World Cup Fever Begins (and Other Tidbits)

My initiation to World Cup fever got off to a pleasant start last weekend. A friend from work clued me in to an open air viewing location on the edge of the water in Potsdam where we, along with his wife and a neighbor couple of theirs, watched the opening game of Germany against Costa Rica. As befits the host country, Germany won the first game.

On Saturday, I then got up early to join a contigent who had won tickets from work for a six hour bus ride to Dortmund, where I attended a live game: Trinidad/Tobago vs. Sweden.

The 0-0 draw was widely acclaimed as a victory for Trinidad, the decided underdog, and at the Soca-themed town party afterwards, thousands who had traveled all the way from the islands and thousands more who just know how to find a good party celebrated in lively style.

As did I and two colleagues from work. As the oldest of the crowd from work (and therefore the wisest and most responsible), we had decided during the game that it would be a prefectly rationale undertaking to skip the bus ride home and catch the train at 3:00 am instead, so that we could join the Caribbean (and Swedish) crowd in their celebrations.

This, by the way, is exactly the same collegiate logic that leads one to pipe up: "Hey, let's drive to Vegas/Tijuana!" (West Coast) and "Hey, let's drive to Canada!" (East Coast).

While I survived the ride home (if one does try to get away with this at our age, a first class train reservation certainly makes it much more palatable), and even the next day. On Monday, however, I lost my voice completely.

It will be fascinating to see how the frenzy escalates over the next month. Mind you, we are only at the qualifying stages right now...not even the "eighth finals" (a word which I think is missing in English).

Now, some housekeeping: between my last post in February and now, life obviously continued. Spring finally sprung, then ducked right back into its cave, reverting to three more weeks of winter. We have now skipped directly to summer.

Also in the interim, my mother came for a wonderful weeklong visit -- during which we hit every hot spot in Berlin and Prague -- one of my very good friends got married, another got a new job and is in the process of relocating his family, and yet another is, I assume, discovering the sub-equatorial winter while deciding how to decorate the nursery.

And I got my German Driving License. Valid for life, you know!

So, I obviously need to catch up. Watch here for updates on -- at a bare minimum -- the visit from my mom.