26 JUN - That da** ref ... (Day 19)
Today was a long and frustrating day. We didn't have to check-out of the hotel until 1PM which was nice. The match today wasn't until 5PM so we could hang-out at the hotel until it was time to go to the match.
Some unlucky soul left their WLAN unprotected so Rocco have been using that for the last 24 hours. This poor sap has to be thinking, "Da**, I thought this was supposed to HIGH speed access." At least I was able to update several more blog entries!
Since we were just at KL the other day for the Spain match, we knew what to expect concerning parking. It still doesn't change the fact that FIFA was planning on shuttling thousands of people from the stadium to a parking lot several kilometers away.
We were at the stadium WAY early, like 3 hours. It gave me plenty of time to read the second round program. I felt a little cheated which I should have expected. They kept ALL of the teams in the program not just the ones that made it to the knock-out round. They updated some of the articles at the beginning but not enough for another 10 euros.
Lemme tell buddy, we were in the BOONIES! I was surprised at how we could go from decent seats during the Italy v Ghana match to 6 rows from the top. It's a good thing I'm not a hemophiliac.
We seemed to be right in the middle of the Italy support section but there were some Australian fans around. They were the interesting ones to watch durinig the match.
I wasn't sure what this guy was going to do with a kangaroo wearing an Italian jersey and I'm not sure that I wanted to find out.
These chaps had a really unique way of support their team. They painted the face of a styrofoam head, gave it sunglasses and an Australia colors hat. They had a LOT of fun with this dumby. I'm not sure they noticed that it wasn't a realy girl. After as much beer as these guys probably drank, there probably wasn't much of a difference.
A side note about national anthems. It is VERY interesting to see which national teams actually know the words to their "national" anthem. Well, the Italians DEFINITELY know the words to their national anthem. Every fan was singing along. In fact, there is a section in their anthem where there are no words but they sang them ANYWAY. It was something like "bum bum bum ..." and then they had this really cool cheer at the end. I'm not sure that the author put in a cheer but it added some spice to the song. That's probably the only good thing that I have to say about the Italians today.
The match was reallyl fun to watch. The Australian team wasn't really an attacking team but their patience led to several shots on goal. Italy couldn't seem to get their stuff together enough to score a goal. No matter how many times they fell down, they just couldn't get that penalty kick .... until the end. It was complete and utter bullsh** that this match was decided by a PK. That ref was WAY out of line. There was already a game fixing scandal in the Italian league and I think it carried over here. After I saw the replay, there was no WAY that should have been a penalty kick. This Australian looked like I felt after such a terrible call.
At least we had the Aussies next to us help us feel better. It's hard not to look at guys wearing crazy p-funk hair and not laugh a little, at least on the inside.
In addition to Aussie costumes, they're songs are pretty funny too. We heard some Aussies singing "Your team is sh** but your pizza is good." I think this is a reference to the Italians.
The bus trip back to the parking lot was a little frustrating. For about the first 10 minutes, we were moving at the pace of the pedestrians because they insisted on walking in the middle of the d*** road. We made it back to the SUV and out of town with no problems though. It was kind of funny with the GPS though. For the World Cup, I'm sure that Germany put in some new roads and such. Well, it seems one of those areas was right around the parking lot at KL. According to the GPS, we were in the middle of the woods when it was apparent that we were on a paved road. At one point, we were even on a a completely different road. I'm glad the GPS lady can't curse us out or we would have had an ear-full.
Rocco and I made an agreement. I would drive half-way back to Weimar and then he would drive. Our bargain seemed to have slipped his mind. We stopped for some dinner on the way back. Rocco tried Leberkaese for the first time. He thought it was OK but really didn't care for the mustard. I'm glad he tried it. It's one of my favorites. Anyway, good ol' Knuckles got to drive back to Weimar. It was alright though it was only another 2 hours from the rest stop. We got back just in time to hear the Swiss lose to Ukraine in penalty kicks. Boy, the Swiss keeper is TERRIBLE.
