(Originally posted June 9, 2006)
We made it!
After an 8-hour flight where Robert slept most of the way and I was too excited to sleep, we arrived in Germany just after 8 a.m. (2 a.m. Detroit time).
There were fewer people wearing soccer jerseys on the plane they we expected: a few Mexico fans and a father and son wearing Serbia gear. Also, there were some strange old men all wearing old-fashioned German hats (we forget what they are called) with feathers in them. I bet they had lieder hosen underneath.
When we arrived at the airport, we heard our names being called over the intercom. Our driver Steven met us at the Frankfurt airport with sign with our names on it. How cool is that! We are soccer rock stars! He drove us around Frankfurt (we had to drop off another fellow Soccer Travel passenger) and then around Cologne (where we will be based).
The German countryside looks a lot like Wisconsin (thick forest, rolling hills) and if you weren’t paying attention you wouldn’t even know you were in another country. We saw a bunch of McDonald’s along the road.
Still, we quickly learned Germany’s reputation for fast freeways is no exaggeration. Our driver quickly revved his Mercedes up to 200 kph. (What is that in mph, anyway?) I found the fast speed soothing and conked out the whole way to Cologne.
We checked into our lovely hotel and quickly found a Starbucks a block away to get some caffeine and relax. We had to wait for our room to be ready, so we’ll be heading back to hotel after some lunch to shower and unpack and back out to find a pub to watch the opening match.
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