30 JUN - Last Match (Day 23)
This has been one of those LONG days, far longer than your standard 24 hours.
First, I had to pick-up my laundry. I only brought 7 days of clothes so it is necessary to laundry occasionally or I am going to have to test the hypothesis of turning your underwear inside-out. I give this theory a very low success factor, less than 10:1. I must say that I have developed a very good method of quick and efficient entry/exit of a hotel. I have 2 laundry bags, one has clean clothes and the other holds dirty clothes. Each day when we check-in to a hotel, I grab a new set of clothes for the next day and I deposit the previous day's clothes into the dirty clothes bag. This way I don't have to drag my entire suitcase into the hotel. I only drag my backpack with my laptop, toiletries and clothes. Simple.
Now, we were ready for Hamburg. It takes 5 hours to drive from Weimar to Hamburg. WE didn't have any spectacular adventures although it turns out that Zaccheus and Tah-Dah did.
Those two arrived at O'Hare 18:00 and their flight was at 21:00. That should be plenty of time to check-in and prepare for their flight. It turned out not to be that simple. Their tickets were printed by United Airlines but they were on a Lufthanse flight. They were a little confused so they asked a United Airlines employee who promptly pointed them to the United Airlines line. They waited in line for almost 2 hours to be told that they were in the wrong line and had to go to Lufthanse which they did. As they were waiting in line at the Lufthanse counter, the clerks stopped checking people into the flight because their policy is to stop check-in 30 minutes before the flight. This left 20-30 people standing in line at Lufthanse with valid tickets. Zaccheus was FURIOUS since it was the airlines that screwed-up, not her. Once she finally got to speak with a Lufthanse agent, she was so irate that they threatened to call the police. It's funny now to think about my sister, Zaccheus, being loaded into a police car with her hands cuffed. She would probably pull an Axel Rose and spit at the reporters, kick the cop and then jump into the police car.
We were hearing all this as we were driving to Hamburg. It minimized the boredom of the drive at least. Once we checked in in Bendestorf (outside of Hamburg), we met with our friends there. Rocco and Svea went to a pub in Jesteburg (down the road from Bendestorf) and I stayed with Gustal and Angelica to watch the Germany game. This game was VERY exciting and it was even more exciting watching it with Germans. Every time the Argentinians got near the goal, Geli walked out of the room. She couldn't handle the pressure. Of course, spirits were a little low when Argentina scored but a German goal quickly restored confidence. Once Germany won on penalty kicks, the party started. Gustal and I started to drive into Hamburg for the Italy v Ukraine match. As were driving in Bendestorf, EVERYONE was in the streets shouting and waving flags. It was awesome to witness.
We got to the stadium in record time, not because Gustal drove fast but because he knew the back ways to the stadium. He even convinced a cop to let us park on a blocked street. We were only about 1/2 km from the stadium which was awesome.
The match was fun to watch but the Italians just overpowered the Ukrainians. We saw Italian goals righ in front of us. Since it was obvious that Italy was going to win, we left a few minutes early to beat the crowd to the parking lots. We drove to a nice Italian restaurant around the corner where we were meeting Rocco, Svea and Geli. There were rumors that the Italian national team was coming to that restaurant after the game. It was a good place to hang-out since there were a LOT of partying Italians there. Supposedly during the game, the wait staff was a little distracted by the game on the televisions. Pretty funny.
While we were having drinks, we got a call from Tah-Dah saying that they were going to land at 06:30 the next morning. The timeframes were a little difficult for Rocco and me. It was already 23:30 and the drive to Frankfurt is 5 hours. Rocco and I decided to go back to the hotel, grab our stuff and drive through the night to Frankfurt. We left some money under the door and hit the road.
Photos starting tomorrow, I promise!
Knuckles
First, I had to pick-up my laundry. I only brought 7 days of clothes so it is necessary to laundry occasionally or I am going to have to test the hypothesis of turning your underwear inside-out. I give this theory a very low success factor, less than 10:1. I must say that I have developed a very good method of quick and efficient entry/exit of a hotel. I have 2 laundry bags, one has clean clothes and the other holds dirty clothes. Each day when we check-in to a hotel, I grab a new set of clothes for the next day and I deposit the previous day's clothes into the dirty clothes bag. This way I don't have to drag my entire suitcase into the hotel. I only drag my backpack with my laptop, toiletries and clothes. Simple.
Now, we were ready for Hamburg. It takes 5 hours to drive from Weimar to Hamburg. WE didn't have any spectacular adventures although it turns out that Zaccheus and Tah-Dah did.
Those two arrived at O'Hare 18:00 and their flight was at 21:00. That should be plenty of time to check-in and prepare for their flight. It turned out not to be that simple. Their tickets were printed by United Airlines but they were on a Lufthanse flight. They were a little confused so they asked a United Airlines employee who promptly pointed them to the United Airlines line. They waited in line for almost 2 hours to be told that they were in the wrong line and had to go to Lufthanse which they did. As they were waiting in line at the Lufthanse counter, the clerks stopped checking people into the flight because their policy is to stop check-in 30 minutes before the flight. This left 20-30 people standing in line at Lufthanse with valid tickets. Zaccheus was FURIOUS since it was the airlines that screwed-up, not her. Once she finally got to speak with a Lufthanse agent, she was so irate that they threatened to call the police. It's funny now to think about my sister, Zaccheus, being loaded into a police car with her hands cuffed. She would probably pull an Axel Rose and spit at the reporters, kick the cop and then jump into the police car.
We were hearing all this as we were driving to Hamburg. It minimized the boredom of the drive at least. Once we checked in in Bendestorf (outside of Hamburg), we met with our friends there. Rocco and Svea went to a pub in Jesteburg (down the road from Bendestorf) and I stayed with Gustal and Angelica to watch the Germany game. This game was VERY exciting and it was even more exciting watching it with Germans. Every time the Argentinians got near the goal, Geli walked out of the room. She couldn't handle the pressure. Of course, spirits were a little low when Argentina scored but a German goal quickly restored confidence. Once Germany won on penalty kicks, the party started. Gustal and I started to drive into Hamburg for the Italy v Ukraine match. As were driving in Bendestorf, EVERYONE was in the streets shouting and waving flags. It was awesome to witness.
We got to the stadium in record time, not because Gustal drove fast but because he knew the back ways to the stadium. He even convinced a cop to let us park on a blocked street. We were only about 1/2 km from the stadium which was awesome.
The match was fun to watch but the Italians just overpowered the Ukrainians. We saw Italian goals righ in front of us. Since it was obvious that Italy was going to win, we left a few minutes early to beat the crowd to the parking lots. We drove to a nice Italian restaurant around the corner where we were meeting Rocco, Svea and Geli. There were rumors that the Italian national team was coming to that restaurant after the game. It was a good place to hang-out since there were a LOT of partying Italians there. Supposedly during the game, the wait staff was a little distracted by the game on the televisions. Pretty funny.
While we were having drinks, we got a call from Tah-Dah saying that they were going to land at 06:30 the next morning. The timeframes were a little difficult for Rocco and me. It was already 23:30 and the drive to Frankfurt is 5 hours. Rocco and I decided to go back to the hotel, grab our stuff and drive through the night to Frankfurt. We left some money under the door and hit the road.
Photos starting tomorrow, I promise!
Knuckles
posted by jprg4evr at 2:31 AM
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