Jung und Frei

We wished a fond farewall to Germany this morning... boarding Germanwings flight 4u 1224 to Stockholm, Sweden.... Few words were exchanged, a gentle embrace and a quiet mention about catching up some time in the future, then off into the sunrise...

... on to Sweden... where obviously the people-making-play-dough was extracted from a bloody good looking quarry around here!! I have a theory that the number of beautiful people is directly proportional to the number of bicycles in a country. So yes, Yvonne.... Holland still wins!! hahaha! We have only scraped the surface of the city, but it has a very nice vibe... it is charging me a heap of SEK for absorbing this vibe... but I think its worth it..... match report of Sweden coming soon.

In other news... I was sick the other day... but now I'm all better. I think the whole emotional roller-coaster of the World Cup was the only energy source keeping me going (apart from these weird red bull substitutes on sale here in Europe) and after the dramatic end to the Socceroo's, my batteries were drained. A few days of earlyish nights and European versions of sudafed and I'm back on my feet as good as new.

I'm also re-arranging my travel plans a bit. To get to Pamplona I have a little stop over in London to spend a day with Chris... then on to Pamplona for said ass-goring... then I'm not going to hit the USA until probably the 1st August. So I have another three weeks in Europe! So much to do... so little time!

Noooooooooo!!!!! Why did it have to end this way? After a dramatic 90 minutes it ended with a dive that Chantelle Newbury would be proud of! Bloody Italians! All things said, we should have done a little better playing against 10 men... and the Italians should have won were it not for some Schwartzer-magic!!


I was in Berlin for the match, we trotted down to the fanfest and had a few beers watching it on the big screen. There were a bunch of aussies grouped together, a few songs were sung, a game of football was played, then a few moments of stunned silence, a few more moments of tears, then a LOT more moments of more beer drinking!! Thats about when the stupid Paul behaviour came out. I was very much surprised how many complete strangers were willing to hug me cos I said I was sad! :)

The German's have done a great job with the world cup (except for those two dickheads on the heimspiel tv show!), everyone is friendly and comes up to chat and take photos. Also we have made a very good impression on everyone over here! All the fans from all the countries have said how they love Australia and Australians after our performance both on and off the Biergarten... i mean.. football pitch! So Mr H, how about subsidising all our airfares cos of the tourism we are going to bring down under?! :) Also, as a consequence, the boys from Men at Work are now billionaires through the royalties from "Down Under" being played a minimum of 50 times per night!!

A very quiet one today. I am feeling a little sick so I may pack it in early, but we have another few days to check out Berlin, then on the Sweden and Denmark before heading down to Pamplona!! I'll update the Croatia match and add an entry for Prague now so keep reading! :)

What can I say? Beer is cheaper than water! Any city that lives by those rules has got to be good! We rocked into Prague a little seedy after the Croatia match and all-night party so the first afternoon was reserved for a little nanna nap. Then dinner... a massive pizza for about 1.5 Euros sounded pretty good! A welcome change from the 5E bratwurst and bun!

We spend the next day doing a walking tour of the city. After watching the astrological clock (MASSIVE waste of time! We were warned beforehand by Tyler from Mikes Bike Tours in Munich... but we didn't listen! - Prague owes me 5 minutes of my life back!) we took a gentle stroll around the city taking in all the sights and getting a fairly detailed history lesson on the way (the guide knew his town!). Afterwards we decided to join a pub crawl! Ouch!


We began with a few shots of Absinthe, a few beers... more beers... and then eventually... some more beer! Water was strictly forbidden as it was too expensive! Long story short... we ended up lost and disoriented 8 hours later!! A cab ride home (costing about 3 cents) and a back to bed.

Sunday was spent watching crazy idiots in fantastic props jump off a bridge into the river. Red Bull had sponsored something similar to the choc chill regatta/high dive contest so we joined the million other people to chek it out!

That night was the start of the tragedy! Holland got knocked out of the WC by a very feral Portugal.... and so off to bed with a hangover still ringing in my ears and the disappointment of Holland's loss. Berlin tomorrow to see the Aussies in action (on a big tv!)

The morning of the match started slowly. Pacing ourselves for the 9pm kick off (and the nerve-racking 6pm ticket collection) we strolled into town to get a feel of the excitement. Again, I think the entire continent of Australia was emptied into the main square in Stuttgart! Only this time, the entire country of Croatia was deposited right next door! This was going to be a cracker!!


