Sebastian Vettel’s homecoming

One of the biggest news stories to hit Germany, and particularly Hessen, was the long awaited homecoming of Formula 1 Weltmeister Sebastian Vettel.
As a huge Vettel fan, I must admit that, I was waiting in anticipation for the news that he was coming home. Vettel’s home town Heppenheim is in the same state as Marburg, Heppenheim, so not only was it not too far to travel to, it is also free for me to travel there with my Semesterticket.
I read in the early hours of the morning on Sunday 22nd November that he was finally going to make an appearance in Heppenheim at 14.30 that day. I had been waiting for a week to hear that news and didn’t think twice about going. (Even more shocking is that I went alone! Me, the former most unindependent girl in the world!)
I assumed it would just be some type of town hall ceremony, but I was wrong. I arrived at the Europaplatz in Heppenheim at about 12.10 and although there were not too many people there, I was only 8 rows back from the front, I could tell this was definitely bigger than a town hall ceremony. For a start the Europaplatz was a large flat area of land and erected on this land were numerous Redbull beverage tents, a TV reporters area, an ice cream stand (yes they were giving out free ice creams on a freezing winter’s day) and a bus that had been converted into a stage. On stage was a radio DJ from FFH who was blasting night club-esque party tunes from some very large speakers. Yes, it resembled more of a concert or festival than a homecoming.
I must have come at the right time because within half an hour of my arrival I could no longer see the end of the mass of Vettel fans. A lot people were wearing replicas of his famous Red bull beanie hat, or some other Redbull merchandise. As I was still waiting for my Vettel World Champion t-shirt to arrive in the post (it came today) I opted for wearing all blue.
After two hours and five minutes of dancing and putting our “Vettelfingers” in the airn the announcement of made that Vettel was here and was ready come out, 15 minutes before he was actually scheduled. Personally this was a shock to me, since its usually a perk for a celebrities to turn up on time, let alone early. He came on stage to a chorus of “SE-BAST-IAN! SE-BAST-IAN!”, something that we have been practicing with the DJ for the past two hours. Now I’ve read in the UK press about Vettel’s arrogance, but the young man who was stood up on stage was not only humble but in awe of everything. He didn’t shout or scream “YEAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” like some egoistic rockstar, he just looked out at us and took it all in. In fact the first thing he did when he came on stage was take a photo of us on his mobile so that he could remember the moment for ever. The presenter assumed that it would be going on his facebook page or some website for people to download but Vettel modestly replied that it was for himself, as a keepsake on his mobile and that maybe he’ll print it out and keep it in his bedroom.
He was on stage being interviewed for a while and a German comedian, who is supposidly a friend and big fan of Vettel, joined him. Now I must admit that I had no idea who Bülent Ceylan. was, but with the creaming reception that he got, I can tell that everyone else certainly did. They had a bit of a joke, it was sweet. There was also a present giving ceremony. Vettel signed the the not so infamous “Vettelheim, Heppenheim” street sign and then he left the stage to be interview for the TV and Radio. The interviews took literally five minutes and then he came into the crowd and signed autographs and were able, well kind of, to take closer photos of him. Because of the sheer quantity of people there it was unrealistic that everyone would be able to get their stuff signed so he threw signed postcards into the audience. I managed to catch one :D    
The venue emptied pretty quickly after Vettel left. I saw a few kids crying because they hadn’t managed to get to meet the world champion. I got back to Marburg at 8pm and saw one of my friend’s briefly in the train station. “Where have you been?” she asked. “Heppenheim!” I proudly proclaimed. “Are you being serious? I was watching that on TV”. “Yep”, I replied, “I was there” :)