USA Here We Come

Well, Germany is starting to feel like a distant memory - a pleasant distant memory though. Despite England's crash and burn, our time in Germany was fantastic. World Cup Camping was a bit rough and ready. We survived 12 nights in what can only be described as Carry On England Fans Abroad. When we arrived to the sounds of "En-ger-land, En-ger-land, En-ger-land" and "There were 10 German bombers in the air" being sung by about 1,500 drunken England fans (all men), we wondered what we had let ourselves in for. The fact we'd been travelling since 7am and it was now 11pm might have added to our agitation. Pitching a tent in the pitch black is no fun either, let me tell you.

World Cup Camping


Bonjour Saleem - here's your tent duly decorated!

We awaited sunrise which is about 5am accompanied by what seemed to be 1,000 birds to find that in fact the site wasn't all that bad. The pool looked nothing like the picture on the website, the big screen was only just up and running but because it was in a white marquee with the sun shining in, you couldn't see the picture, the showers were cold and the men had to queue for theirs and the only food on offer was half a chicken with bread or sausages - oh well, we thought, we'll just get on with it. It didn't take long to get a bit fed up with the set up and it was becoming clear that the organiser hadn't anticipated the amount of work it takes to serve and look after that amount of people.

World Cup Camping was certainly an experience and we met some pretty decent people but decided to leave after 12 nights for a far nicer and cheaper campsite in Grunberg. Our remaining nights camping flew by as the facilities were great, Grunberg was a mere 10 minute walk away and had great bars and restaurants and we actually managed to get to sleep before 4am and lie in until after 7am. Not that we're boring or anything but we like our kip!

Our new luxury dwelling in Grunberg and Danny relaxing after
a hard day's work...

We have since treated ourselves to a couple of nights in hotels in Frankfurt and Rome because after 30 nights in a tent you feel like you deserve it!

Rome was and is amazing, we're back here at the moment. We love it. Every corner you turn has more and more beautiful architecture. It's unbelievable how much one city has to be honest. We took a bus tour which we would thoroughly recommend so that we could see all the major sites. When you have a limited amount of time this is the best way to do it. It would be nice to think you could walk around the city but it's vast and in 30°+ heat, not advisable. We were also in Rome for the Italian team's homecoming, how lucky was that? We watched with around 150,000 others as they arrived at the Circo Maximo to show off the world cup. Prior to that we caught a glimpse of the team coach which was being followed by thousands and thousands of scooters - incredible. We've never seen anything like it in our lives and I doubt we will again.

After that we had 5 days in Sicily. Not much to say really, we weren't all that impressed. There's a good chance we missed the point as we stayed in Catania and only really ventured to Mount Etna. Bit of a poor man's Rome to be honest. Sorry Sicily, didn't really do it for us. The Agora Hostel in very cool though but in a terrible location, back of a meat market - nevermind, you live and learn.

Well, that's Europe summarised. Off to the USA tomorrow starting in New York. We're both really looking forward to it. Hopefully, we'll have an opportunity to post more about the States pretty soon. That's about all for now but watch this space for photos and video...

D&D