Day 5 - May 7th, 2008

Today was definitely soccer day.

We all rolled out of bed at varying times in the morning, to meet Phillip to play some pickup soccer at the University at noon. While Phillip was trying to find a ball, we played some 5 on 5 basketball with another German student that was hanging and was going to play soccer with us. Of course, it was a Dallas Mavericks ball (They're crazy about Dirk Novitzki).

After 5 on 5 we played pickup soccer on an all weather surface that was kind of like a track. It wasn't too big, and it had fences around it, which was nice. The teams were the 3 Germans, Jana, Erica, Stephen, and Smurphy versus Me, Erik, Josh, Mike, Andrew, Mark, and Pat. It was a great game that ended in a 9-8 score, due to us running out of time because we had to go back to the hotel. The Germans could PLAY, they were great at soccer. Phillip said he was too busy but could try out for FC Augsburg and play, and one of the other guys played for a club team in Ulm. It was really interesting (and awesome) to watch some of the stuff that they could do with two feet and a soccer ball.

We went back to the hotel, showered, then went to the FC Augsburg versus 1. FC Cologne soccer game. Neither team played very well, though apparently FCA is about to be demoted a leaguer and FCK is about to move up a league. (The way soccer works in most countries is that they have 3 levels, and the top 3 from each level move up to the next level, while the bottom 3 move down. So the bottom three teams in league 1 move down to league 2, while the top three in 2 move to 1 and the bottom three move to 3, etc). It's an interesting system. Right now both FCA and FCK are in the 2nd league. Augsburg held the ball for most of the game and got so many chances, but they just couldn't finish. They ended up losing 3-1. I picked up a pretty nice FCA jersey for only 29 Euros, which was great.

After the game we just headed back and are hanging out in preparation for our trip to Munich tomorrow.

...OLEYYYYYY, OLEY OLEY OLEY!