5:30pm rolls by and we decide to text James about the tickets. His response: Sorry guys, I only have two tickets available! Bummer. We go down to meet him and I let Anka and Stoney have the tickets. After another hastily made sign we sit around receiving offers for 500E for dodgy tickets... I don't think so! Then an SMS from James: Good news, I found a guy with a spare ticket... face value! I'm in!!!! After walking through the, this time thorough, security checks, I, Matthew Phillips walked through the gates, past security and to my seat!

This seat was on the half way line, a little way back. Good spot, right next to the VIPs (no one special there though). So a few moments later, my neighbours rock up. In seat 12, a big 6 foot 8 Croatian brick-shithouse-of-a-man (John), In seat 14 a more moderate 6 foot 6 brick-shithouse-of-a-man! John turns to me with tears in his eyes and blubbers his life story and how he is so torn between the countries. Born in Croatia, lived in Australia for most of his life. After he kissed the Australian emblem on my shirt, then the Croatian one on his... I said to him... Mate thats a tough one.. I guess blood is always thicker right? thats why you are wearing a Croatian top? He seemed to brighten up and started yelling chants in Croatian... good move Paul!


So the game was the more frantic and nerve-racking game on earth... a pearler of a free kick in the first minute gave Croatia the lead.... after several obvious penalties denied, one was finally given and Moore knocked it home. Kalac agreed that blood IS thicker than the guernsey you are wearing and gifted the Croatians a goal, then crap referreeing gave Harry the equaliser. A few red cards later and the Aussies were into the round of 16! (Was that THREE yellow cards to Simunic?)

The stadium went nuts. Not one Australian left their seat for the next half-hour or so! The team came back out and did a lap... Timmy Cahill swapped his guernsey with a fan wearing an Everton top.. the Aussies tried to squash the photographers in a rush to make the fans do a cheer. Great stuff!!!


Then the stroll down to the Paris nightclub where Chris Cahill was chucking a party. Past the police in riot gear controlling the Croats, past the over 50,000 Croats asking if we wanted to swap guerseys, The nightclub was great... Full of Aussies the place went off drinking and dancing the night away! Men at Work being played at least 80,000 times!!! GOLD!!!


So then the long trek home... luckily the trams had started running and after a minor bout of stupidity on my behalf (63.9minutes till the next tram! (ummm Paul.... that a picture of a train... not the number 63!)) we made it back to bed!!!

This is D-day. Stuttgart has been invaded with thousands of Australians (and a fairly hefty number of Croatians to boot)... kick-off is at 9pm so I am fighting the urge to get on the cans now (10am). After 20minutes of pasting signs on Anka saying "We need tickets" and "Ich Suchen Kartes" we were put on to another Aussie who had four spare tickets. A few texts and phone calls later and we had our allocation of 3 tickets. We meet the dude at 6pm to pick them up so fingers-crossed it all goes to plan and around 9pm we are happily sitting watching the game from the comfort of our "Harrys-bum-tapping" seats!!!


The last few days in Stuttgart have been quite relaxing... a few beers, a bit of a stroll around the city, all you can eat Chinese for 6.80, and becoming deaf after the German game where everyone decided to blast their horns non-stop the entire night. Nothing major to report apart from a fantastic sing-off last night near the fan fest. About 1000 croats where singing and chanting so a few Aussies jumped up and chanted back.... I don't think either side knew what the other was singing but it was classic anyway. Chants from our side like "You're shit.... but your chicks are hot..." and " Stand up.. if you beat Japan.." which quickly changed into "Stand up.. if you scored a goal...". Very funny! No idea what the Croatians were saying... but luckily Kangaroo is Kangaroo in any language!!

Speaking of which.... we hit the zoo yesterday and were re-acquanted with Eucalypts, dangerous snakes and spiders, Crocodiles and Kangaroo's. Although the keeper wasn't too impressed when I mentioned I was homesick and asked if I could jump into the croc exhibit and wrestle one of them.

Only a few hours left!! Go Aussies!!!!!!!! You punks better not be going to work tomorrow!!!

I've got myself a German SIM card now (cheaper than the UK one) so my new number is +49 173 8188 259.

