What World Cup?

I really hate to say it, but......"we were robbed"!!!!!

Can't believe the Aussies lost and went out of the World Cup to such a dubious penalty and such a poor piece of (or a great piece depending on how you look at it!) Italian acting......so frustrating aaaaagggghhhhhh

After watching our first team (Oranje) go out the day before, then suffering the disappointment of watching the Australians lose in such a way Jeroen & I are going football-free for a couple of days! I must say though that the natural pessimism of Dutch fans (maybe based on a long history of football disappointments) meant that almost everyone I know here believed NL had lost the game before it even started. Since the NL loss to Portugal, there have been pieces on Dutch tv showing entire neighbourhoods dismantling their carefully erected orange flags, banners, and decorations from shopfronts, terraces, front gardens etc etc Now I know why those stores always do such big business selling orange stuff before every major tournament - everyone cracks the shits and throws it all away!!! It's like the World Cup never existed, and most people are now looking forward to Euro 2008. I guess the Australians can do the same. Bring on the Asian Cup! Lets just hope bloody Frank Lowy doesn't totally blow our chances of getting a decent replacement for the fabulous Hiddink/Neeskens team :-/

Bronwyn and Maurice are in Paris at the moment and on arrival there yesterday afternoon made their way immediately to some tacky Australian themed "pub"!!! We got a text message at the end of the game from Maurice boldly declaring he will never sell Italian suits again :-))))

Now the question is, who do we support as neutral spectators??? Maybe I should get in touch with my German ancestry and throw my support behind the mannschaft - a Germany vs England final could be on the cards??!!!

Anyway, at least the sun is shining and the end of the World Cup does not herald the end of summer fun.

Alli xxx

In the Schwarzwald!

Jeroen and I have just returned from a fantastic 5 day camping trip in the "deep south" of Germany (on the shores of Titisee!!). We were there from Wednesday 14 - Monday 19 and were joined by Bron & Maurice on Friday for the last couple of days.

The primary purpose of our trip was to soak up the atmosphere of the Dutch football training camp and visit the set of a well known Dutch tv program currently on location there during the World Cup. It was soooooooo much fun! The weather was perfect, with sunny days in the high 20C and no rain until our last night. We did the 30 minute walk from our camping ground around the lake to the village of Titisee (gotta love that name!) every evening to watch the games on the big screen, drink lots of German beer, eat bratwurst, and get ourselves on Dutch national television.

Titisee itself is a very beautiful little German village renowned for cuckoo clocks :-) and Schwarzwald schinken (a type of smoked ham - very yummy!!). I don't think they had ever seen so many people under the age of 80 enmasse so the whole village was in party mode.

The 4 of us also did a day trip to Basel in Switzerland, and everything that day was like something out of some crazy road movie. Basel is a really relaxed city on the banks of the Rhine, and we really enjoyed exploring the little cobble stoned back streets and walking along the river. Coming back to Titisee was an adventure in itself! We got caught up in a 7 km long traffic jam on the autobahn, caused by an accident. It proved to be a great way to meet people as everyone was out of their cars chatting, playing football etc to pass the time. I think we were stuck there for about 90 minutes. On the mountain road back to Titisee we were held up again in a traffic jam caused this time by a bus exploding into flames on the road ahead of us. Thankfully no one was injured and the fire was doused in about 1 hour. The funny thing was when we asked some Germans in front of us what had happened we were promptly informed it was a bush fire!!! hhhhmmmmm.....couldn't see any smoke or smell any burning vegetation - strange! After some further discussion we realised that they had actually said BUS fire with a German accent - how silly of us!!!

The highlights of our mini vacation in lovely Titisee would have to be my photo opportunity with the "mother of all football analysts" Mr Jan Mulder. That's him & I top right! Jan is famous here on Dutch tv and was a footballer back in the '70s for the national team. He really plays the grumpy old man character to a tee and I love him! We also managed to get VIP invitiations to the hotel bar where all the cast and crew and various hangers on party after the telecast each night. It was one big drinking fest - singing Dutch slager music, dancing on the bar, chatting with "celebrities" etc until the sun came up. I love vacations!

Alli xxx

Various photos from Titisee & Basel