Day 16!!! (July 8)!!

Apologies in advace if this post is a long one.. Today was quite a day though, and Its worth writing about!

Well.. Today I got up around 9 and had a small breakfast and a shower and all that. The weather was a bit patchy, it would rain a little, then fine up again and so fowarth.. So after writing yesterdays blog, loading up a couple of pics, and all of that stuff we had lunch. Lunch was this delicious cheesy bake made from the spätzle (like little strips of pasta.. they eat it quite a bit here in the south, its yum!) anyway, it was a bunch of spätzle with copious amounts of cheese throughout it, baked in the oven. It tasted great as usual :).

After lunch Ariane turned up (she got to finish early at the hospital again which is cool!) so she polished off the rest of the Käsespätzle. Since the weather was a bit unpredictable we (me and Mrs Kirste) decided to do something indoors. At the city gallery in Stuttgart they had a Monet exhibition, with original works from over 30 renowned galleries around the world. It also had a handful of paintings by other famous (mainly french) impressionist artists like Van Gogh (yay! not french!) and Pissarro around the place which was great!!

We drove into the gallery and parked in the carpark underneath the gallery (which also had some cool works inside! And headed into the modern section. The gallery was in two large, joint buildings, one was a 'modern' one that housed post WW II stuff (most of which doesnt do anything for me).. and also heading back to around 1800s. In the other gallery the older works are. Unfortunately they were doing some major repairs in the older gallery, so I could only see a few works.. but I'll get to that.

First up we watched a film on the life of Monet.. most of which I couldnt understand :). But then we went into the exhibition.. It was great! Kinda funny though, the whole exhibition (and gallery as a matter of fact) was almost completely filled with females.. I guess the men were off doing their football thing and the women went to the gallery ha ha :). Anyway, there was a big room with a bunch of works by Monet and others.. I really enjoyed it! In a few places they had works that were of the same, or very similar scene, but had been painted at differnt seasons, or during different times of the day or under different wind conditions (or when Monet was in a different mood). Sometimes the differences were reasonably subtle.. It was great to look at! There were many of his famous pieces on display.. and you could get up so close to them to see the brushstrokes and stuff! AWESOME! (Tho to get a better view of the painting as a whole it was better to stand a fair bit away.. as it was impressionist afterall)

After I'd done the the room a few times round we went out (and i took a quick shot of a courtyard with some statues in it), and we went into the main part of the gallery that housed the works that are permanently in Stuttgart. There were a bunch more impresionist works, and some prety whacked out surreal ones too. There was a room that was mainly Picaso, but it had a mix of his whacked out crazy ones, but also some of his other works, which was cool! After a few rooms of really nice paintings and some equally good sculptures (wish i could photographed!) we hit the postmodern stuff.. n it was pretty rubbish.. I dunno, sometimes I find a bit of postmodern art that I like.. but usually I just cant appreciate it.. I dunno maybe its beauty is lost on me or something. I guess when they first started moving into areas like impressionism and stuff alot of people would have slagged it off and said it wasnt art and stuff too.. So I shouldnt be too harsh in what I say about the modern stuff!

We then went to the older part of the gallery where all the really detailed realistic stuff was, and the old religious paintings were (that seems to be mainly what they painted way back in the day). Unfortunately the whole building was being renovated and thus we could only see one room's worth of stuff. But there were a couple of great portraits, and an asweome picture of a family having a lunch under a big tree while working out in the feidls during a hot summers day. There was also an amazing painting that kinda depicted battles in the tangible world and in the spiritual world above it. It was very cool!

We finished having a look around (so glad i went.. definately wanna see more now) and having my cultural fill for the day, it was time to balance it out and get ready for a MASSIVE sporting experience. WOOOO BOY!

I got home around 4ish and relaxed for a little bit, had a bite to eat a little later on. Mr Kirste showed me how to get to the stadium (pretty simple by train) and Mrs Kirste gave out some face painting kits she had got from work. After a while I headed off to my room to start getting ready. I had a german flag, a german scarf, a german soccer shirt, a red whistle thingy, and the face paint. Instead of doing the normal flag painted on the cheek of forehead thing, I decided to go a bit more full on and painted a german flag over my whole face.. It ment from then on no itching or scratching, or nose blowing or resting my hand on my face.. but that was ok :)! I took some photos, then Mr Kirste took a couple for me too, and at about 6.30 we headed off to the trainstation. On the train i learnt a few new chants, such as..

'Stuttgart ist veil schöner als Berlin, schöner als Berlin, schöner als Berlin!' (repeated to the tune of yellow submarine) - literally: Stuttgart is much more beautiful than Berlin, but can also mean much better n stuff too..

And 'Deutschland' sung to a variety of different tunes.

Oh and the other day Arnulf confirmed what i thought the lyrics to another chant were:
Schies ein Tor! Schies ain Tooooooor! Auf geht's Deutschland, schies ein Tor!
Shoot (Scorce) a goal! shoot a goooooal! Onwards (advance/onwards goes) Germany, shoot a goal!
I was gonna write the tune up, but i forgot how to describe note lengths (in crotchets and quavers and all that) so never mind.

Before you know it I was walking to the stadium (the ticket allowed you to use the train for free.. altho ive been on the train quite a bit already, and never once have I ever seen a single person be asked for a ticket.. Its kinda odd, and if u get caught without a ticket the fines only 40 Euro.. Seems weird to me! It would definately be cheaper (even if not morally good) to just never buy a ticket and occasionally cough up a 40 euro fine... Andreas said in 4-5 years hes been checked no more than 10 times.. crazy!! Anyway.. that was a little bit of a tangent..)
The walk to the stadium itself was cool, and not too long. There was a bunch of flag waving, chanting, whistle blowing and all that, in which I gladly partook. There were of course heaps of people wanting to buy tickets, and a few dodgy as looking people trying to sell tickets to them.

