It all feels like a dream. I can’t believe that I watched the German national team up close and personal yesterday. The men that I’ve watched countless times on TV, in Germany and England were there in the flesh doing what they do best. It doesn’t even bother me that they didn’t win (it was a 1-1 draw).
We set off for Dortmund at 12:21. This was too early for me, as I’d only gone to bed at 5.30am that morning. We took three trains and it took just over 4 hours I believe. Our original plan was to go to the city centre for a bit and then go to the stadium but our last train actually stopped at the stadium and a lot of people got off, so we thought hey why don’t we check it out.
Glad we did because there was a lot of free stuff that we would have missed out on otherwise. Including flags, face paint and sweat bands.
This is the Fan Club bus where we got flags painted onto our cheeks
If you remember all the way back to November then you’d remember that I had 4 spare tickets to get rid of, yes I still hadn’t managed to sell them. But finally my prayers were answered and I managed to sell them for 80 Euros. I had to haggle a bit, the cheeky beggar wanted them for 60! It turns out I’m as gifted as my dad when it comes to market trade.
We got ourselves something to drink and eat in an outside Biergarten and then went through into the Stadium. The view as we walked in was breath taking, the stadium was huge, although the pitch was at least half the size that I expected, TV makes it look a lot bigger.
We were sat really close, 4th row to be exact, and Nord Tribune (where we were sat) received free flags…yes more free flags.
The National Anthem was one of my favourite parts of the game (except the game itself). For a friendly game they sure went to town when it came to showing off their natural pride.
Sudtribune made a D for Deutschland during the National Anthem.
The game itself was very dream like. I found it hard to believe that the people I was watching were the real people. We all found it hard to let it sink in. Even when Schweinsteiner got this close:
Bastian Schweinsteiger
I loved the chanting and songs. “Schwaaaaaaaaaaaarz und Weiss” was one of the songs. But the best had to be the chant “schieß ein Tor! schiess ein Tor!” (shoot a goal). For the first half of the game all we could hear was “she’s a door”…ooops.
We all enjoyed the swapping of the shirts at the end, for obvious reasons, but what I did not enjoy was the mascot Paule. He’s a little creepy don’t you think
Evil Paule
We had over two hours to kill before my train home. So we roamed the streets of Dortmund in search of food and shelter. We really turned some heads and were approached numerous times by people asking where we were from. “Marburg, einfach Marburg”. I have to admit it must be weird to see 4 girls all dressed up in Germany gear speaking fluent English.
My Germany Trikot
Me and another friend who had been watching the game, but not with us, got the ICE home whilst the others stayed until 4.50ish for the regional train. We should have beat them by about 2 hours but because the Sbahn decided to break down a stop before Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof we missed our train to Marburg and I ended up getting back to my room 15mins before the others. I was gutted, but at least I managed to get some sleep on a comfortable train.
Even though it doesn’t feel like it really happened, it was one of my favourite experiences here in Germany. Getting to see Germany place or seeing Vettel’s homecoming or the opening of carnival are all things that I may never get the chance to do again and they really make all of the homesickness and hard times worth while. I am very lucky to have a year abroad.
I like football game.
ReplyDeleteNeymar Trikot