June 26: More fun in Nürnberg! :)

So far, traveling with the Deutsche Bahn has been a pleasant experience on this trip. Its employers were usually friendly, in the regional trains the conductors show themselves curious about Nate's press pass and they hire more people during game days in the respective cities. For example, Velia - my former roommate from Spain - worked a whole day at the "Info Point" at the main train station in Leipzig when thousands of Argentinians and Mexicans took over the city. She even spoke the greeting in Spanish when a new train arrived! (I heard her when we came from Zwickau, but didn't recognize her voice. :( )

However, no trip goes smoothly all the time. We had our adventure yesterday when we got stuck on a train between Leipzig and Nürnberg. Admitttedly, it's one of the most scenic train rides I have taken (besides the one between Hannover and Mannheim, I believe, which goes by Göttingen and Kassel and further south - beautiful rolling hills, with all shades of greens at this time of year). But we were already on a later train we meant to take, just barely got seats (opposite a not quite pleasant looking guy wearing an Argentinia jersey) and a didn't know if Nate would even be admitted into the stadium because he was only put on the ticket waiting list. (He did, eventually, get in.) Outside, it was over 30°C and our ICE went at the slow speed of 100 km/h (I say slow, because these usually run at about 240 km/h). About half an hour later we were told that the engines overheated because of the outside temperatures and thus had a 20 minute delay. Later we stood at a "Weiche" (a transfer switch?) for another 20 minutes waiting for oncoming train traffic. Which I found rather metaphorical for my life these days and made me wonder more about what train I am on right now and where it's going... ;)

We finally got into Nürnberg an hour late where I was later scolded by some German that I tried to cut in front of him when trying to get a taxi ("Hier geht's aber nach der Reihe.") And it was still over 30°C, humid and tourists all over. But you know what? Once we made it back to Roxana, Octavian and the kids, things started to get fun again :) We were hosted in the kindest way again, with food, good conversation and soccer on tv in the background. After Nate went to the stadium (where he apparently had to fight for his ticket as he got stuck in a "throng" of journalists from all over the world, with the nicest one being a Hungarian from Budapest whom he talked to entirely in German and made friends with :) ) the Filip Family and I went on a relaxed and relaxing walk to a park where just like anywhere on Sunday afteroons stolled, biked, played volleyball and soccer, and the kids played on playgrounds. Nicole and Sebi had their bikes and raced around (Sebi, mostly), Nicole falling down every now and then and making a big fuss about it, which was forgotten already a few minutes later.



The Portugal - Netherlands soccer game that took place in Nürnberg that night was quite extraordinary, too. I don't know if you saw it or not, but both teams kept getting yellow and red cards, overall 16 resp. 4. It was clear that both teams wanted to win by all means, thought fouling was not the right way to do it. It also seemed that the referee was quite strict, or just didn't do a very good job distinguishing what actions needed to be carded and which not. Anyways, Nate was still really excited when he came back and was happy he did get in. He's up to 13 games now, lucky guy!

Now we're on our way back to Ludwigshafen to see Bert again. We might go swimming with him this afternoon because it's still really hot in Germany, especially in the Rhine valley. We'll see.

Oh, more funny and curious names of players, unfortunately all of them are out of the tournament: Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink (from the Netherlands), Loco (just that, from Angola) and Love (also Angola) :)