Next was a security check point where they would check bags (if you had one) and pat you down and stuff, and also do a priliminary check on your ticket to make sure it wasnt a fake.. I had to give them the shotgun I was carrting in my shorts, and the steak knife I had hidden in the scarf.. but that was ok i guess ;). It was about 2 hours to kickoff but there were already plenty of people and the atmosphere outside the stadium was great so I took a short wander around (got denied entra at a few gates coz it wasnt the entrance for my row.. but hey) and then decided it was time to head in.

Ok.. in each corner of the stadium were big ground-level entrances for vehicles and stuff.. And of course throughout the stadium, half-way up, were a bunch of normal crowd entrances. Kinda like in the Wellington Stadium (for people reading this from Wellington). My seat was at the very front (perfect.. nobody can block my line of sight, even with a flag n stuff..) above the first crowd entrance to the left of (behind) one of the main ground-level entrances. So That was pretty cool. There was still ages to go, but of course there was music playing, and people dancing and jumping and flag waving, so I just soaked up atmosphere for a few hours. During that time I got on the big screen!!! :D!! Sweet!! Grr tho when i noticed i fumbled to get my camera, and by the time it was out I was gone.. but i got a good 5-10 seconds of fame :) guess the face paint helped :). I was also approached, or gestured at quite a bit by people wanting to take my picture.. which was fine with me (having face paint on tends to give one more photogenic-confidence :) ).

The teams came out and had a warm-up.. and then off they went (by now it was packed out).. A few minutes later they came out onto the pitch for the national anthems and stuff. before they ran out onto the field the players were displayed on the big screens and an announcer read them out. For Germany instead of cheering after each player (which gets a bit boring and lame) the entire stadium would yell the players last name at the same time it was read out. Man it sounded cool!!! And must be awesome for the players too!! It'd be like: Nummer 11, Miroslav KLOSE!, Nummer 13, Michael BALLACK!!.. and so on.. Totally awesome! And then it was kickoff!!!! During the first half the goal closest to me was the german goal.. and even though there were some good chances (at both ends) it was 0-0 at half time. Man the crowd was awesome!! :) it was probably a good things my ears were a little clogged up tho ha ha! There was bunch of singing and chanting! It was like the McEvedy Shield athletics meet at college, but a million times louder and cooler! There were a few mexican waves and stuff.. But yeah, they arent that amazing. The crowd boo-ed Christiano Ronaldo alot again, which i still think is pretty harsh.. but arr well, not much I could do about it!

During halftime it was just music and dancing.. and a little rest. At halftime I realised that (while seated) Id never actually sat back in my seat yet.. it was a rather pleasant suprise to slip back and have a back rest :). I dont think I used the back of my seat again much after tho anyway ha ha! It flashed up the attendance on the big screen (sold out, 52,000... woah..!)

The second half was indescribable! For those of you who watched it, you will know Germany scored 3 goals, and while Portugal clawed one back near the end, it wasnt enough.. I almost teared something in my throat from all the yelling :) but it was so worth it! Each goal would be welcomed with a deafening roar and a seas of flags and jumping people. Altho after the first it was complete euphoria! It was incredible!! You had to be there to know what I mean but it was magic ay! The second goal was a bit lucky (an own goal off a free kick (taken by Schweinsteiger?), but the other two (both scored by Schweinsteiger) were rippers! Especially the second. I had a perfect shot of that goal going into the net (altho had to use a bit of digital zoom. But it was blurry coz I jumped up and started roaring too early. gutted az!!! :(. Tho I got a pretty good pic of the Portugese goal so thats cool!! I dunno how to describe what it was like being there... adjectives kinda fail.. but it was totally, utterly great! (ha ha tho for what i payed i woulda hoped it would be :) ). After the full time whistle there was massive singing and screaming and stuff :). The Portugese waved farewell, and the Germans got a medal (bronze im assuming) from a bunch of important people :). Then they did a victory lap while fireworks crashed overhead.. It was sweet! The stadium played all the football songs and stuff, and everyone was so stoked and stuff :) it was totally awesome! Ha ha later the team lined up and did this ten-pin bowling kinda thing where they all toppled over :) it was cool! (maybe u saw it on TV). Unfortunately a the start of the victory lap they killed the main floodlights (probably for the fireworks) so from then on getting a decent photo wasnt an option for me :(

Aaaanyway.. after having my full of screaming and celebrating I headed out with the massive stampede towards the train station. Altho I was lucky in that the bulk were heading to Stuttgart to go mental, wheras I was heading back to Esslingen, so I even got a seat. At home i scrubbed the paint off my face, watched a bit of a match review on t.v then sat in bad for a while not sleeping until finally I must have got to sleep.. tho i dunno what time that was..

Whoar! That was seriously so cool! Sorry the post was so long though. Congratulations to who ever actually read it all! :). I havent talked to anyone at home yet.. But maybe my moment on the big screen made it to NZ. And im sure from some angles you will be able to see my seat.. will have to look later if someone recorded it. I got a bunch of press photos taken too by those guys with the cameras with massive lenses.. so who knows.. if they got a good one you might see me somewhere.

Tomorrow is the final. I kinda want Italy to lose coz they knocked out Aussie and Germany.. But I think I would like them to win anyway.. I dont think france deserve it as much. Yeah they beat Brazil.. but thats about all you can say that is better than Italy. Time will tell! I'll say 2-1 to Italy

Thanks for reading!