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Lightning in K-Town, fireworks in Nuremberg
June 25th, 2006
This morning I checked out of my hotel in Frankfurt having found myself a
new base for the next three days.
I didn't want to be too far from Kaiserslautern as tomorrow I will return
there for Italy v Australia. I couldn't get a room in K-Town (which is
what Aussies are calling Kaiserslautern at the moment) but I found one in
nearby Ludwigshafen.
If you've never heard of Ludwigshafen, don't feel too embarrassed. I like
to think that I'm a geography expert but until 48 hours ago, I hadn't
heard of it either.
It's near Mannheim (which I did know) but on the opposite bank of the
Rhine River. The two cities face each other but are separate. They're also
in different states. Mannheim is in Baden-Württemberg while Ludwigshafen
(like K-Town) is in Rheinland-Pfalz (and somehow the English equivalent of
that is Rhineland-Palatinate - which sounds like a character from Star
Wars).
Ulm has a similar arrangement. It's in Baden-Württemberg and on the other
side of the Danube River you have Neu Ulm - in Bavaria.
Anyway, there's nothing else I can tell you about Ludwigshafen yet, except
that a train ride from here to K-Town takes less than an hour.
While I've been in Europe, I have had only one criterion when it comes to
hotel selection - the main train station has to be nearby. When you're
returning from another city in the middle of the night, the last thing you
want is to have to use other transport or walk through unfamiliar places.
The hotel I booked in Ludwigshafen is so close to the main train station
that I could actually see it from the train before it stopped. Nice.
After checking in, I went straight to K-town to get my ticket for
tomorrow's match. I hold vouchers for the round of 16, quarter finals,
semi finals, and the Final but they do not grant you entry to a match.
Only a ticket gets you into a game and I can only exchange these vouchers
for tickets if Australia is playing. This is another reason for you to
support the Socceroos, folks. I'll be able to report to you from the World
Cup Final if the Aussies make it.
The ticket exchange was a few kilometres out of K-Town's centre. Even
though the heat returned today, I decided to walk because, as it was
Sunday, the bus to the ticket exchange only ran once an hour (and if you
remember what happened on my last day in Rotterdam you'll understand why I
didn't wait for a bus). Besides, I had a good map, one and a half litres
of water, and most of the journey was down one main road.
It was my lucky day because, after getting the precious ticket into my
money belt, a bus arrived to take me back to the city centre and I settled
into a café just in time to watch England v Ecuador.
After that match ended, I thought I'd buy some souvenirs - it would have
been better carrying them around today. But then K-town was hit by a
fierce storm and thunder, lightning, and a shower of hailstones forced
everyone off the streets. I waited for about 30 minutes hoping that it
would stop but then conceded that I would have to walk through the storm
to get back to the main train station. (But that's ok, I held my head up
high and I wasn't afraid of the dark. At the end of the storm, there's a
golden sky...)
OK enough of that. In fact there was no golden sky - the storm continued
all night. I was treated to a fantastic display of lightning from the bar
on the top floor of my hotel in Ludwigshafen. Three sides of the room are
all window and it provided a unique background while I watched the
fireworks from Nuremberg with a few other patrons.
I'm bitterly disappointed about the result of the Portugal v Netherlands
match and I'm tempted to indulge in an anti-Portugal rant.
I really don't like the way Portugal's players conduct themselves at
times. Against the Netherlands, they displayed some of the terrible
behaviour that we saw in Korea four years ago.
You have some good players, Portugal. Why can't you just play football
without feigning injury, surrounding referees, and committing cynical
fouls?
Tomorrow, it's back to K-town again. Can you believe that it'll be the
fourth time I visit the city? I will also have attended 60% (3 out of 5)
of all the matches played at the Fritz Walter Stadium in this World Cup.
But I'm not nervous - not as I was when Australia played Croatia. The
Socceroos have already achieved what most of their fans realistically
hoped for. Anything more is a bonus.
Nevertheless, I still want this story to continue. The green and gold army
is having the time of its life in Germany. Why should we stop now?
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