Bummer... We played soooo well, but just got beaten by some really good Brazillian moves. Happy that it took Brazil to play near their best to beat us! Bummer that Breschy, Dukes and Kewell didn't sink their chances.... but.. que sera sera! Bring on Croatia!

We met up with Hux, Dean, Jas and Stoney/CK's mate Alan in town and jumped on a PACKED train out to the Olympic stadium (the fan fest). The place was full and going off like a frog in a sock!! The Croatia/Japan game was first up and all the Aussies were going for Japan... glad that penalty was saved! Next up was the big one.... Oz vs Brazil... I think the place holds 35,000 and there were about 20,000 Aussies, 10,000 Brazillians (thats nationality.. not haircut) , 5,000 randoms and about 70,000 inflatable Kangaroos!!! Every shot, tackle, error, pass was greeted by an almighty roar... soooo good!


So after the game we made our way back to our "local" beer garden for a few large beers and some food. mmmmmm pork knuckle!! Then after WAY too much beer we made our way back to the hotel.... stopping briefly for a quick nudie-run in a field near Unterhacing.... We had a laugh.



Off to Stuttgart today to prepare for the Croatians!! C'mon Aussie C'mon.....

We arrived on the overnight train from Utrecht at about 7:15am (Thursday) - this was our final train in the mad "train-rush-2006" episode of this trip (I think we counted 35 out of the past 60 hours were on trains!). A quick shower at the hotel and we took a short stroll to see what the city had to offer..... so approximately an hour later we discovered exactly what the city had to offer...... BEER!! We sat in a small beer garden that was overrun by Tunisian supporters..... then by Saudi supporters.... then by tunisians again.... crazy.


Our next port of call was the awesome Allianz arena to watch the blockbuster match of Tunisia vs Saudi Arabia. Once again great seats... once again Leesh I coulda tapped the bum of Jazeri! hahaha. The game proved to be quite eventfull with the Tunisians just managing to salvage a draw in injury time... We have seen two WC games and eight goals.... not a bad record!


After the match we went to meet up with Anka (Augustine beer garden, round the corner from the Hbf). We arrived... no Anka... after some SMS tag which included such lines as Anka:"Am I in the same pub??" Paul:"I don't know.. do you see 5,000 screaming Germans??" - we eventually linked up and got into a few more Masses of beer (1L steins). The night then gets a little hazy... we went to a club.. (don't exactly know how we got in or how much the cover was).... I got free ice-cream.... lost my sunnies (those awesome E1.99 ones I bought in Ulm.... managed to piss off the bar staff by spilling beer on her clean bar... managed to piss off the security staff by climbing over the barriers ("umm sir, we do have stairs you know!")... somehow made it back to the hotel!

The next day we were feeling a little seedy so we had a quiet one..... sitting in a quaint little beer garden in Pasing - drinking Masses and eating Pretzels, Ribs and anything else that looked different to the crazy stuff the Germans were eating!!


Yesterday was a fun day. We took a bike tour (Mike's Bike Tours) around the city... yep.. you heard right... on a bike! We started around 11:30, grabbed our bikes and zoomed around scaring tourists and germans alike. A short stop in the English gardens to take a swim in the river (FREEZING COLD!! but a fast current so it was like a water slide) - this was also the first real test of the waterproof-ness of the camera. It passed with flying colours and with millions of american tourists yelling... "No Way.. your camera goes under water!?!?!" a short while later we were in the second largest beer garden in the world - munching on pork knuckle and again... beer!


Today we visited the Dachau concentration camp.... eerie place. Scary to stand in a small room where you know thousands of people were (allegedly) executed!!

Anyway... Munich is absolutely mad right now.. there are millions of Aussies and millions of Brazillians!! The whole population is dressed in some form of Gold/Yellow. Tomorrow is going to be a cracker!!!!

WOW!! Talking about the craziest atmosphere on earth!! 50,000-odd Australians invaded Kaiserslautern in Southern Germany yesterday where the Socceroo's (with a little magic by Super Tim) made the earlier chants of "We're gonna beat the Japanese-e, we're gonna beat the japanese-e, I really think so!" (to the tune of i've turning japanese-e) correct!!! After the early disappointment of the blatant shepherd and goal from Japan - the packed crowd went nuts when Cahill hit his first... then ballistic when he netted his second and absolutely K-RAZ-EY when Aloisi sent home the sealer.


