More World Cup Madness

I watched the Holland-Ivory Coast game the other day, it was playing in Stuttgart. Of course, since Germany wasn't playing, the atmosphere was not nearly as intense as other games i have been too, but I still enjoyed myself.

I tip my hat to the Dutch fans, they absolutely flooded Stuttgart.



Although they can be quite loud and obnoxious when they get a few beers in them, I have to stick up for my peeps, no matter what.

Controlled Chaos in Stuttgart

Yesterday was intense. Germany played Poland, and scored with less than a couple minutes left in extra time. It was only a qualifying game, but the streets erupted. I have never seen such chaos before, with the exception of the Woodstock 99 riots (which were also very exciting).

I've found some cool movies about the madness here, this first one is of the opening game as seen in Stuttgart. I was present for this one, the energy was intoxicating. Check it out



Here's another one of the first game actually played in Stuttgart, it was France vs Switzerland, and the fans were awesome. The game actually sucked, they tied 0-0, but again, the energy of the crowd makes up for any boring soccer, any day.



SOOO that's about it for now. It's been an amazing treat to be here for the worlds biggest event. Ive been told that somewhere in the range of 2 billion people tune in to watch these games. How awesome is that?

World Cup FEVER!

Well, it's begun. The World Cup 2006 in Germany. Im sure most of you have at least watched one game so far, even in a far away country who knows next to nothing about soccer (read: football) such as Canada.

In the big cities, they have screens and such set up so large amounts of people can crowd in and enjoy the atmosphere of being with tens of thousands of soccer fans yelling, screaming, and drinking their way to insanity. I was in the Stuttgart citycenter for the opening game. The only word i have to describe it...electric. Since Germany was playing, the germans were out in full force, and i loved every second of it. They say there was between 40,000-50,000 people in the center area, and the game wasn't even in Stuttgart.

One of the things I enjoyed most was finally seeing some German pride. Since the end of the war, being proud of being German was considered one of the worst things to do. Even until a couple years ago, you would never hear anyone here actually voicing that they are proud to be German. But at this game, the flags, the colours, and all the rest were out and flying. It was awesome to see, and be a part of.

I was just downtown, France is playing Switzerland in Stuttgart tonight, and I tell ya, Ive never seen more people down there drinking, laughing, and just generally eminating debauchery. I figure since both countries are both so close to Stuttgart, it was easy for many fans to drive in for the day.

Unfortunately, my camera broke a couple days ago, and it is being repaired. So herego, I dont have any pictures of the awesomeness on hand, but I will start to look into pictures that friends took, and post them up.

k, that's all for now, Im waiting in dire anticipation for the Holland game that will be played here on Friday. I will be downtown for sure sporting my orange and yelling like a buffoon.

Enjoy the great soccer!

La vita è bella and Birthday in Amsterdam

Just got back last night from a week driving around with my parents. It was a really good week. They're on the plane right now headed back for Toronto. Here's a recap of the week with pictures.

Milan was short, but amazing, I will be definitely going back. Not only did we manage to stay with some great hosts, but I had a great time in my brief visit. Their place was perfect, it was inside the city, yet green and closed off from the mad world. Of course, the food was fantastic. I tried to pinpoint what makes Italian food just so good. And, well, as i haven't been to the south yet, I cannot speak for it; but for the north all I have come up with is it's "simple, yet delicate". There's not much to it, but it's just prepared, or cooked, or whatever it is that they do, perfectly. We had some pizza the first night (of course) and had some great buffet the second night.

We then proceded to get lost in the Swiss Alps. Very daunting for the driver (moi!) but a great experience. It never occured to me how difficult it must be to builds roads and connect the towns amongst these huge mountains. So if the major highway is closed (as it was in this case), there is really only ONE way to go.

It involves many tight turns on a tiny road, climbing the alps, the tour buses gave me a chill as they gave about 5 cm clearance while passing. I would have liked to take more pictures, but i was driving, and i had bigger things to worry about, like death.

