Free and Hansa-city Hamburg
Ok...this is one week late, but that's ok.
First off...Happy Father's Day! (And those of you who haven't called your father yet today should do that.)
Anyho! This weekend was action-packed and full of adventure. Ok. Perhaps that's a little bit of an exageration, but it sounds good. As the subject suggests, took a long weekend and traveled to Hamburg, but before I get into my adventures in the "Frei und Hansastadt Hamburg", we need a Fussball update. Wednesday night Germany played Poland. Since Poland lost their first game, they had to win to move on t
o the next round, and if Germany won, they were guaranteed to go on. My roommate and I decided to watch the game in Köln because we figured the atmosphere would be better. I should also mention that every city hosting World Cup games has a "Fan Fest" with a large screen for all of the fans to watch the game. The Fan Fest in Köln is located on a marketplace in the city center and really not all that big, so
when we arrived 15 minutes before kick-off there were already tens of thousands of people crowed around the screen. We managed to half-way watch the first half being bumped around in the crowd and decided to move into a largely empty pub to watch the second half. The game was largely boring. Half-time score
0-0. Finally in the 89th minute Germany scores, and tens of thousands of fans to nuts. Then they were all disappointed when and offisdes was called, but it didn't matter because thirty seconds later Germany scored another goal (minute 91 or so) with no offsides call and the game was shortly thereafter finished. Here's a photo of the celebration after the goal.
Meanwhile the German fans were out on the street with flags celebrating and singing. Someone pointed out that with the way they were celebrating they could've just won the final. What was even more surprising for me was that there were people celebrating in Bonn, driving around with flags, honking their horn. Bonn tends to be rather dead, so I was amazed to see such excitement.
Anyho! That was a rather long description of one game, but whatever. Thursday morning I headed up to Hamburg, met up with my host (the brother of a coworker), and headed out into the town. Hamburg is definitely not the most beautiful of German cities when it comes to buildings and landscape, but it does sit on the Elbe river, which provides the water for Europe's second largest harbor. Thursday afternoon I headed to the center to see the Town Hall and walked a ways around the Alaster, a large man-made lake. Then I headed to an old church, which was not terribly exciting.
Afterwards I headed to the Hamburg Fan Fest, which is located in a large park and thereby larger than Köln's. Ever country participating has a stand set up selling fod typical of that country. I watched most of the England vs. Trinidad-Tobago. England won, but Trinidad and Tobago also did very well.
Friday the weather turned crappy. Cold, rainy, and cloudy. I took a boat tour through the harbor, the size of which you can't appreciate from the mainland. It's really cool. It was like a garden of colorful cranes, and sometimes one of the cranes would even deposit a colorful box onto one of the huge ships. I now appreciate that the "big" ships that float down the Rhine are actually not so big. Anyho! The boat tour was a nice touristy activity. Afterwards I wandered through the "Speicherstadt", the world's largest contigious warehouse complex or some such. Then I wandered more thro
ugh the city center to a gothic-style church that was bombed during World War II and now is a anti-war monument.
Afternoonish I headed back to the Fan Fest for more soccor. The early evening agame was the Netherlands against the Ivory Coast. Probably the best game I've seen so far as far as skill and excitement goes. The Ivoroy Coast needed to beat Holland to go on. Sadly they didn't. Too bad really. They deserved to go to the next round but had bad luck and ended up in the "Hammer group", meaning the strongest of the eight.
After the soccor game I headed over to a Folk Fest in Altona, the part of Hamburg where my host lived. It was a cute little fair. The unfortunte weather continued into Saturday, but undaughnted I borrowed his bike and took a little trip along the Elbe. It was the first time I'd ridden a bike since September, and the first time I've ever had to pay attention to traffic rules that don't apply to pedestrians. Despite the weather I enjoyed the trip. I met up with my host in the afternoon for a quick visit to an art museum, and then we rode up to the top of the bombed church for a birds-eye-view of the top. At this point it was almost soccer time, so we
headed to the fan fest. Saturday's matches were very important, namely the teams from US's group. The 18:00 game was Ghana against the Czech Republic. Much to everyone's surprise and excitement (especially the Ghana fans), Ghana won 2-0. Ghana really kicked things up a notch and earned their win after their loss last week to Italy. The 21:00 game was the US against Italy and was by far the most attended show
ing in the Fan Fest. As you may imagine, there were easily ten times as many Italian fans as US fans, but there were some Germans who decided to cheer on the Ami's. Sadly the game itself was rather ugly. Neither side played particularly well (though teh US did play better than in the previous game), there were two red cards, several injuries, and our one goal was actually made by an Italian player. The whole
mess ended 1-1, which means it's still open as to which teams go on to the next round. On Thursday Italy plays the Czech Republic, and we play Ghana.
I must say. It's really a shame that the Americans don't pay more attention to the World Cup. It's such a great convergence of people from all over the world who party together and root for each other's teams. There are alot of Brazilian fans of course. In fact the second most common flag you see here in sto
res after Germany is Brazil. But there's also apparently a surprisely large number of fans supporting little Trinidad and Tobago. Being in the World Cup land is fun even if you don't get to go to a game. You're just so much more aware of it. You know when one game ends and the next begins. Every television in every pub and restaurant is switched to the game, so you can check up on the score as you walk around
the city. Some transit systems have even been posting the scores on the electronic message boards. I really hope Germany goes far, so the Germans stay in a good mood. But even when Germany's beated, I think many will just pick another team and celebrate anyway.
Here are some Hamburg photos:
Anyho. I guess that's all for now.
