GOAL !!!!!!

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All of Europe is soccer crazy! The other night, I walked back to the hotel from a restaurant and the streets were deserted at 8:45 PM.....only to break out into riotous celebration when Germany beat Poland 1-0 in overtime. Schonefeld Airport in Berlin was packed with people from every country coming and from every country going out. People everywhere wearing the country colors of their favorite team......even the fat spanish guy wearing his country's flag around his body. I arrived in Southampton just as the English team beat some country like Zambia 1-0 and there were again celebrations in the street.....not to mention lots of drunks.
My host Stuart said that central London was virtually deserted at 6 PM. TV set salespeople are happy, but most other merchants are seeing a drop in business because this will be going on until 08 July.

The journey from the eastern most city in Germany to Southampton took just about 12 hours what with ever ending long train rides at both ends, a 1.5 hours flight (oh.....I did get charged 50 Euro for being overweight on EasyJet....7 kilos. My ticket had only cost me 29 Euro!!) and of course time between train connections, flight check-in, etc...etc. I bought my ticket from Gatwick to Southampton, ran like hell and made the train with literally seconds to spare. Asked folks to move so I could get in....only to find out that I had to change cars cause the train was splitting into 2 different directions after the next station. Fortunately, there was time to grab everything and run down the platform to the correct cars. They say that timing is everything, so when the taxi dropped me off in front of Stuart's house I was a bit nonplussed to find he wasn't home.......until another taxi pulled up and he arrived.....fresh off the plane from Italy!!!!!

Temperature today is in the high 60s/low 70s which is a wonderful break from the near 90s in Germany. I think I'll go an explore a bit of Southampton and enjoy this wonderful weather compared to the heat and humidity of south Florida.

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