Saturday, June 17, 2006:
We arrived in Nuremberg around 2:30 p.m., in time to walk through the masses of English fans that were partying right by the Tourist information center outside the train station. Today is the first time we see the presence of police, which at the time was not surprising since it appeared the English had pretty much taken over the city center.
The tourist info center helped us reserve a room in a nearby town, so we trekked it there on a S-Bahn and were checked in by 4:00. Since the game was at 6:00, we hurriedly got back to the main train station to switch to the correct train to get to the stadium.
Side note: We don't have room reserves anywhere. Our goal is to look for doubles and hope it has a couch or soft floor, checking in as two people and trying to get the third guy in without the hotel noticing.
On this night, we showed up and the lady saw all three us...we talked her into letting us keep the three for an additional 15 Euros.
We get the station, grab a quick ham and cheese croissant, and got up to the platform, which was crazy full of English fans, and maybe a couple from Trinidad. We crowded ourselves on the S-Bahn which was going directly to the stadium. The English fans were in full game mode - chanting, singing, dancing to their own songs. It was a site, though since the train was so full you could pretty much only hear and see them when they jumped. At one point, the train stopped while the one in front unloaded, at which point the temperature in our car ridiculously hot. When the doors opened it felt like we were walking out into air conditioning.
On our short walk to the stadium we realized this would again be something special. Our seats were in row 1 of the second deck, even with the 18-yard box, about 40 feet from the ground. In other words, excellent seats.
The white England flags were everywhere, wrapped all along the railings and anywhere they could hang it from. Surprisingly there was two corners filled with a few thousand Trinidad fans, but the stadium was 90 percent behind England who were loud and unified. There were 5-6 people in the section above with horns, drums, etc that started cheer after cheer, and the rest of the stadium seemed to follow. It was an impressive display that any sports fan would appreciate.
The game was scoreless at the 80th minute, so the nerves of the crowd were being felt. I'm sure it was unacceptable for England to lose again, and again they had gone without a goal. Wayne Rooney had come in to a thunderous ovation, and you almost felt it was scripted that he'd score. David Beckham sent in cross after cross - perfectly placed - but no one could finish. Finally, the 6'7" giant Peter Crouch gets to one and the place goes nuts...nuts!! We were amazed by the fans, and the chants will be better described in person - but the Ennnn-gerrr-lund, ennn-gerrr-lund, engerlund chants is still ringing.
We headed to Fan Fest to watch the Sweden game and ran into the U.S. ABC on air guys...they look exhausted but are hammering away.
Clint and I start drinking as we watched the band on stage and talked about the game we just saw. Dani decided to go back to the hotel but Clint and I stayed, parking ourselves on a spot on an outdoor patio and then making room for some Croatian fans to join us. The night ended late, and the trains weren't running, so we took a taxi and tried our best to explain where we needed to go.
We woke up about 4 hours later, and as we prepared to leave Clint realizes he's lost his wallet. As a well-planned traveler, he had split his stuff, and though he lost a credit card, ATM card, and a small amount of cash, he had other cash, credit cards, game tickets, passport, in another pocket. So the inconvenience is minor to what could have been worse.
We board a train to Frankfurt, then switch to one heading to Mannheim, before switching to the one that got us to Kaiserslautern - where we're going to watch the USA vs Italy game. My dumbass buys decides to buy some fruit at the station, and as I reach the platform realize I don't have my wallet. I run back down and the cashier had found it and returned it to me. Crazy how things work sometimes.
It was a cool train ride in to Kaiserslautern - in the middle of large tree covered hills, passing small towns with red-roof houses. It was exactly what we've imagined of Germany.
We arrive right at 3:00 pm - which is the time the Argentina ass-whooping of Serbia began, which we watched at the Fan Fest. It's over by halftime as Argentina was already up 3-0.
Our plan here was to meet up with Clint's buddy Mike, who he went to college with in Maine. Mike's parents live near Kaiserslautern, which has a huge U.S. presence because of the military base. Mike was supposed to get here this morning, except he didn't make it out of Newark...now we're hoping he can arrive through London in time for the game. So Bill, Mike's dad, who came with us to the US-Czech game - picked us up at the Fest after the Argentina game and brought us to their house in the countryside. We ate a good meal, slept like kings, and pretty much caught up on rest.
Anyway, the US team is staying here at the Ramstein military base. There are a ton of American fans here and we'll be down to the center to see them soon. We need this game. Tomorrow, we take a 5 hour trip to Leipzig to watch France v Korea - Zidane's last game? Hopefully we can watch it with the thought that the next US game is important.
