| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
Three days have now passed since the game in Kaiserslautern and I have to admit I don’t feel any better about it. I finally got to see some TV highlights yesterday and they did nothing to allay the feeling that Australia had been very hard done by. If the ‘penalty’ at the end was correct then surely the handball in the box by the Italians was a penalty too. Either way it’s sad to see the referee decide the game.
"[W]e fully dominated against a team that is much more highly ranked than us, before we got caught out in the last minute and if you see the replay there is no doubt it wasn't a penalty."
-- Guus Hiddink
More tomorrow.
So since we’re in ”fussball fieber,” as they call it over here, (football fever – it was obvious, right?) I thought it would only be appropriate that I write about the soccer too.
Finally the world will start to take notice of Australian Football. The game against Brazil may have been the coming of age for the team but this result against Croatia was the real moment we landed on the world stage.
Advance Australia Fair
The day of the game we made our way to Stuttgart and to the campsite that Erica had booked a few months back. It was literally ten minutes walking distance from the stadium.
Australia v Brazil – Munich…Gutted
The day began with such promise. On the way into town I heard my first words of English spoken by a German DJ, “Welcome Aussies to Bavaria”. Then a few minutes later they played Down Under (Men at Work has been heard, and sung, a lot this past couple of weeks) and I knew that this was a good omen.
This am we went to Uelzen to see the Hundertwasser train station. It was great and we got a nice souvenir bottle of wine. We got breakfast there and looked around a bit too. It was nice there.
After Uelzen, we then went to the city of Magdeburg to see another Hundertwasser site and to look around. This city has very interesting diverse architecture, even aside from Hundertwasser. They have really old traditional buildings next to glass and more modern structures. They also have the oldest Gothic cathedral in all of Germany.
We looked around the Hundertwasser complex and then caught a bit of the Netherland/Ivory Coast World Cup game with the locals on a big screen in a square next to the cathedral. It was pretty nice. We then left to find a rest area before Berlin to stop at for the evening and here we are. All up to date.
The fact that the Beatles started their career in Hamburg meant that it was one of the places in Germany that I really wanted to see. I did not disappoint. Even though Erica and I were both pretty much under the weather we managed to see a good chunk of the city. The fantastic transit system certainly made it easier to get around town.
Well, what can be said about that match? It’s hard to put into words the emotions that we (and yes I certainly include Erica in that) felt before, during and after the match. It was simply an amazing day.
The town of Kaiserslautern was very festive in the hours before the kickoff. The Aussie contingent was out in full force – the town really was Green and Gold for the day. In the middle of the festivities was a picnic/beer area that came with complete with a stereo blaring the classic Aussie rock songs. Someone here learned quickly that Men at Work was a good choice to play for the crowd – the locals looked on as hundreds of Aussies did their best Colin Hay impression. The Japanese fans were part of it all too and the whole city had a very good natured, festive feel.
So, I’m beginning to think that Ryan air is more trouble than it’s worth. We booked a flight to Frankfurt, granted it said Frankfurt Hahn, so you would expect it to be a little farther out than the regular airport. However, one does not expect it to be 2 hours away, in another state altogether. It would be like booking a flight to New York and having them drop you off in Philly, or flying to Melbourne only to have the airport be in Ballarat.
Grr….since we were in the middle of nowhere we checked out the entire rental car places at the airport – automatics, which are rare in Europe anyways, were gone. Oh, we could have had a luxury Mercedes but I think that might have been just a touch outside our price range. There was no choice but to take the bus into town.
Well, our departure day has finally arrived. It’s been over a year in the planning – starting with the purchase of Socceroo World Cup tickets even before they’d qualified – and it’s all about to start. We fly into London tomorrow morning and then spend a few hours at the airport before making our way to Girona, Spain. We then have a few relaxing days at the beach, with a day trip to Barcelona in there for good measure, before embarking to Germany for the Aussie’s first game in Kaiserslautern.
Hopefully we’ll be updated all of our websites every couple of days. If we find that we can’t get Wi-Fi access and a steady supply of electricity that that may have to change.
Feel free to post comments directly to the blogs or email us at any of the usual addresses. Oh, and don’t be shy about clocking on the ads that feature on the site – we could do with the extra pennies that we get from them.
Until next time...
