USA 1 - Ghana 2

Well I'm glad that's over. Of course I wish the USA had won the match but whatever. The World Cup was a black hole in the middle of my trip that really limited what I could do. It was fun racing through Eastern Europe the first time to get to Germany and go to India, but the second time of racing through to get to the World Cup was just too much. I've got another black hole coming up in September with my sailing class. I'm trying to plan around that right now and I'm not making much progress. All the places I want to go now are part of ambitious overland routes that would be better served by having the freedom to not follow a specific timetable.

Bamberg

Yesterday was another day exploring German cultural heritage in the city of Bamberg.

Lorsch

This is the Torhall, the famous entrance to the Abbey of Lorsch, the second destination on my Monday day trip. There wasn't much to see of the Abbey (or what's left of it). But the grounds were quite pleasant to walk around and I actually enjoyed Lorsch a bit more than Speyer.

Speyer

Monday I spent visiting towns near Darmstadt. First up was Speyer where there is a really important cathedral and the Technik Museum which has the kinds of stuff that little boys dreams are made of. In addition to this Lufthansa 747 they have a submarine, a big boat, numerous other airplanes, helicopters, and other vehicles that you can run around in and explore.

Art

The day after the football match was a lazy day, first a barbeque in Darmstadt than a trip to Frankfurt to visit the Stadel Museum and see another Vermeer, a couple cool paintings from Edvard Munch, a great Degas, the Botticelli above, and some good German art. After the Museum I walked along the river Main to where the World Cup fan fest was set up. They have giant TV screens in the river and you can watch the matches from the river bank. They also had lots of international food stalls set up (including a variety of African food) and if I hadn't been completely stuffed from the barbeque I would have liked to have tried some of them.

USA 1 - Italy 1

After Bratislava I made my way to Germany via Prague and the Czech Republic. I got an early start Friday so I could spend a few hours in Prague shopping. I wish I had more time there to see how things have changed in the two years since EU membership (and since my last visit). My only observation on this point is that grocery prices seem to have stayed pretty much the same. You can still buy a bag of picnic food that will last you all day long for just a few dollars. Shopping for food at Tesco took longer than it should have and even though I made it to the train station in time to catch the only direct train to Nürnberg I did not have enough time to wait in the outrageously long line for international tickets. So instead of an easy train ride straight to Germany I had to take a slower train to the Czech border town of Cheb and then catch a German train to Marktredwitz across the border. The tracks on the line to Cheb must have been under maintainence because about 60 km from Cheb the train stopped and everyone on board had to get on some buses that were waiting to take us further down the line. This of course caused me to miss the train to Marktredwitz and be stuck in Cheb for awhile. When the next German train came along it was one that was actually going through to Nürnberg. Fortunately I had enough time in Marktredwitz to jump off the train, run to the automated ticket machine and buy a new ticket (the Bavaria ticket) that would get me all the way to Aschaffenburg for just 18 euro. I jumped back on the same train quite pleased with myself thinking I might actually make it to Darmstadt before midnight. My hopes were dashed when I got to Nürnberg to find out I had missed the train to Würzburg by 16 minutes and that the next one wasn't for 3 hours. This ment Würzburg would be as far as I would get this day. At least I knew the hostel in Wüzburg would have beds available. I checked in, got a good nights sleep and finished the journey the next day. All this effort was to avoid paying 160 dollars for the overnight train from Prague to Frankfurt. My way cost about 70 to go the same distance but would have been cheaper if I'd made it to Aschaffenburg as planned and I would have saved on the bed for the night if I'd made it as well.

Saturday afternoon was another train journey to Kaiserslautern for the USA/Italy match. It was exciting. The Italians played dirty but the US players just kept running and playing their hearts out.