So the day really started when we went to watch the Netherlands vs Serbia/Montenegro match in Utrect... with a few minutes to kill before the game, Joel checked his email and found an email saying we had our conditional tickets waiting for us to collect! A quick scan of the Die Bahn website told us that we had 11 hours of travel ahead of us (and 10 hours back!). So after a sleepless night (well, maybe an hour lying on the concrete outside of Venlo station!) an hour wait in the queue to collect tickets we finally got a few beers into us and jumped into the screaming mass! A lot more beer and a very vocal walk to the stadium (approx 5km!!!) we survived the extremely lax security checks and found our seats...... about 4 rows back on the centre line!!!! Leesh I could almost reach over and tap Harrys bum for ya!!!


It was crazy to see so many Australian's in one location (especially out of Oz!). The locals and Japanese were also quite impressed. Always good to know that a naked bloke offering shots of Jagermeister loves Australians... "I love you guys.... you come over and drink.... and have fun.... most countries come over and drink... and fight! Now have another Jager!!!" Crazy Germans! :)

One funny item of note was when the crowd was walking out of the stadium and back into town, someone noticed Ray Martin and started chanting "There's only one Ray Martin.." and "We got Ray Martin in our side.." which continued until someone noticed a Japanese dude in an Aussies and changed it to "There's only one Jap Aussie.." to which another popped up and yelled.. "There's only TWO Jap Aussies!!" classic

I am going to have to add another post to cover the last few days after Ulm - but I may do that later. An abridged version is.. took a train... then another train... then ended up in the Netherlands... then got tickets.. took a train... watched Australia's first victory ever in a World Cup final (TBC).. took a train... jumped on the internet while deciding what to do today before jumping on another train to Munich! :)

So stand by.... :)

Alrighty... this is a quick run down of Holland. Only got a few minutes left so I'll make it quick. Firstly, Holland rocks! The Dutch are the second coolest people on earth (we still rock the most). After getting back into The Netherlands from Ulm/Koln, we had a reasonably early night in a very distant hotel. Saturday was 30-35C so we decided to hit the beach. We had to swap hotels and rather than using the trams, we chose to walk the "short"distance to the hotel....... so 50 minutes later we found it... large backpacks on, 35C heat!


Anyway, what better way to cool down than to hit the beach. We were told of a place called Scheveningen, near Den Haag so we went to check it out. (Interesting fact: The beach (Scheveningen) is like a small suburb (2km by 500m or so) and during the war - dodgy people were asked to pronounce the beach name as only the Dutch could say it right, German's would get it wrong and be ... presumably.. shot! (pronounced: Sch-khaay-ven-in-gar - that impresses the Dutch when you say it! ;> ) )

So had a fantastic day at the beach... beautiful day for it (obviously cos there were 20-odd million Dutch there!). Only problem was the water was FREEZING!! I mean... can't feel my legs freezing! But the ability to lie on the beach all day was more than enough to compensate! Unfortunately my orienteering skills let me down again as on the way home there was a massive traffic jam on the A12 - grabbing the map I insisted that I knew where we were and that there was a shortcut! (Needless to say, the trip home took roughly 1.5 hours longer than it should have!!)


The next day was spent up in Utrecht. We went to a pub to watch the Dutch play Serbia/Montenegro - I think I mentioned before that the Dutch are mad! But we did our best to imitate them - after passing a small takeaway food shop with a sign saying (well.. roughly saying - it was written in Dutch) Buy two beers, get free orange overalls; we went and picked up four beers and two pairs of overalls. Damn we looked hot!!

Just before we went to the pub, we stopped in at an Internet cafe to check for tickets... and... we got them!!! Three tickets for Australia vs Japan!!! Bloody awesome!! Kickoff for that game starts less than 24 hours from now and the place is about 500km away... interesting!

So after celebrating our newly aquired tickets... we went to a cool pub with a big screen and about a billion screaming, singing Dutch! A lot of fun! Unfortunately we had to bail fairly early to get back to Rotterdam to book our train tickets, grab some gear and rush to Kaiserslautern!!! (well.. to leave my passport at the hotel and have to get a taxi there-back to retrieve it.) The rush included a nice sleep at Venlo train station (outside, cold concrete floor, wearing only shorts, a singlet and thongs!)


