Fans.
Sometimes I just admire people who are ready to tear their claws for their favorite team even to another city, even to another country. Everything is too far from our lands, and our way of life is “diligent” and there is no team for the sake of which we would like to change this “diligence”. Gone are the days when there was an op in the house because half of the viewers were for Spartak, and the other for Dynamo Kiev. The disease has become chronic, aggravated only during the European or World Championships. Moreover, when ours traditionally fly out, we sigh and say: “Order! Now you can forget about patriotism and finally start rooting for a beautiful game!
Who does not remember, the 2010 World Cup was held in South Africa, that is, terribly far from Europe, where we decided to ride in June-July. In my opinion, we just forgot about it, buying tickets and applying for a visa to Germany. We outlined an approximate route with the capture of interesting places and a visit to a couple of relatives and friends, it was decided to book hotels on Booking along the way. They hunted for "analogue" guides to the proposed places to visit, not trusting the Internet too much, as it turned out later, not in vain. My husband completed a separate quest by renting a car from Hertz. For those who don’t know, I’ll let you know: the price of rent depends heavily on the orderer, and it’s important what language you are talking to them in. Not knowing anything from the German language, except for the cine "Hyundai hoch! " and “Hitler kaput! ”, broadcast the letter through Google translator, then, to be sure, translated it into Russian, assessed the result as acceptable, and sent it. It went smoothly, but I had to repeat this ritual, because at the beginning he did not indicate that, apart from Germany, he was going to go to the Czech Republic, and not all cars are allowed to go there, decent cars seem to be often stolen there, and repairs after those roads are expensive.
We arrived in Frankfurt am Main in the evening, received a booked Kia Sid (instead of the promised Ford Focus) and drove off. The fun began with our acquaintance with the navigator built into the car. We called him "Isabella" (c), he spoke to us in a female voice in Russian. Until now, we drove the navigator only for pampering, along home roads that we knew even without it, but here, while we realized that “keep left” does not mean “turn left” at all, we squandered two full circles around the airport, and the airport is big. Well, it was twenty kilometers to the hotel. The car, as a friend on a two-week trip, it was decided to give the name "Sidor". A good guy, a mechanic, he can accommodate three adults with a suitcase and a couple of bags, he jumps through the mountains without much strain, but we also let him rest on especially steep passes.
And at that time, the quarter-final games were going on at the Championship...
The next day, Saturday, according to the plan, we had Cologne. We arrived, settled in a quiet place on the opposite bank from the Cathedral, a ten-minute walk from the train stop.
It was about three o'clock in the afternoon when we went to the Cathedral, the streets were amazingly deserted. At some point, a muffled, many-voiced cry was heard from several directions, a cry of joy. "Our British were beaten! " the quick-witted husband said, “ours” are the Germans, as he later explained to me, because now we are on their territory.
When we reached the Cathedral, we found an almost empty square. The whole city was sitting in cafes or at home TVs, we recognized the score by screams, joyful (“Of course, they have someone to rejoice for, ” the husband said with envy) and one upset, I don’t remember now, it seems the game ended 2:1. While they were sick there, we admired the 600-year-old cathedral, went inside, where it was also not crowded, listened to Bach in the organ performance. (When later, at work, she boasted of photographs, one boy was shocked by the absence of people, he was so unlucky).
The next item: drink beer, the famous Kö lsch. We went towards the Cathedral of St. Mikhail, on the way, was met by a serious number of policemen, even in bulletproof vests, apparently in case of all sorts of outrages on the part of the fans. Considering how hot it was, they were sorry. Then the match ended, and crowds of happy fans began to gather, howling vuvuzellas, people waving flags. Defeated, in tears, the British were not noticed. And it was such fun, I’ll say, crazy, but not violating the boundaries of decency and offending no one, it was nice to look at them, that, drinking beer, we realized: we need to slightly adjust the plan in order to be during the next game of the German national team in what in a big city, in a cafe, to watch a match with everyone, otherwise you feel like a “stranger at this celebration of life”. By the way, I didn’t particularly like Kö lsch, maybe I was unlucky with the brewery.
In the evening we rushed to Wuppertal to say hello to classmates, a glorious city, where on the outskirts there was such a smell of freshly cut grass that we smelled this smell through the machine's air conditioner. Distant joyful sounds were heard exactly until ten o'clock in the evening, then they turned off like a knife switch.
