Dan Visits, Part 1

Dan left yesterday, and his visit is why I haven't updated in a week. The day he got here I took the train to Frankfurt to pick him up, and skipped out on wine tasting in Colmar, France with the other IES stuents. I had to leave my dorm at 5:30 in the morning to get to the train station on time. It was especially hard to get up, since I hadn't slept very well the night before - the smoke detector needed either a filter or battery change, and beeped all night long to alert me. And the dorm's caretaker is only around on Tuesdays and Thursday, which meant it beeped from Friday night to Tuesday morning. Anyway, I took the train to Frankfurt, successfully found Dan, and headed back. We both slept a lot on Saturday, and until about 11:30 AM on Sunday. Thank goodness Kiersten (one of the IES girls) called and woke us up, because we would have missed the soccer game!

The soccer game was such an experience. I wish I had taken more pictures, but we were squeezed in like sardines and I couldn't see much beyond what I did take pictures of. That kind of closeness would never have been allowed in the US, but was totally okay in Europe. We bought standing room seats for 7 euros, which meant we had to push our way to wherever we could see. It was actually a lot of fun, even though we were so close. There was so much chanting at the team - the noise was incredible! The cool thing about soccer in Europe is that everyone is on their feet for the whole 90 minutes, and screaming the entire time (unlike baseball games). The game was complete with a fight, which was exciting. I bought a scarf that says "SC Freiburg" to support the team, and had a beer and a wurst while watching the game. Stadium food is actually fairly cheap - 2.50 for a beer and the same price for a wurst. Interestingly, the paraphanalia stands are all closed during the game so that the propriators can watch! Freiburg won the game 2-1. The fans were especially happy because Freiburg is currently first place in their league (which means if they keep on winning, they will be moved up to the top league in Germany), and the team that is currently second in the league lost their game that day.

After the game, Dan and I met up with a few other IES students for a beer at one of the local bars. We ended up ordering a meter of beers, which is literally a meter long box filled with 8 glasses of beer. All in all, we had a fantastic day.

Kiersten, Dan and me at the Soccer game.

The opposing team's fans get segregated so that fights don't break out (which is funny, but actually a good idea). The opposition is in yellow, and Freiburg's fans are in red.

The fight, and a nice view of the back of some heads. This was my view for the entire game.

BethAnne, one of the other IES girls, screaming at the soccer game.

Dan and me! One of my favorite pictures of all time.

A close-up of our meter of beer