The Road Trip - Part 1 (Beer, Chocolate, and a Late Night)

Well, we are now nearly 1 week into the World cup and we have just finished our first road-trip to see 3 back-to-back live matches.... On Sunday we packed our backpacks early and headed off to the main train station in Frankfurt for the 2-hour train ride to Cologne, to see our beloved Angola take on those crafty Portuguese.

Even though the game was not until late in the evening we decided to take an opportunity to see some of Cologne during the day and then make our way to the stadium with a couple of hours to spare. As the train station in Cologne happens to be right next to the famous cathedral, we agreed that we should take a look around it as it really is a fantastic building. We had arrived early and there was a Sunday service going on so we could not just wander through the place at our leisure, so I persuaded Fiona & Yates that a climb up one of the towers would be a good thing to do first. With 509 steps I knew it was going to be a tough climb, but add to that the stifling heat and the several hundred other people having the same idea, it became a gruelling, lung-busting, heart-pounding, strength-sapping, muscle tiring, death march of an assent. We all suffered to similar degrees and I wish I could say that the effort was worth it, but it was such painful experience that even the stunning view over the city and the Rhine was somewhat diminished.... Worth doing, but only just.

After enough exercise to last for the whole month, we repaired to a local restaurant to replenish our stocks, take on more liquids, (mainly in beer format), and have a hearty meal to keep us going. After a little walk around the city centre and along the Rhine, we had another little pit stop for more beer, before deciding that a visit to the Chocolate Museum would be a good idea. As I had eaten enough pizza at lunchtime to feed about 4 people, God only knows why I thought adding some chocolate in there was going to make me feel any better, but hey, when in Cologne...!! Actually, the Chocolate Museum was very enlightening, I have been eating the stuff for almost 45 years and only on this visit did I understand the full process of how it was made. Not only were there some good exhibits, more than one chocolate fountain, (yes, a fountain that spewed fourth liquid choc), a fully functional production line, but there was a good supply of samples to taste, (mmmm, truffles..!!). As if this was not enough, I needed to try out the exotic hot chocolate drink in the cafe as well... Suffice to say that I was pushing maximum density by the time we headed to the Stadium.

The trip to the stadium was pretty easy, the Germans know how to make their public transport system work, even with 50,000 people all heading to the same place. We had about 3 hours until game time so we took our time to soak up the atmosphere before heading for the entry. In the build-up for this trip and our many methods for getting tickets, which included using other peoples names, slightly modified details, and swapped tickets, we had been a bit worried about the security measures for the games. This game's tickets were in our names so we were quite safe, but we wanted to see if the security checks at the gates were as drastic as the organising committee had suggested they would be. We need not have worried, the first level of security was just a visual check of the ticket and body and back-pack search, (quite a thorough search too..!), which is followed the second level check by a machine scan of the ticket which then opens a gate. I went through first with no problems and then watched the little security monitor when Yates and Fiona went through to see if it brought up any significant details, which it did not. This is good because when we use our other tickets in other peoples names there should be no problems. We were in....

We sat in the grounds of the stadium in the shade and drank some more beer and generally relaxed while time counted down towards kick-off. Looking around there was definitely more Portuguese fans than true Angolan fans, but it looked like all the impartial Germans were also going to support Angola and they had decked themselves out appropriately. I have been very impressed with the Germans spirit and enjoyment of the games, they seem a long way from the dour stereotype they are sometimes portrayed as. Finally, we decided to head into the stadium itself and take our seats, and I always get a little buzz of excitement when I first see the pitch and the crowd, and this was no exception. Even though we were almost completely surrounded by local German fans who were there to support Angola, we were only a few rows down from a large contingent of colourful Angolan fans who were singing and cheering and pounding out a relentless rhythm on their drums. As Kick-off approached the excitement grew almost in line with the loudness of the cheering of both the Portuguese and the Angolan fans.

The game started unfortunately there was an early goal for the Portuguese who seemed to catch the Angolans sleeping at this early stage. The Portuguese definitely took the upper hand but as the game progressed the Angolans started to get to grips with the conditions and made several attempts on goal. After half-time, the crowd really got behind the Angolan team and the chanting of "Ann-gool-laa" drowned out the Portuguese support for a while. With 10 mins to go the Angolans seemed to lift their game and the intensity of the game increased. All three of us were shouting for Angola to score and leaping out of ur seat anytime they made an attempt on goal. For a while I thought they might just break through against the lackluster Portuguese, but alas this was not going to be one of those World Cup fairy-tales that we always hope for, and the Portuguese went away almost undeserving 1-0 winners on the night.

We were fizzing with excitement as we left the stadium and managed to get a seat on a packed tram leaving for the main train station, which took forever to get there. We arrived there just before midnight having missed a train by about 10 mins, and we were now going to have to wait almost 2 hours for the next one. Cologne station was alive with people and as most of the shops were still open, we obviously decided to sit in a bar for those 2 hours and make short trips around the station for food. When the train arrived we were lucky enough to bag a whole compartment for just us, where we made ourselves as comfortable as anyone can on a night train and tired to catch few winks of sleep before we hit Frankfurt at 4:00am...

At Frankfurt we tumbled out of the train and staggered sleepily to the taxi rank where there was a waiting car, who with astonishing speed whisked us back to our apartment in less than 7 minutes. As the taxi roared away we could hear the birdsong and see the first light of dawn cracking in the distance…. Time for some sleep, as we has a similar road-trip to Gelsenkirchen planned for later that day…

It’s hard being a World Cup Football fan sometimes….