Further, our route lay in the direction of the southwest, in Karlsruhe with a stop in Wü rzburg. Traveling, when a person is sitting behind the wheel, who simply drags himself from the process of driving along their roads, after a while begins to cause grumbling among those who are not allowed to steer. They pulled our dad out of euphoria, saying that he would not let us see the rest of Germany. It's good to have relatives and friends in an unfamiliar country. The cutest classmates of her husband Zhora and Olya walked us through Karlsruhe, through the palace (university) park, and even suggested where to go: Baden-Baden is nearby, and there, through the Black Forest, to Boden See. Although we went online without any hassle from their house, we booked a hotel in the small town of Relasingen, from where it is within easy reach of the beach indicated by Zhora and the famous Rhine Falls near Schaffhausen.
In that year, everyone remembered the heat (Siberians remembered this summer, however, outrageously cold and rainy, but that's not the point now), I really wanted to plunge into the water. Lake Constance simply fascinated us, it was cool, there were thickets of hazelnuts on the shore (someone else, but I saw it for the first time in the bushes), and our Sidor had a place to park. There is a nice cafe nearby, where I once again ate goulash, and my men again “Viennese” schnitzel with fried potatoes. (They are on a diet at my house, fried potatoes only on holidays, or when I'm too lazy to think of something. And I found Hungarian goulash to be the most delicious in Germany; )
It was time to go to admire Rinefall, the husband silently fiddled with the navigator. About ten minutes later, discouraged, he said that Schaffhausen was offered him about a hundred kilometers and somewhere else, not at all nearby. Yes, Christmas trees, we met signs at every step, we drove along them. The track is normal, two lanes in each direction, then long rows of trucks began to meet along the extreme right. Finally, there is some kind of iron structure above the road, “Here, probably, they will take the fare from us, otherwise we have not yet met toll roads. ” Nothing like that, a man in uniform is standing, talking to the driver of the Beamer, waving to us to pass. We passed, and on the other side (! ) Of the metal structure, the flag of Switzerland hangs. Because our "Isabella" could not find anything, we did not ask her about Switzerland! Here I began to look more closely at a normal paper map, which was equipped with our "Sidor" in Hertz, and did not immediately make out a light green outline of borders in this dense network of highways. Then, this ease of crossing the borders even ceased to surprise us, I guessed that we crossed the next one, seeing a peasant who could only be forced to put on that beret in hot weather only by the requirement of uniform.
And to the waterfall, who will be nearby, I strongly advise you to go, just don’t forget, after entering the tunnel, turn right after three hundred meters, my husband was waiting for a command from Isabella (she doesn’t command in tunnels), but for some reason I didn’t assumed that the tunnels are branching...
In the evening, returning to quiet Relasingen, we sat in a pub among the fans, played “not ours”, so everything was very calm and sincere, and the beer was delicious.
Three days later there was a match between Germany and Argentina for reaching the semi-finals, we had to go to Munich. We took a ride to Zurich, along the southern coast of the Boden See with a stop at the beach, returned to Germany through a long and some kind of old-fashioned, without noticeable ventilation, tunnel. A terrible thing, I was terribly drawn into a dream, fortunately, at the exit we met a stopping area quite soon, at least we took our breath away. On the map it is marked as Pfander-tunnel, I read about it that there are 6 km. , They seemed to me fifteen. Maybe there is some more?
We were going to spend the night in the town of Ottobeuren (I don’t know how to pronounce it in Russian, perhaps Ottoburn). Small but notable for a very beautiful Basilica. Here for the first time we saw a wonderful Bavarian joke, when you really don’t understand, these are real architectural excesses, or everything is painted on flat walls, moreover, so realistic that you wanted to touch it with your hands. In general, the cultural life in this place is in full swing, they have their own symphony orchestra, with which some celebrity promised to sing in a couple of weeks (posters hung everywhere, and I also took with me a magazine from the hotel with announcements of upcoming city events, I went there with a herbarium folded).
Near the hotel there is a beech forest, through which my son and I walked in the morning while our dad was browsing the Internet. The forest is very cheerfully organized, there is a main entrance, there is a map-scheme, walking paths are marked on it: five-kilometer, three-kilometer and some more. Then we met signs indicating which one you are on. In addition, in the forest there are stands with riddles like: what kind of tree is this leaf? and any useful information, how long a tree grows, what is made of it, etc. That is, people in the process of a harmless walk are also somehow entertained. We liked.
The road to Munich was leisurely, with views of the fields, roofs with solar panels, windmills (oh, huge! ), With a stop to cool off at the Amersee lake. At the entrance, our poor Isabella was completely exhausted with us, some kind of global repair was going on everywhere, many roads were blocked, we got practically to the center, closer to Marienplatz, where tomorrow we were going to watch football with pleasure. The hotel was just depressing, three stars! it all looked like a hostel, a room on the top floor, in the sun, but with a balcony. After this hotel, at the next collection on the road, when I growl: What the hell are you taking with you a screwdriver, pliers and other crap? my husband reminds us that in Munich pliers were very useful to us, to switch the water from the shower to the faucet! But, interestingly, the breakfast at the hotel was very good.
