so we looked for the biggest party we could and jumped right in. They had heaps of drums and the music was really good so we ended up staying for about an hour dancing around with the Brazilians. They were a bit confused at first I think but soon we had people coming up and congratulating us on a good game and saying that they hoped Australia made it through to the next round. After that we were exhausted so we caught one of the last trains to Salzburg, finally making it back to our hostel at about 2am, where we gratefully fell into bed.

The next morning we had planned to sign up for a tour of the largest ice caves in the world, which are located near Salzburg. However at breakfast I bumped into a guy from New Zealand we had met a few days before and he offered to take us with his sister in his hired car. We jumped at the offer as it meant that we would each save €35 on the tour fee! The ride there was a little uncomfortable because they had a very small Puegeot however the views out the window were a very good distraction. Salzburg is surrounded by very large mountains, many of which still have snow in summer, so the views are amazing. The ice caves were really interesting, if a bit cold... I had decided to wear shorts as it was a really nice day but in the caves it gets to below freezing so that wasn´t the best choice. Our tour lasted just over an hour and we saw a lot of really interesting ice formations created by ice stalactites and stalagmites.

Then our time in Salzburg was over and it was on to Kaiserslautern for the first game we had tickets for! We arrived about 12 so had the full day to walk around and explore the town. It is quite a small town (100,000 ppl) so there aren´t lots of amazing sights to see but we had a lot of fun just walking down the main street. There were thousands of ppl all watching a large Trinidad and Tobago procession, which included a few very colourful characters and a big drum band. (Incidently, on that main street after Australia beat Japan 75, 000 L of beer were consumed! Pretty decent effort for such a small town... Then we headed to the stadium nice and early to make sure that we didn´t miss anything. The match was a little disapointing as T+T just didn´t seem able to finish... The whole crowd was going for them so it would have been awesome if they had won, or even scored but it was not to be... Thus after the match there weren´t any big parties so we decided to catch a night train to Köln for the next part of our World Cup experience.

We had a contact, Denis, who we hoped we could stay with in Köln, a friend of one of my friends from exchange. So a bit of a tenuous connection but it worked out extremely well for us! They had a bedroom prepared for each of us and even cooked us dinner when we arrived! It was such a nice welcome after having very little sleep in the last few days as we had been frequently changing trains at time like 2am and 4am. Our stay in Köln was very relaxing and I think it was good for both JC and me as it allowed us time to recharge our batteries for the next part of our travels. We did quite a bit of sight seeing visiting a number of really beautiful churches, as well as a few musuems, the most important of which was the Chocolate Musuem! They had a chocolate fountain into which you could dip wafer sticks! As you can imagine JC and I spent quite a bit of time hanging around the fountain! Sweet chocolate...!

Then it was time for one of the most important matches in Australian footballing history! As the Brazil vs Japan match was on at the same time most pubs were showing that but we managed to find an American sports bar that was showing the Australia vs Croatia match. We were definitely the most vocal supporters there and spent the whole first half singing all the songs we could think of. Then we moved on to an Irish pub which was way better and watched the second half there. When the final wistle blew we went crazy... and didn´t stop for 2 hours. We went out onto the main street and ran around singing at the top of our lungs. Surprisingly there were hardly any Australian supporters out so we were a bit of a spectacle i think. :P

The next day we prepared for the second and last match that we had tickets for, Togo vs France. I bought a Togo tshirt and JC got a Togo flag. We went out with Denis in the afternoon and had a few Kölsch beers (Colognese beers) in a beer garden not far from his place and then came back to have a bbq! :) Then it was off to the stadium for our last live world cup match. To be honest it was a bit of a disappointment as Togo didn't play well at all. The French had plenty to cheer about but we were pretty quiet for the whole match... Afterwards we thought we'd just go home and have a good rest so yeah not the night out we were looking forward to.

The next day JC left for Belgium and I went into the city and visited a few more musuems. The Romanesque and Germanic Museum was very interesting (due to Köln´s history as a Roman Garrison) and I also really liked the Kunst Musuem which had many famous paintings from artists like Monet, Ruben, Munch... etc. In the afternoon I watched Germany beat Sweden to qualify for the quarter finals and then went out for a few celebratory beers with Denis.

Tomorrow I am catching a bus to Paris and will be meeting up with Barry! Really looking forward to that! So yeah next blog will be about my shenanigans with Baz in France!

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