Cologne and the USA/German Match

June 10^th

In the morning we left the apartment for the train station, Brian had to run some errands so I went along by myself and met him at the station.  We bought some crescent rolls and made it just in time to catch our train to Cologne.  I slept for most of our train ride and Brian had to wake me up when we had arrived. 

The Rhine

The first thing you see when exiting the Cologne train station is the Cologne Cathedral; a very beautiful and tall structure that somehow survived all the bombings during WWII even though everything else was pretty much demolished.  Brian and I walked to our hotel about a block away to drop off our bags so we could explore a bit before Irene arrived later to meet up with us.  With the soccer game taking place that night Brian had some friends (that he has met during his journalism gigs) that were in the area covering the game for Major League Soccer and wanted to take a break and meet with us for some lunch.  We enjoyed a relaxing lunch outside at a nice café and I learned about the world of journalism and reporting, more in particular in the soccer world.  It is very cool knowing that Brian is one of only a handful of soccer journalists reporting on European soccer for US magazines.  Later we parted ways as they had to get back to work and Brian and I found a nice restaurant along the Rhine River and drank the local beer called Kolsch for the remainder of the afternoon.

Pre-game Party

Irene had arrived while Brian and I waited for her in our hotel room.  It was now time to put on our US soccer jerseys and head to the stadium to first have some festivities with soccer fans before entering for the game.  Of course when we arrived me drank more Kolsch beer and met with Brians friends again to talk a little bit about the game we were about to see; predicted to be a very good match. 

Since we bought our tickets on an online German website we were seated in the German fan section, but since this was just a friendly match we knew it would be a family friendly game.  We enjoyed a couple of brats and drank some more beer as the program show commenced.  I don’t know if you watched the game or not so I will summarize briefly.  The US team came out slow in the first 20 minutes and allowed the Germans many opportunities to score and then an early goal.  But the US finally woke up and scored, tying the game by halftime.  The US came out strong in the second half and were rewarded with a goal late in the game with only minutes to go.  The German fans were a bit upset to say the least.  We exited the stadium and proceeded to the after party and drank more beers with many other US fans and joined in celebrating the victory of defeating the defending world champions.  I greatly enjoyed this victory but also in sharing this moment with my family.

Myself, Brian and Irene

Tomorrow we spend some more time exploring Cologne before departing for Hamburg.