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Leaving Luton, I was once again suspected of being a hooligan. Once through Luton security check, I was corralled by a police office into a line of brutish-looking blokes. I tried to pull out my most American of accents to seem too gullible and epicene to be a hooligan. Didn't work. We waited while a team of three officers equipped with laptops checked our background information. I had heard that anyone with a criminal record would not be allowed to travel to Germany. I had no fear that I would be granted passage. It was just an annoying formality that was actually necessary. Within a few minutes, the check was complete and I made it to the gate.
The flight proceeded as normal as expected. Flying with Easyjet, you wonder how the flight attendants tolerate the construction barrel neon orange uniforms. I suppose the budget airline business is built upon not customer service, but humiliation. The flights are so cheap that it's a farce. No one really takes the attendants seriously; they likely don't take their jobs seriously either. Sounds like a community of travelers.
In Dortmund, I was greeted by an Italian friend who, I think, had
Pissoir
Football fever can go too far...made it a point to wear every item of Italia paraphernalia possible. She definitely won the team-spirit award. I don't even think I own an American flag. Yes, tomorrow was Italy-US, an important game for us, if we were to regain any respect in the football world. She warned me that there were many Italians in Dortmund, families who had moved to Germany in the years after the war. The plan was to watch a few games at the Fan Fest. In each of the twelve cities where the games are held, there’s an area where anyone can watch the matches on a big screen. In Dortmund, this was located in a central square. After watching Argentina whip Serbia and Montenegro 6-0, we decided to join a few Slovakian, Italian and German friends and go watch Netherlands - Ivory Coast there.
The long bus ride into town led us past much of the bland post-war architecture that typifies Dortmund. Yet, the beautiful thing to remark was the presence of a German flag on every house. Near the bus stop, one particular house donned a massive banner at least thirty feet long. I hadn’t remembered such an overt display of
patriotism. The German friends agreed that this was a new phenomenon across the country. Finally, Germans felt unashamed to express their patriotism.
We came to the Fan Fest. It was a large, otherwise uninteresting square with a mass of people before a large screen. We had to pass through a security checkpoint in order to be allowed in. Once inside, I noticed that everyone was either decked out in Dutch or Ivorian decoration, with a few German flags interspersed...
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