everything's not lost.

surprisingly, after a few boring (and even worse) days, the EURO2008 finally “kicked in” (badum-bish) on thursday with the game Germany – Croatia in Klagenfurt. the streets were flooded with people from Croatia and Germany and I think there were way more Croatians than Germans, everything was covered in red and white :)

i didn’t take much pictures the last days, mainly because of the weather and the fact that it was boring anyways, but yesterday was a bit different!

(in the end it didn’t help :)

i also head a few Couchsurfers over, starting with Chris from Poland (but lived long enough in the States to pass as an American..) during the weekend and Dirk from Germany (living in Italy) and Thomas from Hamburg with two of his friends. That picture might look scary, but they were mostly harmless :)

we watched the game outside the Claddagh (seriously, where else? :) and then went on to party after the game at the Pfarrplatz – am I glad i moved away from there half a year ago! damn it was loud. but such a great party, everyone had a great time!

and why am I the only one with a beer? usually it would be the other way round! really!

(me, Couchsurfing guest Dirk from Germany, Chris, Markus,
Couchsurfing host Uli with guest Lauryn from the USA)

another great group picture haha! see – i actually didn’t intend to drink the beer! tadaaa!

so far the performance of the Austrian team was almost as depressing and embarassing as i thought it would be, but i really love the team from Netherlands, how awesome is it to literally destroy reigning world-champion Italy and vice-world-champion France? :)

Monday will be another game in Klagenfurt, Poland – Croatia, looking forward to that at well. today I should get two Couchsurfers from Zagreb who will stay until Tuesday. on Wednesday, i have to work again, after that there are no more games in Klagenfurt.

much fun on thursday, but was it worth all the trouble and effort? there’s a lot of media coverage about how much money the caterers are loosing in the fan zones when it’s not a game-day, but there is no sympathy from my side because of those stupid regulations. Carlsberg beer 4.5 EUR in the official fan zone and they are very restrictive when letting people in. a few examples?

• on one day (not even a game day) i bought a 0.5L bottle of Coca-Cola and got it without the screw cap so i can’t use it as a projectile. nobody seems to mind if i throw it anyways without the screw cap on.
• i bought another 0.5L bottle of Coca-Cola yesterday at the Claddagh for 3 EUR (the price is OK!) and was refused entry in the official fanzone with the bottle. I had to down it and leave the bottle behind.
• the security stewards checking bags and everything are doing the worst job ever. i walk around with my backpack all the time and there is camera equipment and or a hoody and they just take a very short look at the content, beneath it all i could smuggle in worse things than just a 0.5L bottle i actually intended to drink. for example the backpack of markus has two halves and they only looked into the top half with the sweater, not the bottom half with the expensive camera equipment. “one time i even had a leather-man with me and got through”, he said.
  
• Uli was not let in to the fan zone because she had pepper-spray with her and she was not even allowed to leave it and get it back later, she had to give it up. and that after all the panic about women having to be careful.
• on Saturday, when it was raining just a tiny bit, the steward wouldn’t let me in at first because i had a compact umbrella – not the big one with a spike at the bottom, that i could understand, but the small one. even I could make more damage with my fist if I wanted to.
• on Thursday, the steward at the fan zone was very suspicious about my camera equipment in my backpack (Canon EOS 400D, 18-55, 70-300, Speedlite 430EX) stating it “looks like professional equipment” and that I needed an accreditation. i had to convince him that this is a hobby and i don’t have any profit out of being here. it’s always funny when people think a bigger camera than a point-and-shoot one is automatically the equipment of a professional :)

so you see, all in all a bit stupid, but hey, it’s been pretty safe so far, so i can live with it. at times, there were more police forces around than fans and so far they seem like doing a good job! and I say that even after my bike got stolen :D

(me and my “cousin” chris :D great pic by markus!)