PS - I fixed the phone number on the right!!! 2699, not 2899!

Guten Morgen Ulm, The Aussies are here! Albert Einstein must have been turning in his grave after witnessing the mighty green and gold army roar into his birthplace. We arrived on the overnight train from Amsterdam, got some breakkie, nerded it up and had a much required shower! Around midday the bush telegraph reported that we were to report for duty so we strolled over to a small pub near the train station. After a few hours of drinking and chanting the army made its way up the main street to the stadium (stopping in on a tiny pub on the way... who decided it was too difficult to pour 500 beers in 3 minutes... so we continued on). Once at the stadium, the press was out in force and the ggarmy set up shop in a small biergarten overlooking the training pitches. A few German kids were kicking a ball around and that soon turned into an Australia vs Germany competition... (I think we won 30-3 or something - Stoney was on the court in goals and I believe let one of those through! :> ).


Anyway, the game was okay, an own goal wasn't the best start and we lacked a bit of sting in the first 20-30 minutes, but it was good to see Kewell out there and Kennedy have a run. So back into town and back on the beers (and for some stupid reason... the schnapps!!!). We left the pub when it closed (around 12) then headed to some Irish pub (maybe) until that closed (about 2), then some locals took us over to a nightclub somewhere in the suburbs.. at about 4am however it was time for bed. I was surprised by this one dude who asked me if I knew what time the bar we were at closed... I said I wasn't sure... maybe 6am... he thanked me and said he didn't have accom so he would sleep on the bar... Champion! (Incidentally... that bar was called Pufer (or as the Germans say Poofa) so it took a bit of German-Australian translation to agree that it wasn't a G-A bar!)

I managed to lose my sunnies in Pufer or at least somewhere that night. So to wake to blazing sun wasn't exactly the best feeling. Luckily I found the greatest pair of sunnies on earth (looked identical to my $180 arnette's) for E1.99 - bargain!


The next day consisted of getting our Tunisia-Saudi Arabia blockbuster tickets transferred into our names. A quick jog down to the ticket centre... then 4 hours of waiting later we got them!! (long story... but I think I found the only task the Germans are NOT efficient in!!) This of course destroyed our plans of getting to Bruxelles or Eindhoven overnight so we rocked into Koln and got a room. Turned out the best idea ever cos this room had a BATH!!!! sooo goood to soak and wash!

So we are heading back to the Netherlands before the first game.. going to catch up with Hux and Jas, check out Varsseveld and maybe a day trip to Bruxelles or somewhere. We will watch the Dutch play their first game in a Dutch pub, then the Aussies the next day.

Oh and saw Pete Feign at the Ulm game. He is backpacking over here at the moment - such a small world! :)

So in order to get rid of the hangover created by the free-flowing Grolsch in Rotterdam. We took a short train-ride to Amsterdam - what better place to recover! :) Admittedly, I'm not the biggest fan of the place - I'm not keen on the whole drug culture thing, but behind that and the associated American kids.. the city is beautiful (although a little cold right now! 20E for a long sleeve t-shirt - best 20E i've spent!). Word on the street is that back in time, the government charged land tax according to the width of the house - coupled with the fact that the place is under sea level - this results in heaps of thin, leaning, sinking houses, quite funny!

We did a lot of walking around.. checking the sites... getting lost and run over by bikes, trams, scooters, cars and other pedestrians. Somehow we always ended up in the red-light district! Don't know how that happened! When I get back to Australia I'll have to have a word to the Kings Cross council and get them to implement the whole windows thing! Its the funniest thing seeing these little windows with a chick sitting there looking like a mannequin. You choose the one that tickles your fancy and.. well.. Bob's your uncle (I've heard of course...). One thing is for sure there is plenty of variation! Every nationality, shape size, colour! :)

So in between eating and strolling and burning photos to CDs (I've taken 400-odd already!) we popped into the Van Gogh museum. Once again I was impressed by the art around this place. (and yeah, Mum, Dad, Sim, Kez - I'm starting to tell all the artists apart and appreciate them! :> CULTURE?!?! WHAT!? haha)

Next stop is Ulm, Germany for Australia's second warm-up game. I don't think it will be as intense as the Dutch game (they love their football!) but you never know... Still gives a great opportunity to get on it and cause trouble in a foreign land!

