June 22-June 25

To me, this whole weekend was one big day. On Saturday I experienced American football, European style! On Monday, I'm still paying for it. It all started Friday night...

It just so happened that the exchange program of Bamberg organized its last party of the year for last Friday. After being convinced to go out, and convincing my friend Romina myself to come out, we headed out for a less than average night.

First, the Eintritt was 3 euros. Second, I got a beer but only drank half because a friend knocked the rest over. I've done it myself, though, so I didn't say anything. Third, the music was on repeat. Seriously, we heard more than a few songs twice. Fourth, Priscilla was so upset about her lost black belt!

Well, we ended up getting home around 3:30 after taking a taxi home. I didn't mind, though, because I had a day of football to look forward to. And it turns out Priscilla's belt never left her room; she found it the next day safely strewn across her bathroom floor.

Now: World Bowl time! Erinn, Shawn (Ami) , Jenny (Brit) and I left Bamberg on the 12:20 train to Frankfurt. We were all really excited, and even met a German who has lived in Manhatten for 45 years. He happened to be very talkative, but I had to cover up my bare arms to protect myself from his occasional rains of spittal.

In true football tradition, we "train"gated with Pringles, muffins, Smiley's, and our own beverage of choice. Mine: Vodka and Coke. Erinn: Cider. Shawn: see mine. Jenny: beer. Once in Frankfurt, it started raining. But we came prepared!! We rocked our colorful, 50 cent ponchos while we walked around looking at all the booths set up outside the stadium. I even bought a home team scarf (Gooo Galaxy!) I must say, I was probably a little biased with such amazing colors as ORANGE AND PURPLE!! Woot! On that note, I also happened to meet a man from SC sporting a CLEMSON TIGER'S hat!! It just made the trip that much better.

Once we found our standing room only spots (at only 13 euros a spot!), Meatloaf played before the game! I'm not sure how old he is, but he sounded pretty good. During the whole game, people were blowing whistles (I could never tell if it was a ref or not), waving flags and banging on drums. There weren't many Hamburg Sea Devil fans, but certainly a ton of Frankfurt Galaxy fans.

After the game (Sea Devils won, but I don't remember the score), we headed back to the train station. We had already decided to pull an all-nighter so we wouldn't have to pay for a hostel, but we met some British guys. Instead of spending a boring night on cold concrete, we headed to the Irish pub right across from the Bahnhof and spent all night chatting with our new friends. They ended up walking us to our 5:30 am train! After that, I passed out on the train, only waking up when Jenny made me change trains. I didn't get back to my room until 10 Sunday morning!

It was all worth it, but I'm still paying for it. I absolutely canNOT speak. I have completely lost my voice from all my screaming at the game; I can barely manage a whisper. I didn't care who won. I didn't care if it was a crappy call. Heck, I didn't really even pay that much attention to the actual game! I just like to scream at some football! But seriously, 13 euros for the SuperBowl equivalent of Europe? Gotta love it.