Walked. At some point, I thoughtfully said that the capital had come to the city during the war, there was little historical left, my good husband answered somehow bloodthirsty: And for the cause! In general, in Germany, the thought constantly came to mind: guys, why didn’t you sit at home ? ! Beautiful forests, fields and mountains! This is what economic crises and crazy agitation must be to go to conquer the rest of the world when it is so good at home...
It was in Munich that we tried Augustischer beer, and Christmas trees! I still remember him! A small connoisseur and lover, but I can say that even Czech is not so tasty, this is also confirmed by my friend, who in general is not very noticeable in the use of alcohol, but admits that she cannot resist this beer!
In the morning, an interview with Maradona was caught on TV. I have my own accounts for him, I cannot forgive him for how many times he upset his devoted fans, and most importantly, my mother! And at that time she was sitting in our Siberia, which is very far from Munich, and was rooting for Argentina. The problem is that I myself prefer the Latin American style of play, in extreme cases, Spanish-Italian, the German car is not very close to me, that is, the feelings before the game were very contradictory.
What happened in the square! The shadowed half was full of tables, packed to capacity with people, decent stores had TVs in their windows, tuned to the right channel. The sunlit half was deserted. With each goal, people from the far tables rushed closer to the screen, some simply sat on the pavement in front of it, an attempt to show the broadcast on a projector (on a sunny day) looked like a separate mockery. Well, the Germans won, reached the semi-finals, and a big revelry began! (Since then, a vuvuzella has settled in our car, an infernal thing, in the colors of the German flag, my husband periodically blows into it, driving away cows on the roads of Altai and delighting friends in the country, a bugler... ). Later in the evening, when we arrived at the hotel, we saw how in the courtyard of a neighboring house, apparently for several apartments, the residents took out tables and sat drinking beer. And again, exactly at ten in the evening, everything was silent.
Then there were Salzburg, Vienna (where we discovered without any enthusiasm that instead of a map of the Czech Republic our navigator has a white spot, and the paper map breaks off near Linz in the south, in Prague in the north), Brno (which we had to stray in connection with, again, , a white spot instead of a map and with a disgusting native Navitel navigator, which I almost slammed on the asphalt in my hearts). All this is beyond football passions. And then we got to Prague and forgot about everything in the world! We just walked along it for two days, admired, remembering the stories of Karel Chapek, Hasek, drinking beer too, as without it! And I also dragged myself from the Czech language, I was very tired of the absolutely alien, although slightly understandable when reading, German. I’m not sure if my husband even remembered when the Germans were supposed to play there for reaching the final, but somehow we suddenly, returning along Wenceslas Square to the metro station, saw a small group of people who were watching the Germany-Spain match. I don't remember the score, but the Germans were losing. Slowed down for about twenty minutes, finished watching this case. And when on the way back we stopped by our friends in Karlsruhe and asked how they survived this defeat in Germany. The guys said that the Germans were predicted to lose by the octopus Paul, according to which the whole of Germany went crazy that year, so they were not even particularly upset.
Before returning to Frankfurt, we had time, a friend dragged us to Baden-Baden, he was shocked how this city could leave us indifferent! Of course, accompanied by Zhorka, who has this favorite cycling route, and who knows where to park his car on Saturday morning, and even for free (parking near the Russian Church), we liked the city much more! There were exhibitions of paintings, vintage cars, we saw a monument to Bismarck, terrible, I must say, they did it. That's why they pushed it into a corner. Near the town hall, the square was being prepared for the evening viewing of the match for third place, signs were hung out prohibiting alcohol and vuvuzellas, beer, I hope, was not prohibited in Baden-Baden.
Then, on the plane, late in the evening, we were informed that Germany won the third place, the message was met with sincere applause. I don’t know how many of the passengers were real Germans flying to Novosibirsk, but there were many who sympathized with this, although not the most important, victory.
P. S. I wrote and remembered how back in Cologne we dined in a summer restaurant and watched two boys of about fifteen years old who easily and simply threw their heads over a soccer ball on the sidewalk. And a recent dribbling demonstration where a German football player spun the ball around his foot like it was magnetized. No matter how much I root for Brazil and Argentina now, I am happy for Germany, they are still in the game, and their fans deserve this pleasure. And how interesting it is to travel for those tourists who have now arrived in Germany.
P. P. S. Brazil 1-7 Germany…