Ready for a couple days downtime,
Knuckles
Some unlucky soul left their WLAN unprotected so Rocco have been using that for the last 24 hours. This poor sap has to be thinking, "Da**, I thought this was supposed to HIGH speed access." At least I was able to update several more blog entries!
Since we were just at KL the other day for the Spain match, we knew what to expect concerning parking. It still doesn't change the fact that FIFA was planning on shuttling thousands of people from the stadium to a parking lot several kilometers away.
We were at the stadium WAY early, like 3 hours. It gave me plenty of time to read the second round program. I felt a little cheated which I should have expected. They kept ALL of the teams in the program not just the ones that made it to the knock-out round. They updated some of the articles at the beginning but not enough for another 10 euros.
Lemme tell buddy, we were in the BOONIES! I was surprised at how we could go from decent seats during the Italy v Ghana match to 6 rows from the top. It's a good thing I'm not a hemophiliac.
We seemed to be right in the middle of the Italy support section but there were some Australian fans around. They were the interesting ones to watch durinig the match.
I wasn't sure what this guy was going to do with a kangaroo wearing an Italian jersey and I'm not sure that I wanted to find out.
These chaps had a really unique way of support their team. They painted the face of a styrofoam head, gave it sunglasses and an Australia colors hat. They had a LOT of fun with this dumby. I'm not sure they noticed that it wasn't a realy girl. After as much beer as these guys probably drank, there probably wasn't much of a difference.
A side note about national anthems. It is VERY interesting to see which national teams actually know the words to their "national" anthem. Well, the Italians DEFINITELY know the words to their national anthem. Every fan was singing along. In fact, there is a section in their anthem where there are no words but they sang them ANYWAY. It was something like "bum bum bum ..." and then they had this really cool cheer at the end. I'm not sure that the author put in a cheer but it added some spice to the song. That's probably the only good thing that I have to say about the Italians today.
The match was reallyl fun to watch. The Australian team wasn't really an attacking team but their patience led to several shots on goal. Italy couldn't seem to get their stuff together enough to score a goal. No matter how many times they fell down, they just couldn't get that penalty kick .... until the end. It was complete and utter bullsh** that this match was decided by a PK. That ref was WAY out of line. There was already a game fixing scandal in the Italian league and I think it carried over here. After I saw the replay, there was no WAY that should have been a penalty kick. This Australian looked like I felt after such a terrible call.
At least we had the Aussies next to us help us feel better. It's hard not to look at guys wearing crazy p-funk hair and not laugh a little, at least on the inside.
In addition to Aussie costumes, they're songs are pretty funny too. We heard some Aussies singing "Your team is sh** but your pizza is good." I think this is a reference to the Italians.
The bus trip back to the parking lot was a little frustrating. For about the first 10 minutes, we were moving at the pace of the pedestrians because they insisted on walking in the middle of the d*** road. We made it back to the SUV and out of town with no problems though. It was kind of funny with the GPS though. For the World Cup, I'm sure that Germany put in some new roads and such. Well, it seems one of those areas was right around the parking lot at KL. According to the GPS, we were in the middle of the woods when it was apparent that we were on a paved road. At one point, we were even on a a completely different road. I'm glad the GPS lady can't curse us out or we would have had an ear-full.
Rocco and I made an agreement. I would drive half-way back to Weimar and then he would drive. Our bargain seemed to have slipped his mind. We stopped for some dinner on the way back. Rocco tried Leberkaese for the first time. He thought it was OK but really didn't care for the mustard. I'm glad he tried it. It's one of my favorites. Anyway, good ol' Knuckles got to drive back to Weimar. It was alright though it was only another 2 hours from the rest stop. We got back just in time to hear the Swiss lose to Ukraine in penalty kicks. Boy, the Swiss keeper is TERRIBLE.
Ready for a couple days downtime,
Knuckles
posted by jprg4evr at 9:04 AM
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