oh man...

We arrived in Bonn this afternoon, on a slow train from Essen. We had a rushed start to the day after oversleeping - the hotel staff woke us up with a phone call at 10:15 asking if we wanted breakfast (which ran until 10). We scrambled out of bed and scarffed down some bread and cold cuts, before running back upstairs to shower and pack before the checkout time of 11 a.m. At 11:05 they called us again to remind us that checkout´s at 11. We made it by 11:15...

When we were going to bed last night, we noticed lots of little light brown bugs on our sheets, our pillows, the walls.. At first they looked like lint but the lint kept moving. Eventually we cleared our bed of them (mostly) and tried to forget about them as we went to sleep (which clearly wasn´t a problem).

Dutch and German are fairly similar. Streets in Amsterdam are Straats and Grachts. In Germany they are Strasses and Gasses (our hotel in Bonn is on Bonngasse, across the street from the house Beethoven was born in). Our favorite street in Amsterdam, near our houseboat, was called Tichel Straat. A great anti-AIDS ad in Essen bus stations had pictures of cucumbers with condoms on them. The slogan was "Passt auf jeder Gurke" - which we think means "put one on every cucumber." Other versions have bananas and asparagus.

Often languages are mixed, especially with English. The Coca-Cola ad campaign for the World Cup is "It´s your Heimspiel." We think Heimspiel means game, but I don´t know what Heim means.

Speaking of language, much of the staff at the Gelsenkirchen stadium did not speak English. When they wanted something, they stared at you and talked louder, a trick Americans have perfected but that surprised us at a World Cup event. Another surprise at the stadium - when we went through security, a man frisked me and waved Betsy over to a woman, who checked her purse VERY thoroughly. She had nothing to hold the stuff in as she pulled out pens, hand sanitizer, lotion, sunscreen, and tried to juggle it all as she continued to search. She then told us in German that we were permitted to bring in only one pen, so Betsy had to choose the best from her 4 pens. The woman also confiscated the sunscreen, sanitizer, lotion, and my glasses cleaning fluid. (They put them in a bin and gave us a ticket to get them back after the game.)

Once inside the stadium (at 3 pm, 3 hours before kick-off), we saw that the policies on what you can bring into the stadium are inscrutable, as fans sported flags (on flagpoles), helmets, tiaras, bullhorns, and drums, etc. But no dangerous sunscreen.

So, about that game... Okay, if you watched you know how awful it was (a 3-0 loss to the Czechs if you missed it). We can just hope that the Americans pick themselves up and find a way to compete at a higher level against the Italians, or this will be a short tournament for the U.S. I´ll just say that I have never been prouder to sing our national anthem, joined by thousands of other Americans, to support our country and our national team. A banner in the US corner of the stadium said "Go U.S.! Letäs Roll." Another said "Just married! Go US!" We cheered our hearts out, and made friends with the people around us, some of whom are from the DC area. (We also saw several DC United jerseys.)

The American fans were fantastic supporters, friendly to the Czechs from what we saw (and vice versa), colorful, and boisterously singing throughout the match (until the third goal, when we were all a bit depressed). There were a man dressed/painted as Captain America, several Uncle Sams, two Elvises (one of them Indian), two men with large helmets that looked straight out of pro wrestling, a number of fans with painted faces, and thousands of U.S. jerseys. It made us proud.

The Czechs too were very friendly and intelligent supporters, singing festive songs for several hours before the game even started. After the game, by the Gelsenkirchen train station, there was a party complete with American country music. Czechs and Americans mingled and joined in a chorus of "King of the Road."

It was an incredible experience, and we´re looking forward to the Italy match. But first we´re going to relax and recover our voices and explore Bonn and Cologne.