One of the most wonderful and exciting event of the last year naturally was the FIFA WM 2006. Millions of people from all over the world came to Germany. I went to visit my relatives in Cologne that summer. The streets were full of football moonstruck and not only men, but women too. It seemed that this event opened the hearts of all Germans. In addition as you know the official slogan of the 2006 FIFA Word Cup was: "A time to make friends". After the championship Germans were lauded for their hospitability. During the World Cup they gained new friends world-wide. I have many examples to prove it. I watched many different situations when people who didn't know each other became the best friends during and after the tournament. Our neighbor invited people who came to watch the WM into his house without any payment for their stay. He didn't know those people at all. They lived in tents in his garden and some of them lived in his house too. He fed them and drove to the matches. At night they made great noise and for some of us it was too loud. Although neither the host of the house nor the neighbors did say anything. That man spent with his guests the whole summer.
The streets in the city are always crowded but during the FIFA they seemed to be overcrowded. There is one thing I liked the best. There were some artists in the streets. Those artists painted their bodies in gold, silver, white or black, some of them were painted in colors of the flags of those countries that took part in the tournament. Those artists stood on the streets the whole day motionless. But when you came by and put some money in their hats or boxes in front of them they changed their positions, they moved. Only one movement and then static position again. They even didn't blink or yawn. Not a single movement! It was very amusing to watch them. It seemed so easy to stay motionless. Moreover, I want to add that I tried to do it myself, but it was so difficult. That is why I can say that I admired those brave artists who made their job so exciting and excellent.
There were a lot of flags during the championship. The flags of Germany were everywhere, but there were also and flags of other countries. So, flags were on the top of every house, on the bridges, on the cars, on the T-shirts. People even painted their faces in red, yellow, and black. They said that yellow was for their football team that was like a gold; red was for their blood that was up in their veins; black was for their land they lived in and for the land they were so proud of.
The Germans were really crazy because of that championship. Berlin was definitely the main city those days and the Olimpiastadion was the venue for the 2006 FIFA World Cup Final. It was the big centre of that world performance. There were big viewing areas called Fan Fests in every city on the central squares. People could watch the World Cup matches in public. If I say that millions of people were there every day I definitely won't lie.
It doesn't matter what country are you from. Everybody liked that time, that summer. It was summer of joy, happiness, friendship and fun.
Germans wrote many songs dedicated to World Cup, but the most popular was, certainly, "Generation" that became the anthem of the championship.
Germans thought that they'll win the World Cup, but they failed to win it. I was very sorry for that. I imagine how great will be general excitement in case of their victory. Although the championship brought a great success for Germany in general. And I didn't regret about anything. I was very glad that I had the opportunity to watch the FIFA World Cup Final and to take part in that exciting passion for football. It was great and I had a lot of fun.
Iuri Tarabanov writes about interesting travel experiences. His Discount Travel site is http://www.travelime.com
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