France-tastic

Last week, I got to thinking... France, Germany, shared borders, fast trains, football, campervans... from all these seemingly disjointed ideas, I was able to come up with a stroke of genius! A quick swipe with the visa card across the computer and train tickets were procured on friday, and on sunday I went to Germany! For a very quick and very impromptu trip that unfortunately wasn't well planned enough to try to actually score any tickets, but was rather intended just to enjoy the atmosphere, eat some bratwurst and drink some large beers, laugh at the crazy outfits in all the colours of the worlds flags people had managed to put together, and bake in the summer heat in front of gigantic TV screens, and all of this came through like clockwork.

4 hours on the train from Paris to Cologne, and the biggest party in Europe this summer! The crowds were amazing, so much excitement, everyone was really happy to be there (I think it was still too early for the unavoidable disappointment to come for many!) and loads of people that we spoke to were just there to watch football and support everybody! It was funny, most people were loyal to their one country (we saw mostly Portugese, Germans and Swedes), but heaps of people were supporting everyone whose merchandise they could lay their hands on: Portugese shirt, german mohawk, paraguyan flag, dutch flags on the cheeks! Amazing! Even on the train the atmosphere had started, everyone was talking to everyone, and saying good luck to each others teams, even though everyone was supporting different teams.





In Cologne I met Camilla and Patrick who are spending the whole World Cup travelling around Germany in their campervan and on whose dining room table I slept for the next two days (well, it folds into a very nice bed!). A gorgeous two days were spent enjoying the atmosphere, the food, the beer and the sun - summer has now well and truly arrived in Europe, 30 degree days over the last week! Football wise, Australia certainly had a good start to their World Cup efforts and it was great to see the match in such fantastic atmosphere. Otherwise, it has been a bit of a disappointing start with Sweden drawing a game they really should have won and France also starting the competition off with a draw against Switzerland. But we'll see. It's early days yet, and there is still plenty of shouting and cheering to do.





On the way home from Germany, I had fly-by visit of Luxembourg as well, the smallest country I have visited so far! A couple of hours was actually quite a lot of time to check out this little city which was very pretty, located amongst gorgeous green valleys and full of interesting old buildings.