I can't believe we just spent our last weekend here! It seems that we've been gone for an eternity but it has gone by so fast. It's kinda like staying home with small kids!
Friday we stayed in!!!!! I'm not sure we've done that the whole trip. We had a big day on Saturday so we wanted to be well rested. At 8am Saturday morning we headed for Koln (Cologne to you non-Germans!) It is about an hour and a half north west of Ingelheim. The plan was that we were meeting J.M. for lunch and a bit of a tour of his town AND THEN we were going to a football (soccer to you) match! Bruce somehow organized us to have front row seats for the Koln Frankfurt game!!! This was Shannon's 11th birthday present.
J.M. works with Bruce. He is a French man living in Germany. We had dinner with him in Florence and then we met up with him again for dinner one night in Ingelheim. Great guy! After a very quick tour of the town and a lovely lunch we headed off to the stadium. Bruce wanted to arrive and hour early, I guess it's good to be prepared!
Good God!
It was absolute bedlam!!!
As we approached the neighbourhood of the stadium you could feel the buzz of the up coming game! The cars all had Koln red and white soccer paraphernalia, the biergartens were all full, literally people were spilling out into the streets. It was like when a Toronto teams wins the whole season, except this was an exhibition game at the beginning of the season. I'm pretty sure it didn't even count. At the best of times I can't follow the details of a sport. Throw in the language barrier and I have very little idea of what is going on!
It was pure hell just maneuvering our way to a distant parking lot and then hoofing it to the stadium. You buy cards and then use them at the concession stands. So although they keep the lines for food and drink down the whole process is crazy. Finally, beers in hand, we sat down to watch the game, or the crowd, I'm not sure which is more interesting!!!
The Koln stadium sits 50,000, BMO field in TO has 20,000 seats. One goal end is dedicated to Koln fans and they have these spectacular flags, huge flags that they wave. They are all cream, black and red. The slow movement of the waving flags against the agitated crowd is quite a sight!
The opposing team, Frankfurt, has a small section, yet equally as impressive, directly opposite of Koln's. There is a constant security presense around this area. Their team colors are also red, black and white. These people are crazy! At some stages the Frankfurt fans are all waving flags. One section has red, one white and one black. Very impressive. They also have a couple of huge flags, but nothing as impressive as the Koln ones. Both sets of fans are singing special songs, yelling chants and genereally making a ton of noise.
At one point a Frankfurt banner was knocked/torn down. I didn't see how it started but all hell broke loose. All of the sudden a ton of security guards poured out of the bowels of the stadium, it was pretty tense for a few minutes...
It was a great game that ended in a tie. The Frankfurt fans have their own exit that has a corridor of security officers that the fans go through so that neither teams fans have to interact! I've never seen anything like it!
Now we are rushing home to change, and Bruce and I are off to Carsten's 40th birthday party. Remember the family with the 3 English speaking daughters? Sara, the 13 year old, is babysitting the girls. It is her first babysitting job.
I can't forget to mention the fiasco it was finding the place. Poor Bruce, he doesn't get lost often, okay he NEVER getws lost, well almost never...It was great to meet some of Carten's friends. Okay we met one friend, Carsten's Mom, and Gabriella's son. No one else really spoke any English. It was great to meet them though. Once again the Germans have been so kind and generous to us. Sara needed to be home by 11pm so it was short but sweet!
Tomorrow will be our last Sunday in Ingelheim. I can't believe it!
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