Saturday, June 24, 2006

The international language of football

Being a football fan takes you to strange places sometimes. In my case, it led to wandering around the streets of beautiful downtown Minden on Tuesday morning, desperately searching for a place to watch the game. The man we stopped on the street kind of looked at us funny when we asked it there was a sports bar open anywhere in town. And even when we explained that no, it wasn't because we wanted a drink at 10:00 am, it was because we wanted to watch the World Cup, he still looked at us funny. But he did direct us to a restaurant that had a TV over the bar (good) and had an all-day breakfast (even better).

There were even a couple of guys at the bar already, watching Germany v. Ecuador. They turned out to be exchange students from Bremen, working for the Ministry of Natural Resources for the summer (poor guys, stuck in northern Ontario rather than at home in Germany, in the middle of the World Cup). They kind of looked askance at my England shirt, but they warmed up when we explained that we were cheering for Germany too. The waitress clearly thought we were all a little nuts, but she humoured us, so it was all good.

Well, except for England's performance against Sweden, which is something best forgotten.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those guys from Germany must have been overjoyed after after the match against Ecuador (doubly so after demolishing Sweden!)

Re. England v Sweden: I wish you hadn't mentioned that one - we're playing Ecuador tomorrow and now I'm going to have to have a drink again in order to try and relax!! :)

Jen said...

Germany looked pretty good against Sweden today. I think I'm glad that England doesn't have to face them.

As for England v. Ecuador, at least it's an 11am kickoff here, which means the pubs will be serving. It's going to be a very long 90 minutes.

Horse N. Buggy said...

This Germany match was officially the first time I ever watched football. I decided to sit down and watch 5 - 10 minutes. I thought I'd get bored an move on after that. 90-some-odd minutes later I was still glued to the tv, unbelievably thrilled that Germany won. How have I missed this sport my whole life? I am thoroughly hooked.