Sun 24th, London
- 25 Jun 06, 01:04 PM
“… it’s going, football’s going home….”
That’s it for us. All over. Two weeks of football mayhem, no sleep, inter-global partying and a little bit of work have come to an end. The World Service World Cup Camper Van is back with its owner Ricky. And we even got our deposit back! After a few near misses and an inexplicable ink explosion in the van, we have saved the 成人快手 some cash and hopefully our own jobs too…. It’s amazing what a bit of bleach and elbow grease can do.
Spent our last evening in Germany at the Togo v France match in Cologne. Great game, fantastic, noisy atmosphere, good way to end the trip. The tram to the ground was full of German fans shouting Togo songs but carrying French baguettes and huge wooden cockerels, painted in Togo colours. Typical bizarre behaviour of this World Cup.
Long drive back home but amazingly, despite being absolutely knackered, got ourselves and the van home in one piece.
After 2200 miles, and nights spent in Gelsenkirchen, Dortmund, Frankfurt, Gelsenkirchen again, Frankfurt again, Nuremberg, Munich, Leipzig and Cologne, a few final thoughts on the trip:
Wish we’d taken….. a better map
Worst campsite: Frankfurt – toilets and showers merging to create horrors too extreme to put in this blog
Best wildlife: Nuremberg – woodpeckers and red squirrels in the campsite
Luxury: service station showers
Low point: a night spent parked in a car park in Munich
High point: meeting the seven Aussie fans in same car park, squashed into Sheila, the smelly, full of dirty underwear 1970s four-man camper van. They’d been there 10 days and made us think we could have had it a lot worse… I hope they are not still wearing the World Service t-shirts we gave them, or have at least washed them in their bucket.
Best food: bemused Chinese restaurant in the middle of the night, Munich. After we weren’t allowed into the campsite we thought we’d booked.
Never found anyone….who could out-drink the Czechs.
Dream…. England v Germany in Berlin. England win on penalties….
Big big thanks to Katie Dahlstrom, who thought up the camper van idea but then was unable to go herself. And to Dan McMillan for getting us Togo tickets. Good man.
Would we do it again? Bring on South Africa 2010…
Had problems putting up pics of the trip. Hopefully here are the Australians in our World Service footy t-shirts. Will put up some others if we can get it to work.
