What a day for the books.
We arrived in Frankfurt a bit before 6:30am, on a plane full of Japanese jersey wearing fanatics. They were cool but, we got photos with them.
Standing in the customs line we were approached by another Aussie-jersey wearing bloke who asked us where we were headed. His plane was late so he'd missed his train to Bad Durkheim (30mins from Kaiserslautern where the Aus-Jap game was on that arvo) where he was going to meet the Aus Football Fanatics Ass. that we was a part of. If he was there by 9am then he'd get the bus with them to the game.
Our pickup from the airport was nearly half and hour late (after we called), but eventually the three of us were there to pick up Mark's and my baby for a month - our 206 SW Trendy. Getting used to driving oddly on the wrong side of the car as well as the wrong side of the road, we headed off for Bad Durkheim.
About half way there, the BMW infront of us starts flashing - or at least a red sign on the back seat does, saying "Polize" and "Stop", and an arm out the window flags us to pull over. We pull into a nearby servo, excited and bewildered. The cops come over, get one look at us in matching yellow jerseys and says "ah, football".
Turns out it was just a random check ("we like to do this in Germany") and we were off again.
Within 10mins of Bad Durkheim, both the GPS receiver and my PDA with the sat nav software batteries went flat. The iPod accessory we'd bought in Malaysia was a dud; not only would it not play the iPod, but it wouldn't charge a USB device (like a PDA for example) for more than 2 seconds. Great, middle of nowhere and no idea where to go.
After a short bit we found signs to follow, and made our way to the middle of Bad Durkheim, and soon after that were able to charge our techo-gadgets and found the campsite.
Upon inquring we heard that our mate had in fact missed his bus (by over half an our, no surprise) and also that there was one available caravan in the campsite! We snapped that up, for a decent 32 euro (quite flash van), dumped luggage and headed off for Kaiserslautern.
Man it was packed there. We parked the car where we thought must be close to the stadium because of the police and millions of cars around, and then proceeded to walk over a kilometre to the stadium itself. Our other mate already had tickets, so we left him at the stadium and back-tracked to where people were lining up to collect tickets, in the hope of lining up ourselves to buy some.
While the volunteers were very friendly and didn't exactly laugh at us, it was obvious that we weren't going to get tickets, so we resigned ourselves to looking for a big screen nearby.
Wandering idly towards the town, we were approached by a few scalpers. Quite dubious at first, but still really excited, we snooped around, sussed out a few legit tickets of passers buy, and decided to take the plunge.
We paid 145euro each for Category 1 tickets. Heart in mouth, we headed for the gate, making a point to stop and stand around at each security check point to see if other punters were having trouble with tickets.
The big one was the scanners. But we were all good! The screen read 'accept' (or something) and we were in!
We found our way to the seats (making sure to get a photo with a cute volunteer on the way) which were 4 rows back in the 1st tier almost above the Aussie bench. Just fantastic. And noone came to check on us, noone came to kick us out, and we were set!
My brother and I were witness to the first Australian goals scored in World Cup history, and our first win too.
Voices sore, and tired as all buggery, we shared beers with other Aussie kin before retiring to our car (which wasn't that far away), driving to the caravan (long way around, who reads sings...) and a tops nights sleep with pleasant dreams!
We arrived in Frankfurt a bit before 6:30am, on a plane full of Japanese jersey wearing fanatics. They were cool but, we got photos with them.
Standing in the customs line we were approached by another Aussie-jersey wearing bloke who asked us where we were headed. His plane was late so he'd missed his train to Bad Durkheim (30mins from Kaiserslautern where the Aus-Jap game was on that arvo) where he was going to meet the Aus Football Fanatics Ass. that we was a part of. If he was there by 9am then he'd get the bus with them to the game.
Our pickup from the airport was nearly half and hour late (after we called), but eventually the three of us were there to pick up Mark's and my baby for a month - our 206 SW Trendy. Getting used to driving oddly on the wrong side of the car as well as the wrong side of the road, we headed off for Bad Durkheim.
About half way there, the BMW infront of us starts flashing - or at least a red sign on the back seat does, saying "Polize" and "Stop", and an arm out the window flags us to pull over. We pull into a nearby servo, excited and bewildered. The cops come over, get one look at us in matching yellow jerseys and says "ah, football".
Turns out it was just a random check ("we like to do this in Germany") and we were off again.
Within 10mins of Bad Durkheim, both the GPS receiver and my PDA with the sat nav software batteries went flat. The iPod accessory we'd bought in Malaysia was a dud; not only would it not play the iPod, but it wouldn't charge a USB device (like a PDA for example) for more than 2 seconds. Great, middle of nowhere and no idea where to go.
After a short bit we found signs to follow, and made our way to the middle of Bad Durkheim, and soon after that were able to charge our techo-gadgets and found the campsite.
Upon inquring we heard that our mate had in fact missed his bus (by over half an our, no surprise) and also that there was one available caravan in the campsite! We snapped that up, for a decent 32 euro (quite flash van), dumped luggage and headed off for Kaiserslautern.
Man it was packed there. We parked the car where we thought must be close to the stadium because of the police and millions of cars around, and then proceeded to walk over a kilometre to the stadium itself. Our other mate already had tickets, so we left him at the stadium and back-tracked to where people were lining up to collect tickets, in the hope of lining up ourselves to buy some.
While the volunteers were very friendly and didn't exactly laugh at us, it was obvious that we weren't going to get tickets, so we resigned ourselves to looking for a big screen nearby.
Wandering idly towards the town, we were approached by a few scalpers. Quite dubious at first, but still really excited, we snooped around, sussed out a few legit tickets of passers buy, and decided to take the plunge.
We paid 145euro each for Category 1 tickets. Heart in mouth, we headed for the gate, making a point to stop and stand around at each security check point to see if other punters were having trouble with tickets.
The big one was the scanners. But we were all good! The screen read 'accept' (or something) and we were in!
We found our way to the seats (making sure to get a photo with a cute volunteer on the way) which were 4 rows back in the 1st tier almost above the Aussie bench. Just fantastic. And noone came to check on us, noone came to kick us out, and we were set!
My brother and I were witness to the first Australian goals scored in World Cup history, and our first win too.
Voices sore, and tired as all buggery, we shared beers with other Aussie kin before retiring to our car (which wasn't that far away), driving to the caravan (long way around, who reads sings...) and a tops nights sleep with pleasant dreams!
posted by Tim at 6:53 pm
1 Comments:
Hey Timmy,
Looks like you're having a ball (no pun intended). Just a quick note to tell you I have resigned from boing and am off on 14th July. I'll catch up with ya when you get back. Have a good one,
Tone
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