Advertisement
Published: July 16th 2006
Edit Blog Post
The Aussie Supporters
That kangaroo was my favorite supporter on the day! While in Germany, one thing that I planned to do was visit my mate Oli who was in Australia over last summer, and what better time was there to go than during the Australia vs. Croatia game which was played in Stuttgart? And by coincidence a mate from RMIT, Seb, was arriving to start work in Augsburg that week, and as I had not seen him since I left Oz, I cleared it with Oli and his family for him to join me for my 4 nights with them. Poor Seb didn't realise that when I go on such trips, I practically don't sleep till I get back to Bremen to make sure I see as much as possible. As a result, by the end of the trip he was drinking two cups of coffee to keep up.
Metzing
This is basically a town living from factory outlets such as Hugo Boss, Ralph Laurent, Diesel, etc. and when I heard this the shopper in me could not resist going there since it was so close to where Oli lived. Most of the places sure did offer great discounts, even making the designer labels somewhat affordable to most people and Seb
The Croatian Crowd
The Croatians definitely outnumbered the Aussies in Stuttgart managed to buy a Ralph Laurent Pole for only €10! But the shopping time was kept to a minimum because we wanted to make sure we had time to explore Stuttgart city before the game that night.
Stuttgart - The Australia vs. Croatia Game
We arrived in Stuttgart in the early afternoon and were surprised at how full all the streets were of supporters so
getting into the spirit of things, the two of us decided that we had to paint ourselves and get dressed up. After all, times like this are the perfect excuse to look like a fool and get away with it! I was really hoping for a draw, because that meant Australia was proceeding to the next round, but that Croatia didn't have to go home with the last game being a loss. But as you can see from the pictures I was still keen on supporting both teams. And I was not the only person who was a bit confused, there were many supporters in both Australia and Croatia colors, and one of the guys I knew from Oz, was confused and choose to not wear either teams' colors.
All that thinking about whom Burg Hohenzollern
Oli's Mum and me in the Courtyard of Burg Hohenzollern I should support made me realise that, first and foremost I am an Australian, and that's not because that’s what my legal documents say but because that is the country I call home and it is where the people I love are!
The atmosphere at the fan fest provided for some good fun. Everyone was really chatty and the Aussies were so pumped to have an opportunity to proceed to the second round.
I had my concerns that there might be some feral behavior but all in all everyone was in a pretty good mood and I can honestly say I didn't see a single fight. Thankfully for vertically challenged people like myself, the screen was positioned high enough for me to be able to see the game, and what a great game it was, more than enough goals to keep it interesting. The Germans were honestly happy for the Aussie team to get to the second round because
after the German game we hung the Aussie flag out of Michael's car amongst a sea of German flags, and quite a few Germans began to chant "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi". And of course everyone offered
their condolences when the Aussies unfairly lost to Italy.
Burg Hohenzollern
Oliver's Mum Branka was kind enough to take Seb and me to see Burg Hohenzollern, which was fascinating for us because Australia has nothing like it. It is an impressive sight when you are driving through, what looks to the eye, like endless countryside and all of a sudden you see a castle dominating one of the upcoming hills.
The castle standing today is the 3rd Burg Hohenzollern in the last thousand years because the previous two had been destroyed by fire and war. It is now a tourist attraction funded by the royal family that it belongs to, with the prince sometimes coming to stay overnight. The walk to the castle from the car park is fairly strenuous reinforcing my understanding of one of the reasons why castles are always built on a hill: The enemy is completely exhausted by the time they reach the top! And was horrified and felt sorry for the villagers and castle workers when i saw that the town where they lived was a few km downhill from the castle.
As you can see from the pictures, the Castle is beautiful
and unfortunately pictures of the interior of the Castle were not allowed.
The tour we took was very interesting because it was in given in German so as we went through, Branka translated into Croatian for me and I proceeded to translate into English for Seb! I am sure plenty of information got lost and/or distorted through this strange sort of Chinese Whispers.
When we walked past the armor for the knights, we were impressed that these small men were wearing metal suits of 30kg in battle and were still able to fight with the huge swords. But that was until we saw the 25kg pure silver and silk dress that one of the beautiful young queens wore on her meeting with Napoleon. Rumor has it that Napoleon was so mesmerized with the dress and her that she was one of the only women he was willing to talk politics with. Obviously a woman who understood that sex sells. After seeing the royal robes, knight outfits and portraits of the royal family living there, walking through the castle was even more fascinating as it was so easy to step back in time and imagine these people walking around
He doesn't need Tickets
Someone rightfully making fun of the guys willing to pay crazy amounts of money for tickets to the game. there.
Gliding over the Schwäbisch Alps
My 1st couple of weeks as a Praktikant at Airbus overlapped with the last 2 weeks of Michael's Praktikant, whom I met at Stammtisch. He told me that if I am ever down South to give him a call and that's excatly what I did. After our trip to Berg Hohenzollern, Seb and I made our way to Stuttgart to meet up with Michael and the trip into Stuttgart proved to be a waste of time. As it turns out, the town Oli lives in was right next to the town where Michael was staying, but due to some breakdown in communication, neither of us thought to ask where exactly the other was staying. So when we met up we went on top of the Mercedes tower for a view of Stuttgart and had a relaxing drink at a Beach Club (look at the pictures to see how the Germans compensate for a lack of beaches).
As it turns out Michael is the president of his gliding club and the next morning Michael picked us up and took us to the gliding strip for the perfect relaxing day. I had been gliding
Dave Levak & Me
It's a small world! Walking down centre of Stuttgart through tens of thousands of fans I bumped into a colleague from GKN who was in Germany for the Fußball and was lucky enough to have tickets to the game! only once before and I loved it so I was excited to get to go again. Michael took both Seb and Me up for nearly an hour each and I still cannot believe how peaceful it is up there!
Würzburg
When catching a train from Stuttgart to Bremen, there is a minimum of two train changes and extending a stopover to a few hours does not cost anything extra. Knowing this and that there were plenty of interesting places between Stuttgart and Bremen I asked all my German friends about which town I should see for a day. Christian's idea of Würzburg was an easy sell when he told me that there was a castle there. There is no particular famous landmark in the town but the town is just a really cute old little place that is great for a day trip. Have a look at the pictures below to see what I mean.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.201s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0703s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb