Hamburg Day 2

Yesterday everything revolved around the Public Viewing. Every time I heard that phrase, I kept thinking about Some Very Important Person laid out in a glass casket. But, no, it referred to the fussball (soccer) match between Germany and Serbia.

We left the house for a river cruise. It was nice, and some of the houses on the river were .... majestic. I won't soon be living there on my salary.

While on the cruise it started to rain.

We then went downtown to tour the Rathause (city hall, basically -- and, yes, I know what you're thinking), but it was closed for the Public Viewing. And it rained.

From there we made our way through masses of people to the Public Viewing -- in the rain. We found a little pub to keep warm and dry. The girls went shopping. In the rain. I watched people getting excited about paint ..... I mean ... soccer. One woman in particular was really intense, and I thought she was going to cry when Serbia scored their goal.

The girls found a better place where we could watch the game, so Wolfgang, Sophie and myself went there. The rain had stopped, but it was windy and cold. We watched the rest of the game (Germany lost), then made our way back to the Public Viewing site to wander around.

Two things caught my attention. First, the Public Viewing area was like one giant festival. And with Germany losing, it was very quiet (very quiet being relative here ... the Super Bowl is a big deal, but people don't get worked up in the droves like they do here for a World Cup match). People were moping around, vendors were upset (loss of revenue), some people tried to keep the party going, but the over all mood was one of severe depression.

Second, even though the vast majority of people were unhappy that Germany lost, I'm thinking the myriad of riot police we saw were secretly happy. The place was bad enough as is, I can't even imagine what it would've been like had Germany won. I was thinking, "Hide the women and children and get the hell out of Dodge."

But, because it was subdued, and because it had quit raining and warmed up somewhat, we stayed in the park and wandered around. Had food from a couple of different vendors (all nationalities of the World Cup represented). Met a t-shirt vendor who had spent time in the U.S. and talked with him for a bit. The Kid showed up (we all split up and had a common meeting time and place) and talked with him in Deutsche. He was impressed and friendly enough that he gave her a couple of flags for the car. She bought a shirt from him. We watched a little of the USA-Slovenia match, just enough to see the US go down two goals in the first half. Then we headed home. Got home, discovered that the US had come back to tie (with some controversy about a last second goal being disallowed), and took a nap.

So, in general, that was Day 2. Mass quantities of people and lots of bad weather. I'm up early today, though, and the weather looks more promising.

Day 3 is an official tour of the town (bus tour in English at noon), and a meeting with a bishop. Should make for an entertaining day.