We stayed the night in Cologne, and had dinner with my old German exchange student, Kurt. My mom hadn't seen him in maybe 8 years, so she was most excited about it. But in any case, he's a premium dude, and it was great to see him.

Of course, Holland was great. Our first stop was in Sint Michelsgestel, the town where my dad was born (just a hop, skip, and a jump from Boxtel, my namesake). We went back to the house he was raised and just chilled out. I've been there before 9 years ago or so, but it was nice to go back. Then, as all trips to Holland demand, we hit Amsterdam. We rented some bikes, saw some sights, ate good food, and enjoyed the great nightlife. I even had my birthday on Wednesday in the A'dam. No better place to be on your birthday.

Well, Amsterdam was a mixture of chill and odd. We rode bikes through the park and up the winding confusing streets, saw the World Press Photo Exhibit at the Old Church, and I partied with a whole bunch of random people (to name a few, a couple Danes explaining that the Danish are good at nothing, except shipping; two groups of american first-timers in the coffeeshop; a persian dwarf named 'dada' --not kidding--, and some cool Dutch people). I would have liked to stay longer, but time did not allow.

A couple notes on travelling with parents:

--I think you're old when you stop always seeing your folks as lame, and just enjoy the company.

--It's nice to have all travel costs taken care of, Ive conditioned myself to be a cheap bastard on trips, just to make them feasible with my budget, but you can really put your feet up when the price of something isnt as big of an issue.

Oh yah, the World Cup starts today....oh dear lord...

The latest

ok... where to start?

My parents arrived on Friday afternoon, and I settled them into the hotel on campus. It was quite the deal, and they got a great breakfast included.

We then left early Saturday morning for Italy, and stayed with my good friend Annalisa in Milan. She was more hospitable and lovely than i could have ever asked for. Not only did she set me up with a bed and a great tour guide (well, herself) for the weekend, but she also let my parents sleep in her grandfathers apartment (who is away in a summer house), which is so much more than we expected. she was a sweetheart all the way.

We then drove to Cologne to see my German buddy Kurt. It was a bit shorter than we would have liked to stay but it was great to see him as always. On the way there, we got stuck in a detour in Switzerland as a major tunnel was closed. So we ended up taking this long, windy path that took us to the very top of some of the Alps, some 2100 m above sea level. I was driving, and it was probably he most stressful drive of my life. there were huge tourbuses winding their way around these thing roads, literally coming within cm's of our car. Luckily everything worked out in the end, as it always seems to do.

I am now in Amsterdam with the folks, and we are enjoying it thus far. I dont have much time. I will post pictures when i get back, either Friday or Saturday. But for thos who actually read this thing, this is what has been happening in my life recently.

Bierlauf Dinner

Last night two of the winning teams from the Bierlauf collected our prize; a big ass meal packed with anything one would want. It was a great night, with too much food, entirely too many pitchers of delicious german beer, and even more laughs.

Heres the group, minus Matt, who was on my team, he ended up getting drunk and jumped off a balcony that was entirely too high for him and broke his foot. Serves him right, i guess.


I wont go into details about the dinner, but it was as filling as a meal could get, this picture here is of two of the three platters that was served up to us throughout the night. It was wonderful. We ended up playing some drinking games for a few hours with the seemingly neverending pitchers; hell for less than $10 a pitcher, how could we resist? A cool part of the whole event is it made the Stuttgart Paper. The place that hosted the event had the article mounted and framed. Turns out, a large portion of the article was dedicated to our team and our lovely attire and strategy. I guess the immediate downing of two beers before we even got going was deemed newsworthy? I just think it was a slow news day. In any case, I got my name in a German newspaper, which is pretty funny, as it was for drinking.


But with drinking comes drunkeness...


Great times.

On a side note, my parents are flying in tomorrow and we will be galavanting around Italy and the Netherlands for a week. I can't wait to see them, it's been almost 6 months since I last saw them, so I'm really looking forward to this adventure. I'll be sure to blog about the good times along the way.