So we're home now

And I posted exactly zero times while we were in Germany.

I tried to find an internet cafe near our apartment, but no luck.

Then when we got utterly destroyed by the Czechs my desire to find a way to post was eclipsed by my desire to find ways to drink a fair amount of German beer.

However, I did write notes on a semi-regular basis using Notepad. I'll try to catch up by posting them as I have the time.

Right now, I'm at home after a horrible flight on IcelandAir to get us home. We were supposed to land at 6:50 PM, but due to "technical difficulties" our flight was delayed for about four hours in Iceland, and we did not get into BWI until about 11:30 PM. We got home around midnight. I'm trying to recover from jet lag.

It all started going downhill when I met the punk rockers

Yesterday was a blast. The Germans were in a great mood because they beat Poland and automatically qualified for the second round with that result. We were in town in the morning and there was some sort of procession at the Dom. The bells were ringing and the pageantry was beautiful. Wish I had taken more pictures.


After that a bunch of us all met up to go to the Chocolate Museum. That was also pretty cool, especially the buying of chocolate that took place in the museum's shop after seeing how the candy was made.

We had lunch, then Jan went back to take a nap at the apartment again. Those of us remaining found a place to watch the day's games, and as we were sitting there Ted noticed someone walking down the street with a photographer following him. He said "I think that's Lukas Podolski."




Poldi is one of Germany's best players, and he lives in Cologne. Rob and I ran after him, and sure enough it was him. I happened to be wearing an older Germany jersey that day (I think it was from Euro 2000) and I asked him to sign it. He was happy to do so.

We were watching England versus Trinidad and Tobago when things started going downhill. We were drinking "meters" of Koelsch when I met the guys pictured below. I decided to drink with them. Bad idea.




I dropped my phone at one point, and the battery came out. Then I forgot my German pin number, so effectively locked the phone out for the night and I had to call Jan from Amy's cell. I asked her to come out and join us, which she did, but decided that I was too drunk to really hang around with so she went back to the apartment. I was doing so well until those damn punk rockers forced me to drink too much. That's how they are. You just can't trust 'em.

I do remember stopping for Doner Kabob when we all left, but I somehow managed to fall asleep (read pass out) on the subway so I missed my stop and had to turn around about three stops later when I woke up.

Oddly, Koelsch doesn't seem to create hangovers. I'm going to have to do some further research to determine whether or not my theory is correct.

Rhine cruise

We took a Rhine cruise yesterday. It was fantastic.








Ted and Dana, Robert and Amy, Jim and Danielle, Rob, and Jan and I all took the train from Cologne to Koblenz where we caught the boat and headed south.It's about an 8 hour long trip, and there are castles one after another. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

The only problem we had was getting back to Cologne when the cruise was over. I thought there was a bridge between Ruedesheim and Bingen. There isn't. We had to take a ferry back across the Rhine and didn't have time to see Ruedesheim, which is fantastic. Oh well, next trip. Of course, everyone gave me a hard time for the rest of the trip about the non-existent bridge.

We're going on a boat cruise today

Which should be a lot of fun. At least it'll be a good way to forget about how horrible the USA was against the Czechs. I was pretty upset all morning yesterday until Jan pointed out that I shouldn't let the loss ruin the entire vacation. Of course, as usual, she was right.

I mentioned that the S-Bahn ride from downtown Gelsenkirchen to the stadium was a nightmare. Here's what the inside of the train looked like.

After the game on Monday night we went back to the "fan fest" in Gelsenkirchen and had some fun with the Czech fans before we caught our train back to Cologne. There was a Country and Western trio (drums, guitar, steel guitar) from Texas performing, and they were really good. Of course, they performed lots of "Texas Outlaw" stuff. They did a great cover of "Good Hearted Woman" and it was really funny when the Czechs started singing along with them. In Czech! They were awesome.

We spent most of Tuesday licking our wounds, and somehow through the magic of beer (specifically Kölsch, which is the type of beer made in Cologne) we managed to feel much better by the end of the day.

We watched some of the Togo v South Korea game in a bar near the Cologne fan fest, then decided to go to an Irish bar near "big Paeffgen" to watch Switzerland v France. Jan was pretty beat though, so she decided to go back to the apartment on the S-Bahn and take a nap. Rob and I walked to the Irish pub where we ran into Robert. We just ordered a couple of drinks when the phone rang.

It was Jan. She asked me about apartment keys. They were in my pocket! Since she was about two stops from our place she decided to see if she could catch someone from the apartment management. Unfortunately they were already gone for the day, so she hopped back on the S-Bahn and came to the Irish pub.

It was hot as hell that day - in fact, we were in the middle of one of Germany's longest running heat waves, with temps in the high 20s - high 30s Celcius - between about 85-100 degrees Fahrenheit. The first thing she did when she got there was drink at least a liter of water.

We watched the FRA v SWI game, which was awful. Robert's girlfriend Amy showed up at some point during that game.

There were also some other Americans there, and one of them got really drunk and started hitting on Jan. This was in spite of the fact that she told him she was married and that her husband was right next to her. Robert, Rob and I came pretty close to punching the guy out, but Jan convinced us otherwise.

