World Cup 2006

Working for a World Cup sponsor has it's perks, I was able to buy tickets :-) Ten of us headed to Germany. We flew into Frankfurt and met a few friends who had just arrived from the states. We got on a train to Kaiserslautern. Our hotel was a few miles from the stadium. We took a rest and then headed back to town, the fan fest was amazing in this small town, with a huge screen, fake sandy beach, palapa's and many bars. The stadium is right in the small town, we walked up to it through the forest and up many steps. I can't explain the vibe inside the stadium, it was like no other major sporting event i've been to. It was a draw for USA and Italy, wow now knowing the end result the USA could have won the world cup ;-)
The next morning we took a train to Munich. We had 3 days there with no agenda. We immediately went to the Haufbrahaus where anytime someone started to chant U-S-A the Brazilians and Aussies boo-ed like maniacs. We filled ourselves with beer and pretzels then found ourselves at Sexyland. Yes it is what it sounds like - don't ask. The next morning we did a bike tour through Mike's Bike Tours. It was great to see so many historic and beautiful parts of the city. The best part was biking through English Garden and stopping at the beer garden there. Afterwards we stopped along the river and most of the tour went for a small rapid ride. We actually bumped into one of my work friends from London walking through the garden that day and made plans to meet up later that night. That night we hit up the Augustiner for dinner and had a proper German dinner. Of course this whole time Munich is covered in giant big screen TVs so we are watching football the whole time. After dinner we made our way to the Augustiner beer garden which was about a 20 minute walk. It's a huge garden hidden in the trees with several big screens and a mass of picnic tables. We spent a lot of time in this garden and watched several games there, it was great fun. That first night after Spain v Tunisia we were sitting around and felt a raindrop. Literally the next raindrop was about 20,000 of them at once - an instant downpour onto us. People scrambled for the trees. One couple sat at their picnic table under their umbrellas. The rain was a welcome break from the heat. The remainder of the trip was so spirited and fun, i've never seen anything like Argentina and/or Netherlands football fans. Incredible!