First off...Happy Father's Day! (And those of you who haven't called your father yet today should do that.)
Anyho! This weekend was action-packed and full of adventure. Ok. Perhaps that's a little bit of an exageration, but it sounds good. As the subject suggests, took a long weekend and traveled to Hamburg, but before I get into my adventures in the "Frei und Hansastadt Hamburg", we need a Fussball update. Wednesday night Germany played Poland. Since Poland lost their first game, they had to win to move on t
o the next round, and if Germany won, they were guaranteed to go on. My roommate and I decided to watch the game in Köln because we figured the atmosphere would be better. I should also mention that every city hosting World Cup games has a "Fan Fest" with a large screen for all of the fans to watch the game. The Fan Fest in Köln is located on a marketplace in the city center and really not all that big, so
when we arrived 15 minutes before kick-off there were already tens of thousands of people crowed around the screen. We managed to half-way watch the first half being bumped around in the crowd and decided to move into a largely empty pub to watch the second half. The game was largely boring. Half-time score
0-0. Finally in the 89th minute Germany scores, and tens of thousands of fans to nuts. Then they were all disappointed when and offisdes was called, but it didn't matter because thirty seconds later Germany scored another goal (minute 91 or so) with no offsides call and the game was shortly thereafter finished. Here's a photo of the celebration after the goal.
Meanwhile the German fans were out on the street with flags celebrating and singing. Someone pointed out that with the way they were celebrating they could've just won the final. What was even more surprising for me was that there were people celebrating in Bonn, driving around with flags, honking their horn. Bonn tends to be rather dead, so I was amazed to see such excitement.
Anyho! That was a rather long description of one game, but whatever. Thursday morning I headed up to Hamburg, met up with my host (the brother of a coworker), and headed out into the town. Hamburg is definitely not the most beautiful of German cities when it comes to buildings and landscape, but it does sit on the Elbe river, which provides the water for Europe's second largest harbor. Thursday afternoon I headed to the center to see the Town Hall and walked a ways around the Alaster, a large man-made lake. Then I headed to an old church, which was not terribly exciting.
Afterwards I headed to the Hamburg Fan Fest, which is located in a large park and thereby larger than Köln's. Ever country participating has a stand set up selling fod typical of that country. I watched most of the England vs. Trinidad-Tobago. England won, but Trinidad and Tobago also did very well.
Friday the weather turned crappy. Cold, rainy, and cloudy. I took a boat tour through the harbor, the size of which you can't appreciate from the mainland. It's really cool. It was like a garden of colorful cranes, and sometimes one of the cranes would even deposit a colorful box onto one of the huge ships. I now appreciate that the "big" ships that float down the Rhine are actually not so big. Anyho! The boat tour was a nice touristy activity. Afterwards I wandered through the "Speicherstadt", the world's largest contigious warehouse complex or some such. Then I wandered more thro
ugh the city center to a gothic-style church that was bombed during World War II and now is a anti-war monument.
Afternoonish I headed back to the Fan Fest for more soccor. The early evening agame was the Netherlands against the Ivory Coast. Probably the best game I've seen so far as far as skill and excitement goes. The Ivoroy Coast needed to beat Holland to go on. Sadly they didn't. Too bad really. They deserved to go to the next round but had bad luck and ended up in the "Hammer group", meaning the strongest of the eight.
After the soccor game I headed over to a Folk Fest in Altona, the part of Hamburg where my host lived. It was a cute little fair. The unfortunte weather continued into Saturday, but undaughnted I borrowed his bike and took a little trip along the Elbe. It was the first time I'd ridden a bike since September, and the first time I've ever had to pay attention to traffic rules that don't apply to pedestrians. Despite the weather I enjoyed the trip. I met up with my host in the afternoon for a quick visit to an art museum, and then we rode up to the top of the bombed church for a birds-eye-view of the top. At this point it was almost soccer time, so we
headed to the fan fest. Saturday's matches were very important, namely the teams from US's group. The 18:00 game was Ghana against the Czech Republic. Much to everyone's surprise and excitement (especially the Ghana fans), Ghana won 2-0. Ghana really kicked things up a notch and earned their win after their loss last week to Italy. The 21:00 game was the US against Italy and was by far the most attended show
ing in the Fan Fest. As you may imagine, there were easily ten times as many Italian fans as US fans, but there were some Germans who decided to cheer on the Ami's. Sadly the game itself was rather ugly. Neither side played particularly well (though teh US did play better than in the previous game), there were two red cards, several injuries, and our one goal was actually made by an Italian player. The whole
mess ended 1-1, which means it's still open as to which teams go on to the next round. On Thursday Italy plays the Czech Republic, and we play Ghana.
I must say. It's really a shame that the Americans don't pay more attention to the World Cup. It's such a great convergence of people from all over the world who party together and root for each other's teams. There are alot of Brazilian fans of course. In fact the second most common flag you see here in sto
res after Germany is Brazil. But there's also apparently a surprisely large number of fans supporting little Trinidad and Tobago. Being in the World Cup land is fun even if you don't get to go to a game. You're just so much more aware of it. You know when one game ends and the next begins. Every television in every pub and restaurant is switched to the game, so you can check up on the score as you walk around
the city. Some transit systems have even been posting the scores on the electronic message boards. I really hope Germany goes far, so the Germans stay in a good mood. But even when Germany's beated, I think many will just pick another team and celebrate anyway.
Here are some Hamburg photos:
Anyho. I guess that's all for now.
posted by laura s at 11:51 AM
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