Going to Cologne

I´m leaving Berlin today and heading to the beautiful city of Cologne. Berlin has been wonderful and I got to see two fun games at the Fan Fest. The Brazil-Croatia and Germany-Poland games were both great for different reasons. Brazil and Croatia both played quick, skillful soccer and I enjoyed watching it. There were so many yellow jerseys I could barely stand it. There were a ton of Germans running around in yellow jerseys and they made me want to root even harder for Croatia. I´m pretty sure that most of them don´t have noble, "I love how they play" reasons for rooting for Brazil, they just want to root for a winner. I think Croatia could do big things in the World Cup and it looks like Japan may go winless. The Poland-Germany game was one of the most physical games I´ve ever seen this early but Poland really needed the game. There was a heavy police presence during the Brazil game but it probably tripled for the Germany game. Apparently there were 500 people arrested in Dortmund, the site of the game. You could cut the tension with a knife at the Fan Fest in Berlin but I didn´t see any threats of violence. There were just too many Germans for the Poles to try anything. I was sad after the US lost to Czech but words can´t describe the look on the Poles' faces after Germany scored that late goal. I think they had much bigger hopes for this World Cup and now they´re done. I might get that same feeling on Saturday night but I don´t have it yet! Go Nats!

Yesterday morning I took the "that looks cool, I´m going to go look at it" approach to sightseeing. I ignored all historical importance or cultural relevance and instead focused solely on aesthetic beauty. I saw some beautiful churches, museums and monuments before I finally broke down and bought a guide book. This is probably the worst prepared I´ve ever been for a long trip but I´ve had a lot of fun flying by the seat of my pants.

Cologne is the only city that I´d really experienced before this trip and I´m looking forward to going back. Cologne is the home of the best Dönor I´ve ever had, the coolest cathedral I´ve ever seen, and a cool Irish bar where I´ll enjoy watching tonights games. Tomorrow morning I´m going to wake up and attempt to climb to the top of one of the Dom´s spires. Wish me luck!

Friday and Saturday I´ll be in Kaiserslauten preparing for the big US-Italy game on Saturday night. My brother´s friend, well my friend too, Jason Perez lives in Kaiserslauten so I´ll be staying with him over the weekend. There´s a good chance that I´ll be able to post some pictures from his place so keep your fingers crossed. Danka.