Jan and I left at half time of the Brazil game and I told his friends "hey your buddy is really drunk. He was hitting on my wife even after I told him to stop." They responded "really? He's married to our sister!" Just a point of advice. If you're going to start hitting on other women, don't do it when your brothers-in-law are out partying with you.

When we left the bar, we encountered these Brazilian "women" who were partying down the street from the Irish bar.

Well that sucked

The Czechs owned us. But their fans were cool as hell.

I got interviewed on German tv before the game too. We went into Cologne again to the Hauptbahnhof so we could catch the train to Gelsenkirchen. We walked around a bit beforehand and a guy with a camera and an RTL microphone asked me if I spoke German. I said yes, and he asked if he could interview me. Naturally, I agreed.

Getting to Gelsenkirchen from Cologne was pretty simple. Getting from Gelsenkirchen to the stadium sucked. We rode the local street car, and it was absolutely packed. And it was hot as hell too.

Anyway, I'm a bit too upset about the results to write much more. I still can't believe how badly the US played.

Off to Gelsenkirchen

Today is the big day. We'll be heading into Gelsenkirchen soon to go see the first USA game of the Cup, against the Czech Republic. I'm nervous and excited. I barely slept at all last night in anticipation. Of the three teams in the group, I think the Czechs will be the toughest.

Speaking of last night, we had a great time in Cologne yesterday. We took the train into town from our apartment. It's about 8 or 9 stops in the "S Bahn" to the Cathedral (Dom) station. It's so incredible and awe-inspiring to ride up the escalator and see the most perfect gothic cathedral in the entire world.

We were looking for a place to grab a bite to eat and ran into Ted, Dana and Rob. They were going to go to the Ludwig Museum of modern art, but we talked them out of it to hang out with us instead. We're cool like that. :)


We spent most of the morning just walking around the city, absorbing the atmosphere. This place is just full of the World Cup buzz. Fans from all over the world are wearing their team's uniforms, hats, scarves, etc. and all of them singing, banging on drums, and making a lot of noise. The big game yesterday was Angola against their previous colonizers, Portugal.

We went down to the river and had a few beers at a Gasthaus there, and saw the Portuguese and Angolan fans partying with each other. That was very cool.

After that we walked back toward the Cathedral again to find a place to watch the games and found Paeffgen, which is where the big party of US fans was supposed to take place. Only we discovered that there were two Paeffgens, and the one we were looking for was about a 20 minute walk away.

We eventually ended that day at the other Paeffgen, which we soon dubbed "Big Paeffgen," and the one in the Altstadt became "Little Paeffgen." I think Rob came up with that.

The party was a blast. There must have been at least 80 US fans gathered there by the time we closed the place. The waiter, named Dietmar, was very cool, and ended up teasing me most of the evening. I was about the only American fan there who spoke German, so I became the target of most of his jokes. As we were leaving, he gave me his business card. Very cool guy.

Jan and I took a taxi back to the apartment, and I tossed and turned all night in anticipation of the game.

We're here

Yesterday certainly was a long one. Actually, I'll start with our arrival at BWI airport on Friday evening. We left the house around 4:45 or so and took a taxi to the airport. I called the cab company twice. That's because after I called the first time, we got a phone call at about ten minutes later with a recorded voice stating "your taxi has arrived." Unless we were being taken to the airport in Wonder Woman's invisible airplane or some other means of transparent conveyence, that wasn't true. No cab. We waited another ten minutes or so and I called back. I mentioned "uh, we got a call that our cab was here. He's not." The woman on the other end said "I'll send him back." I was going to say "how can you send him back, he was never here in the first place," but the phone went dead before I had a chance.

Well, a cab did indeed show up about 5 minutes after that call. We packed our bags in the trunk, and we were off - almost. Just as we were pulling away, a second cab showed up in front of the house. The driver rolled his window down and started swearing at the first cabbie in some language I never heard. I assume it was swearing, at least. The second driver also parked in a way that seemed designed to prevent us from leaving. I think he was pissed about missing out on the cab fare.

Our driver maneuvered around the second (first?) cab, and we were off. Our vacation had offically begun.

We got to BWI with plenty of time to spare. Unfortunately, the plane did not. We left BWI about an hour late, and arrived in Iceland about an hour late as well. At least they held the connection - especially since 80% of the plane was full of soccer fans, the vast majority of them US supporters. That was pretty cool.

We got to Frankfurt, of course, an hour late, and after we grabbed our checked bags we found Mark and Caroline.

We went to the Hertz counter to pick up our rental, grabbed some cash at the ATM then went downstairs to try to find the car. That was fun, since the guy at the Hertz counter told us the car would be in "space number 2." Not quite. After looking around for about 15 minutes we found it in space number 30 something.

The drive to Cologne was pretty uneventful. We stopped by our place first to pick up our keys, brought our bags in, then I drove Mark and Caroline to their hotel while Jan stayed at the apt and got some rest.

I did a little grocery shopping, got back to the apartment a bit later. We called the others in our group who got to Cologne yesterday - Rob, Marcel, Jay, Dana and Ted, and told them we'd try to meet them that night for drinks. That was not to be. Instead we ran into a nice couple from North Carolina, Bill and Julie, who walked with us to a nearby Imbiss where we had a decent meal. Then Jan and I headed back to the apartment and went to bed around 10:00.