The Adventures of Josip & Melanie

I still could not believe that we were actually going to watch a World Cup match in Stuttgart, Germany. I applied a while ago for tickets but had no luck then was put on a waiting list and we ended up getting tickets to 3^rd place play off. Even though we were not going to watch Australia or Croatia we were still really excited and happy to be watching Germany, the home team play Portugal. We found some private accommodation which turned out to be close to the train, city and stadium and Ralf the Guy who lived there was extremely cool.

We went and checked out the main town square and the football fan fest. On the day of the match the atmosphere was awesome. The match started at 8pm but there were thousands of people all dressed up, drinking beer and being noisy from early on in the day. As the match time approached there were just so many people about, it was absolutely awesome. Josip and I got all dressed up with our German face paint and our Flags over our shoulders. Josip loved it here, he loves the way German people speak as he thinks it sounds grunty and the food was as equally pleasing.

One thing I noticed about Germany was that so many Croatians actually lived here in Stuttgart. When we went to pick up our world cup tickets the guy working there asked if we were Croatian as he was too. Also at the actual match there were so many people wearing Croatian team jerseys, so Josip did not feel out of place. The match was amazing the atmosphere and the ambience of the crowd is difficult to explain in actual words but I am sure you will get more of a feel from the pictures. Well the home team won, final score was Germany 3 – 1 Portugal which everyone was pretty pleased about including us. People were going crazy for hours after the match people were tooting their horns until all hours of the morning.

The next day we were gearing up for the final match which of course you all now know that Italy won. Well we ate so much food that day German food does involve a lot of meat and potatoes but the Turkish kebabs and Italian food were also fantastic. Check out the size of that mans Kebab! Even though it was lamb which I don’t usually eat, it was fantastic to taste real garlic sauce again not the mayonnaise crap they have in London. Anyway the Final day was much quieter than the day before but as there is a large Italian community here the place was full of many Italians and their sexy mullet hair styles.

We had fun that night Ralf and his nice friends invited us to a beer garden where we watched the Final match. Josip and I were pretty drunk from all the German beer we were drinking. Josip’s wallet was just about to fall out of his back pocket without him noticing. When a lovely local came up to him to let him know. As you can probably tell I was not going for the Italian team but France kind of suck as well. Both teams and their supporters have egos the size of Mount Everest so either way we were doomed.

Germans I think have a reputation for being boring they are not at all boring or rude, maybe a little reserved but very polite. So next time we will have to make our way to Bavaria and have some fun with the Germans. Be warned that Germans are super recyclers and we even got told off by a local for throwing some cardboard in the wrong bin. However on the upside every plastic cup used at the World Cup when returned for recycling gives you 2 Euro! A bit better than the 5 cents you get in Australia. The world cup was fun while it lasted but now we all have to wait another 4 years to see how our socceroos will do.