Fußball Feber (Football Fever)

So how can you tell it's world cup time in Germany? From the merchandise, of course!

Here's some soccer dummies - not the human kind :)

Soccer nutella. We actually bought one of these.

Soccer pasta.

And even soccer bread.

How many different soccer items can you find here?

Because Leipzig is one of the venues for the matches, there's quite a buzz in the city centre. They've set up a big screen at Augustusplatz - the main square. This is quite popular and busy.

Yesterday Germany played their first game, and at Nathan's work lots of the Germans were feeling sick in their stomach with FEAR. Why? Because Germany is one of the better teams, and they are EXPECTED to do well. But soccer is a funny game, and anything can happen. We Aussies are more relaxed. Everyone expects Australia to lose (though reading the SMH, it's a lay down misere that they're going to win the tournament!), so there's no pressure.

Tomorrow, the Netherlands play Serbia-Montenegro, and we saw lots of Netherlands supporters in their orange. This was not planned, but Owen happened to be wearing orange as well. This photo is for Martijn and John.

You know the table soccer game we all played when we were kids. Remember what it was called? Fussball or Foosball, right? That's actually taken from the German way of saying football. What to the Germans call it? You'd expect "Tisch Fußball" - literally table football. Nope - it's called Kicker.