9 Time Zones Later...

I'm home.

After departing the river boat yesterday at 7:15 am in Germany, we arrived home at our house in Washington around midnight, 26 hours later. The trip exceeded my expectations and, naturally, I'll be writing about it later in the week. I have nearly 4 gigs of photos with me from the trip and have numerous people from the trip anxiously awaiting my next update of my online galleries, as they want to buy some of the better shots. Or so they say...

It turned out that the terminus of our cruise, Nuremberg, was actually one of the host cities for the World Cup. Although Saturday night's game between Italy and USA was being played elsewhere, we did get to go to Haupt Markt square where the World Cup festivities were being held and watch the game on tv's with about 150,000 other beer-swilling foreigners. Stand in one place long enough and you'll not only see jerseys from a dozen different countries go by, but you'll hear just as many fight songs being sung in just as many slightly-slurred languages. The crowd was awesome, everyone in high spirits, and even rivals were friendly. The town was hosting the Croatia vs Japan game the following day so the crowd was dominated by Croatians, but there were plenty of enthusiastic Italian and American supporters there as well. And considering the game featured an own-goal, three ejections, spilt blood, and resulted in a tie, even the trash talking in the crowd was received with a smile. I'm not a big soccer fan (obvious by the fact that I said soccer instead of footy) but that won't be my last World Cup.

Anyway, I have a small bit of work to do today for work, a lot to unpack, and some dogs to pick up. More to come...

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