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.