34

Yay! I, somehow, managed to sort out a video uploading problem so am now able to present my birthday blog. Yes, ladies and gentles, I am now officially 34. I knew that this day would come and it turned out to be a very pleasant experience. On Sunday morning myself and Eric indulged in one of our favourite activities, Sunday brunch, in a middle-Eastern restaurant we like just up the road from us. For those of you who are interested we had a choice, from, an all-you-can eat buffet (we were thinking of you Steve!), of different roasted and marinated vegetables, different dips, meats, cheese, bread, eggs (scrambled, boiled), as well as fruit and cake. It was, according to Eric's official food grading, very delicious.

Eric with Niko

Then we rested up before our main event of the day - a football match (that's soccer to my American relatives), Hertha BSC Berlin versus Freiburg, at Olympiastadion. We met up with our friend Tom and his son Niko (4). Tom is from the south of Germany and his team is Freiburg so we were there to cheer the minority. Both Hertha and Freiburg are bottom of the Bundesliga (the German first divison) but being a home game for Hertha, Tom didn't have much expectation.

The Olympiastadion is pretty impressive. It is the original building from the 1936 "Nazi" Olympics where Jesse Owens angered Hitler by winning 4 gold medals. The building's architecture has a real Nazi feel to it with some strange statues of presumably Ayrian athletes around the place.

Anyway, to the match. There was a good sized crowd there considering it wasn't a major game. Tom got us great seats, right in the middle and down near the pitch. We were right beside the area where the hard-core fans were (see video at bottom) so we could enjoy the atmosphere but not have to be near any of the ruckus. The fans have a good enough reputation, though Tom was pointing out some flags of local fanclubs as being facist, basically skinheads in Hertha gear.

Tom and Niko and lego set

However as you can see our section was nice and safe. I think the game was a bit much for Niko, but he played happily with his lego and was particularly excited about getting an ice-cream at half-time. We had a great time as the match ended up being pretty thrilling. Freiburg scored easily in the first 5 minutes and went on to thrash Hertha 4-0. It was the worst beating that Hertha had for a long time. For some reason though the hard-core fans were not deterred and continued singing for the whole match.

Which leads me nicely to the video. I really wanted to capture the atmosphere of the place - the sound from the fans was pretty amazing. Two things to look out for - first the kid bopping away and second the scoreboard. These fans are cheering away while their team is down 2 goals!!! Anyway, enjoy this taste of football in Berlin. We certainly did. It was a great way to celebrate turning 34.

PS Sorry, put up the wrong video the first time.