Dispatch von Deutschland

Guten Tag!

We arrived in Essen, Germany yesterday about 2 pm, and it´s quite a change of pace from Amsterdam. Essen is the 6th biggest city in Germany, but our hotel is on the outskirts in a quiet suburb. We can hear the birds singing and everything is closed on Sunday. After settling in and watching the Holland-Serbia match (Hup Holland! Beautiful goal from Arjen Robben), we took a nap. Then we ventured out in search of dinner, which required taking the bus back to the train station. I´ve been doing okay with my German, but figuring out the bus was definitely a challenge. The driver was impatient as I stumbled for words, and told us to forget it and ride for free. But we made it to the train station and found a Chinese place where we were the only customers. The servers at the Chinese place were very friendly and we laughed about my broken German and the waitress´s broken English. They gave us free fruit.

We´ve observed the omnipresence of breasts in various states of nakedness throughout Europe. There´s much Dutch and German cleavage to be seen and topless women abound on late night tv. Last night we saw some ads or videos or something involving naked women prancing around a soccer field with soccer balls, celebrating something. :)

Another amusing note was at the grocery store in Amsterdam where we stopped to get snacks I bought what I thought was a carton of chocolate milk. I tried to drink it and thought, this is rather thick milk, only to realize that it was pudding. Yum.

So today is the big game and we arrived in Gelsenkirchen and went to the stadium around noon (mind you, the game is at 6). There were lots of other fans there as well-mostly czech-but the stadium wasn´t open yet. So we circled around and took the tram back to the train station where we can eat lunch and mingle with other fans before we return to the stadium at 3. So far czech fans vastly outnumber us and are quite boisterous. one man on the tram was wearing a red white and blue (czech colors as well) wig, a hat that looks like one chinese peasants wear, striped red, white, and blue, and a flag draped over his jersey. he saw us and jokingly chanted "USA! USA! USA!" then shook randy´s hand. Randy reminded me the game isn´t for another several hours and already the mood is quite, um, festive. And smelly - many of the fans (we won´t specify what country they´re from in the interest of diplomacy, but they may be relatives of Antonin Dvorak) - don't seem to believe in deodorant.

As we walked around the stadium, a Czech fan asked us where in America we´re from, and said "How score?" Betsy replied, "3-1, US!" He said "Oh no, I'm Czech! It´ll be 3-1 - for Czech!" She must be a real fan now - 6 hours before the game, she´s already trash-talking.

So now we're going to get lunch before heading back to the stadium to cheer the US to a victory! Tune in and support our team!

Bis Tschuss! (til later)