Ta for all your emails and texts!! Stay safe!!!

So we arrived in Rotterdam yesterday on a comfortable Veuling flight from Madid to Amsterdam Schiphol airport and picked up CK at the airport before jumping a train down to Rotterdam. After a brief walking tour of the city (note for future, write down the address and directions to the hotel Paul!), we got our junk together and headed into the centrum for a few warm-up beers with the rest of the Aussies then on to the game... the stadium was crazy. After taking a very very very packed tram to the stadium - both Aussies and Dutch singing at full flight along the way, we found our ticket pick-up point and maybe one or two specks of green and gold in an absolute sea of orange!

These dutch are crazy!! It is the morning (well, afternoon) after the game.. Socceroo's drew 1-1 with Holland and this little town went berserk! We were probbaly lucky to escape with the draw, Schwartzers work in goal saved our bums more than a few times! The Aussies were of course a loud and entertaining mob. We had a small slice of a very orange stadium - I think it was probably 50,000 dutch and 1,000 Aussies - but according to the dutch people we made a little more noise than them!


The whole town was painted orange and strange characters wearing witches hats, orange overalls and basically anything else they could find that was bright orange.. luckily there was a small splash of gold centered at O'Shea's pub in the middle (centrum) of town. Good to hear an Aussie accent again - and even better to see the Aussie larrikinism again. Drunk Aussies pretending to be Lleyton Hewitt, Drunk Aussies painting passed-out Aussies' faces etc..


The Dutch people are the funniest and nicest people on earth. Before the game when a few of us dressed in gold walked in to a completely Orange pub, they all got their cameras out and shook our hands and laughed with us. After the match it was the other way around with the witches hat wearing guys jumping into our pub.. drinking, dancing and chatting.

Anyway.. gotta run. Amsterdam beckons!

For those who are in Europe, here is my current rough itinerary for the European leg. Rather than send it to everyone separately i'll post here:

27th May to 3rd June - Spain (Madrid, then Barcelona)
4th June - Rotterdam, Netherlands (Australia vs Netherlands friendly)
5th, 6th June - Amsterdam
7th June - Ulm, Germany (Australia vs Leichtenstein friendly)
8th to 11th June - Belgium and Luxembourg
12th June - Either Kaiserslautern, Germany or Varsseveld, NL (Aus vs Jap)
14th June - Munich (Tunisia vs Saudi Arabia)
15th June to 23rd June - Around Germany somewhere
24th June to 26th June - Prague, CZ
27th June to 30th June - Sweden
1st July to 3rd July - Copenhagen
4th July to 13th July - London, Pamplona (Running of the Bulls), Somewhere in Europe!

So if you are in the neighbourhood, let me know!

The next stop on the journey is Barcelona, the journey from Madrid in pure first class comfort on the train. Barcelona is a fun and busy city that not only speaks Spainish, but also Catalan - just to confuse me!! Luckily a large percentage speak English (not to mention the large percentage of English tourists!) so its a little easier to get by than Madrid. Although the amount of times I've heard something.. think I know what it means.. then respond 'Si!'.. only to find out that they meant something completely different..


Barcelona is a fun city - busy and bustling (a little different to sleepy Madrid) and inside the massive mesh of streets, offices and apartments there is a random Gaudi jewel sticking out. Dr Seuss, Gingerbread houses, however you want to describe them... they rock. So it was all tourist for us again today. Took the open-top tourist bus around for some sightseeing and photos. Climbed la Sagrada Familia, visited Park Guell, the olympic stadium (where we missed the RHCP by a day!), FC Barcelona, and the olympic port. Very fun turning Japanese-ey taking photos of everything.

So tomorrow we are going to try a day trip somewhere (either up the coast to Lloret de Mar or Girona or something) then.. well... you should know me... no plans are good plans. We'll all float on ok.....

Update: So we didn't end up taking a day trip at all. We managed to tag along with a hen's party last night and woke up a little seedy. So we went and visited the beach. Nice and peaceful to soak up the rays on a Spanish beach... except for the guys walking around with esky's yelling "Cola, Fanta, Cervez-agua.. cold beer"