A Trip Across the Pond : July 2014

As a huge football/soccer fan it has been such a treat to be living in a country that is football crazy, especially during the World Cup. My allegiances always lie with Germany but I do have a soft spot for England and since I'm living here I felt like I had to cheer for them a bit. Gabel is also a huge Germany fan so we had lots of fun together. The first step was buying our Germany FIFA kits (jerseys). She got a Lahm one and I got Muller one. We then went and got England t-shirts. Of course England was a huge disappointment in the tournament but it was SO EXCITING that Germany won. Our game day routine was always the same:

put on our jerseys
put on our red lipstick
race down to a pub called Yates
grab a beer
park ourselves in front of the huge projector screens playing the game
cheer like crazy when Germany scored and inevitably won

Since we went to Yates for every Germany game, the owner got to know us and so did some of the other regulars. The pub always played really fun German drinking music songs and we had some fun chats with the regulars. For the first round of games Alex was visiting and he and Matt would come with us and we had lots of fun. Gabel and I were the true fans and we would make the guys buy our drinks while we kept our eyes glued to the screen, not daring to miss a single second of those brilliant German footballers. Nothing could beat the last two Germany games though. Who could have predicted the 7-1 thumping they gave Brazil? I honestly got afraid to cheer because there were some Brazil fans at the pub and I felt sorry for them. There was one guy though who had put money on Germany scoring more than five goals and because the odds of that were so slim he actually ended up winning 7000£!! So he got really excited about the game of course. The finals were SO nerve wracking I couldn't take it. Matt and Gronsy (Gabel's awesome bff who's visiting) were with us and definitely having a good laugh at mine and Gabel's expense as we were getting teary and hysterical waiting for a German goal. Of course it worked out though - DEUTSCHLAND UBER ALLES :)

Another really fun event during the World Cup was actually at school. Mentor group is the equivalent of our homeroom back home but you're supposed to mentor your mentees and do fun things with them. My mentor group is a year 7 class (12-13 years old) and they're adorable and I love them. A lot of teachers started a World Cup Sweepstakes with their mentor groups which sounded really fun to me so I joined in with my mentor group. Every kid who wants to participate pays 50p to buy a team. They pick the team from a hat and have no say on their team. There's no limit on the amount of teams they can buy. When my mentor group was done picking, we realized the winner would get 15£! Not too shabby. Every day I made a big chart and had it up on the board for when they came in to our mentor time and it was colour coded based on which teams were out or had secured a spot or who were on the verge of it. When someone's team was eliminated, we had fun striking them off the board. Every day all we talked about was the previous night's match and they all knew I loved Germany. They all laughed at me because I picked Cameroon out of the hat and I'm pretty sure they had the worst performance of all.

One girl in my mentor group was lucky enough to pick both Germany and Argentina! I decided to make a little party of it yesterday morning after the tournament closed out. Jess won the 15£ for first place prize and since Argentina came second I bought her a big pack of Starbursts. Megan came third with Netherlands so I gave her a big tub of football themed gummies. Poor Ralf had Brazil so I gave him a fourth place prize (a mini squeeze football) for an honourable mention. Ryan was my favourite because he bought 5 teams and they were all crap but he was always hopeful so I gave him the Best Supporter award and he got the same football Ralf did. Then I bought lollipops for everyone who participated and some cookies for us all and I made some signs and posters and we had a little party. Very fun :) Below are the pics of my adorable mentees and all the pics of me and my Gabes cheering for our team:

Germany vs Ghana