"Mysterious Fever Hits Millions World Wide" - FIFA World Cup 2006

World Cup Fever. A deadly, contagious and highly enjoyable white plague of excitement that is a once in a lifetime experience. It hit me hard, and it was contagious as thousands of others suffered as I did. Joel and I were incredibly lucky to acquire tickets to two World Cup games in Germany; Paraguay v Trinidad and Tobago in Kaiserslautern and also France v Togo in Cologne. Both games were quite cool to watch, but what really made our period in Germany so exciting was the whole atmosphere that had gripped this nation by the throat; it was sensational.

Munich

Joel and I made a random decision during our stay in Salzburg to head off to Munich for the day to simply be in the town where Australia played Brazil on that fateful day of June 18th. Munich was totally buzzing when we arrived at the station early in the morning; the whole city had gone completely nuts. Everywhere you looked the streets were simply crouded with people. It was a sea of green gold; especially because Aus and Brazil have exactly the same colours. Still, I have NEVER before seen so many Aussies in one place outside of Australia. Just everywhere you looked there was a bloke or a sheila donning the green gold and gold with the blue flag waving about as a cape. Every now and then a kangaroo would bounce about the heads of the croud. Every 5sec you could hear the distinct nasal Aussie accent. Being Australian you just couldn´t help but feel alive and lucky that you were here on the other side of the world to cheer on your country in a monumental match. But of course for every Aussie supporter there were about 5 Brazillians, but we put up a good fight with our chants. The atmosphere was tantalising; and this was just in the streets! After milling around the town square and visiting a really beautiful park (with some un-beautiful naked males playing frisbee) Joel and I then took one of the craziest trains I´ve been in so far (I haven´t been to India... yet). The train was packed with Aussies in every corner of the carriage, and everyone was joining in chants. One group started a chant singing about every player, which was quite funny as they only knew about 4 players and they would often stop the song to discuss who was the next player to sing about. Joel and I watched the game at the Fan Fest public arena, and apparently about 50 000 people showed at this screen to watch it as well. Just being there with so many Aussies was incredible. We met some quite inebriated Italians who were obsessed with the blow-up kangaroo Joel had brought. One fat bald guy in particular was quite infatuated with it, and on many occasions mentally scarred the plastic toy by pretending to have sex with it and by giving it very sensual kisses. In the end Joel gave it to them which made them ecstatic, and resulted in both of us getting a free beer.

Despite Australia´s loss, nearly all of us felt like the fact we did not get truly obliterated was a reason to celebrate, so we hit the streets partying with those fun Brazilians. They must have thought we were crazy to celebrate a loss, but I personally think that that was a true testament to the never-say-die attitude of Australians. The party was insane; a massive group of people dancing to awesome Brazilian salsa drum band... it was wild!

Kaiserslautern

Paraguay v TT did not seem like the greatest match up the World Cup had to offer, and it certainly wasn´t. Not to say it wasn´t a good game; TT had plenty of exciting chances but unfortunately lacked that killer instinct to win the game (so Paraguay eventually won 2-0). I still am a bit confused as to why this town was selected as a WC host city, as it really has nothing to offer... except the WC match. No sightseeing to do at all. The atmosphere was quite good, but it is very hard to compare anything to Munich. It seemed as though everybody (including Joel and I) had jumped on the TT bandwagon, as people of all races and ages proudly donned TT merchandise. I actually felt a bit sorry for Paraguay as they really didn´t have many supporters. Therefore it was quite a disappoinment that TT lost as I´m sure another crazy street party would have commenced and lasted well into the early morning if they had won. One cool thing was the street parade some of the real TT fans participated in during the middle of the day, which consisted of cool drum bands and funky costumes. But after the disappointing loss we correctly decided that there was no point hanging around, so we headed off to Cologne (with the very, very little sleep we had had as I mentioned in my previous entry).

Cologne

After arriving in Cologne, Joel and I made our way to the family´s house where we were staying. The connection to this family was very tenuous; the friend of a friend of a friend from my perspective. This last friend´s name was Denis and he was a champion, and his family were incredibly warm in accepting us into their home. This is really a great and admirable thing when you think about it as we were complete strangers, yet when we arrived we were provided with our own rooms, and after a much-needed sleep we were treated to an excellent home-cooked lunch. Throughout our stay there Denis´ parents (Mr and Mrs Bursmeier) treated Joel and I to an array of fantastic meals and desserts, and we were both extremely grateful. After Denis had finally finished some assignments for uni, the 3 of us went out for a beer together and it was great to finally get to know him a bit more! He really was a cool guy.

In Cologne Joel and I did a bit of sightseeing before our game, which was on the last night of my stay there (Joel would stay for one more night). The Cologne Cathedral was quite an impressive sight as it simply stands out in the middle of the town centre. It is also a massive structure, and the long climb to the top was very exhausting. Its detailed architecutre also made it look very nice. But the best thing that we visited was the Chocolate Museum... As many of you may know, I have an undying addiction to chocolate and so obviously a museum dedicated to chocolate was an absolute must... and it did not disappoint. The musuem was really really interesting, and gave lots of cool information on how chocolate was made, discovered, its role in Sth American societies in the 1500´s and so forth. There was also a part dedicated to showing us in real life how they made that sweet tasting Lindt chocolate. Just to see that liquid brown gold smelling of that delicious aroma that we all know and love was tintillating. I just ran around the whole place like a little girl in the Barbie section of a toy store, staring through the glass windows to get a better view of this revolutionary process.

It was in this historic city of Cologne (it was a Roman settlement almost 2 000 years ago) where Joel and I witnessed that historic moment when Australia crushed the hearts of Croatia to progress to the Round of 16 in the 2006 World Cup. Joel and I first watched it in an American pub, which was a monumental mistake as the atmosphere truly was lacking. We only met one actual Aussie there. But though he was bragging to everyone that he was as Australian as you can get, Joel and I saw through this facade and realised he was just a fake... he didn´t even know the Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi chant. Shameful. So for the 2nd half we went to a nearby Irish pub where the atmosphere was much better. One of the bartenders was an Aussie too and was happy to see us covered in the green and gold with the blue flag around us, and so shouted both us a free pint. That pint definitely helped in the after-game celebrations as the 2 of us ecstatically invaded the streets screaming every Aussie song we knew at the top of our voices. People thought we were crazy, and we were; but which Aussie wouldn´t have gone crazy after what we just witnessed? Probably only that fake hack we saw in that American pub.

And of course then came the France v Togo game. Naturally Joel and I went for Togo as nobody really likes France. But unfortunately Togo got simply dominated, and they never really had a chance as France ran over them to win 2-0. Not only was this result disappointing as there now would be no cool African parties in the streets, but I was extremely disappointed as Zinedane Zidane did not play. Since we got these tickets I was really looking forward to seeing him weave his magic to make other players look like 2nd-graders, but it was not to be as he was unable to play as he had 2 previous yellow cards. Cést la vie.

And so the next day I took the train to Leuven to commence the beer, chocolate and rock music orgy that would be my time in Belgium. But the week or so I spent in Germany for the World Cup will not be forgotten any time soon.

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