Germany go for Third

I had really enjoyed Germany so far and genuinely wanted the team to do well for their fans. Although I usually enjoy watching Portugal play, I couldn't bring myself to support them after "Big Phil" had left his best players on the bench for the Mexico match I went to see and Ronaldo's blatant dives and over reactions (I know he wasn't the only one, but he's the predominant culprit I can remember).

We headed down to the Main river to take in some of the pre-match entertainment and revel in the build-up at the Fanfest. The place was packed and as expected, 99.9% German support.

Just before kick-off we had a shower roll through. It came unexpectedly and we weren't the only ones without rain protection. Although we weren't too happy to be cold and drenched, it did bring a smile to my face when we realised that Germany wore white. Fortunately the rain ceased by kick-off.

Anyways, enough of that, after a relatively clumsy start to the match, the second half lit up and the goal celebrations came thick and fast. The final result was Germany 3-1, but it was much closer than that and had Figo started, who knows how it may have turned out.

With the final whistle the party moved into full swing. Dancing and singing, lead on by the resident DJ and to finish the night we moved onto Sachsenhausen to drink apfelwine and pilsners and share in the celebrations.

Berlin Berlin

After a hectic schedule with consecutive days travel to Gelsenkirchen, Dortmund, London, Hanover and back to Frankfurt, we decided to take it slow for a couple of days to watch the quarterfinal matches at local bars around Frankfurt. This gave us some much needed recovery time and a chance to plan our next escapade. We decided that we really needed to see Berlin and the infamous Fan Mile that everyone was talking about.

In the end wedecided to try and cram it int0 a day trip. We arrived at the main Haupbahnhof in Berlin which is the most amazing train station I have ever seen.

Adidas were running World of Football during the world cup which showed matches on the big screen in the stadium, but also promoted concerts, like Black Eyed Peas and James Blunt during the championship.

This is the German Parliment building that was rebuilt after the war. We went inside and up to the observation level which provides a pretty sweet view over Berlin.

One thing that immediately stuck us about Berlin was the cool and funky architecture. There are many quirky sculptures, grand monuments, interesting buildings and clever design everywhere.
The Berlin Fan Fest is huge. It literally is a mile long and took us a good 20 mins to walk its lenght.

The Brandenberg gates was most impressive, though I did think it was a shame that I couldn't get a full shot of it because there were trucks and vans blocking the view and a bunch of Worldcup sponsor advertising.

The 6 or so hours we spent wandering around the fan fest and immediate surrounding area just weren't enough to see what Berlin had to offer. Hopefully I'll get another chance soon.

Wimbledon

For the first time in 3 weeks, there was no football, so we took the opportunity to escape to London. After a morning flight I met up with my old mate, Gavin. He'd taken the day off work to meet me and we drank away the afternoon reminiscing about the good old days and seeing what each of us had been upto in the years since we'd last met.

Gav, lives near London Bridge so these are some tourist pics of the old bridge and the surrounding sights.

I made my way out to Wimbledon the next morning and took my place in the queue. I spent about 4.5 hours waiting in line, but to the LTA's credit the wait passed quite quickly. The stewards were friendly and everyone observed the queue etiquette outlined in the booklet I received along with my queue number.

Finally I made it inside and it was pretty awesome. I couldn't believe how close I was to the action. Just walking around the packed grounds was exciting.

I got to see some good players and was sitting front row, I could almost reach out and touch them. The better known players I saw included, Sebastien Grosjean, Nicole Vaidisova, Dinara Safina and Ivan Ljubicic. I also caught the end of an entertaining doubles match between 2 Russian girls I'd never heard of before and 2 Jap girls Aiko Nakamura and Akiko Morigami (went 8-6 in the final set to the Russians).

A ground access pass is great, I found myself going from court to court after just a couple of games to see what was happening on the next court. I will definitely come back and try to get into the show courts with a grandstand ticket.

Here is my strawberries and cream. It tasted alright, but I was expecting alittle more...

The big screen, aka Henman Hill is where it happens if you cant get into the stadium courts, Andy Murray was playing so there was plenty of atmosphere today.

Thanks to Gav and Tam for putting me up for a couple of nights. I hope I can come back, your friends were really cool and I loved the vegetarian based Pho.