World Cup flashback

There's absolutely no movie news that catches my fancy, and I have no desire to think about going to work today, so instead I'm flashing back to happier times: the World Cup. These photos come courtesy of my brother, Paul, who has not updated his blog, linked at the top of my links list, since July, meaning these photos and more are still up there.

We made our home base in Koln, famous for, among many other things, kolsch, the beer they like to serve in these fairly tiny glasses.

This shot of Paul and I (I'm the rather heavyset dude on the left), was taken at a beerhall called Paffgen, where we met many fine folks and drank too many of those tiny beers. If you emptied your glass and failed to put a coaster on top of it, they would bring another one before you even had time to think about it.

But lest anyone think we just drank beer, here's proof that we actually did go to the U.S. games.

This is the platform to board the train to the U.S.-Czechoslovakia match in Gelsenkirchen. It was even crazier than it looks here. I was never scared while in Germany, but this definitely made me nervous (however, because the Germans were unfailingly nice people throughout our trip, I won't make any tasteless remarks about people being packed into trains in Germany.) The match, of course, was also a nightmare.

Here's me, on the right, surely singing some terribly jingoistic song before we laid down to the Black Stars of mighty Ghana. After the match I was pissed about that ridiculous penalty called on Oguchi, but looking back now, Ghana was simply the better team that day.

The headline my brother put on this photo was "caution: jackasses," but I'll use our more formal title: the Minnesota Volunteers. From left, our ragtag band of travellers was made up of Andy, Bruce, Charlie, me, Tom Donovan, Neal, Amy and Paul. Fine folks all, who were kind enough to adopt me for this trip.

Bruce, by the way, along with being an all-around good guy, maintains the most thorough blog of world soccer news I've come across. Called Du Nord, it is also contained in my links list to the right. Check it out and enjoy.

Thank you for indulging me in this flashback. I really needed it.