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we went to an australian themed restaurant today for lunch. the mission was to get a kangaroo burger. there are few countries in the world where it’s legal (update: this turns out to be incorrect. it’s more an issue of common or socially accepted. price is also apparently a factor in the u.s.). they didn’t have kangaroo burgers, but g’owen got an emu burger. not surprisingly, it looks just like a regular beef burger. i got the combo with emu, crocodile and kangaroo filets (in that order in the picture, emu burger in the background).

the kangaroo and emu generally taste like beef. kangaroo is a bit tough. probably better ground for a burger. the emu was listed as cholesterol free, at least for the burger. the crocodile probably tasted a bit like chicken, but with more of a fish like texture. it was sort of tough to distinguish the tastes since the bottom of the plate was covered in a mango sauce, also pretty good.

today, frankfurt is host for argentina v holland. should be a good match. a lot of dutch in town. although we did see these argentinian fans while eating.

here’s a shot of the dutch in romer (square?). it’s the original old city center and the supposed primary location of team celebrations.

i can’t imagine this means the same thing in whatever place this bus is from.

annoyingly ignorant article from the guardian about u.s. fans. you can find stupid people anywhere. although, i’m sure finding knowledgable fans wouldn’t have met his goal for the article.

now you too can have a brazilian name. not sure what the algorithm is.

better late than never i suppose. another poor set of pictures. without a good zoom it’s pretty much impossible to get a decent shot in the stadium.

this is the outside of the stadium. the train station is in the foreground. small plus that you can walk from the train station to the stadium, but it’s deceptive since you have to walk up a hill and (in our case) a long way around the backside.

i thought this was a pretty decent picture from before the game with the huge american flag. fortunately, the sun went down by kickoff.

much better performance from the u.s. this outing. the refereeing was generally as poor as i think it’s been throughout. de rossi definitely deserved the straight red. mastroeni was clumsy and late, but probably should have been a yellow. i haven’t seen pope’s as much, but i think just a foul would have been reasonable. the amount of diving from the italians was pathetic. i’m glad to see that the american fans generally don’t take the diving. usually greeted with boos and a few times with chants of bullshit. does espn attempt to censor that? the one downside may be a couple of incidents which included people throwing cups at the pitch (i didn’t see any actually make it). even more interesting is the fact that you get back a euro deposit when you take back the cup. must have been at least 50 euro or more on the field.

any arguments that the refereeing was just being consistent with the fifa guidelines for the world cup is completely untrue. were that the case, the crackdown on delay of game would surely have seen italy with 2 or 3 yellow cards. there were multiple instances of italian players not only standing and preventing free kicks, but picking up the ball and walking around with it. there’s been many yellows in previous matches for far less invasive behaviour.

i don’t feel like i’m simply defending the u.s. since i’ve been complaining about the refereeing the entire time on non-u.s. matches. another bad example would be the late yellow card for zidane against south korea. pathetic. and the non-goal call for france in the same match. i would prefer video replay (sidenote: i don’t think blatter has ever said anything to make me not think he’s an idiot. maybe the journalists only report the stupidity.) as opposed to the sensor in the ball. as long as the game is not stopped for the replay. players should generally be playing to until they hear the wistle. it seems to me that there has been a bit too much complaining (raising of the arm for offsides) when they expect calls. however, a downside of the cards for finishing plays could be seen in the brazil v australia match when the australian player stopped in what appeared to be a sure scoring opportunity thinking he heard a whistle for (i suppose) offsides. i expect the whistle was from the crowd.

at any rate, the referees are human and will make mistakes. as professionals, the players should be able to get past these errors and move on with the match. it’s not like all club matches are 100% prefect of something. however, they aren’t knockout either.

anyway, this doesn’t really have much to do with the u.s. specifically. great match. the most exciting of the tournament and at least leaves us with some hope. group e is clearly the best group. any thoughts that group c is the “group of death” are completely unsubstantiated. it never seemed likely that serbia would have any joy. argentina has been the best of the tournament so far. brazil has been a disappointment. england as well. i generally though they were a bit overrated anyway.

at any rate, at least our group comes down to the final matches. the u.s. has to win with the largest goal differential possible. hopefully, italy will win.

btw, could the journalists at bruce arena’s press conferences possibly ask stupider questions?

i really haven’t been doing very well posting. most days are spent watching the matches in some form or another. yesterday, we went down to the fan fest for costa rica v ecuador and england v trinidad. however, it started raining about 30 minutes into the england match so we went back to the hotel. of course, when we got off the u-bahn at the hotel, it was no longer raining.

the 14th, we went to cologne to check out the cathedral, city and the others went to the chocolate museum. the most interesting bit to me was the mural on the ceiling of the cologne train station. i tooke some pictures, but they’re crap because i don’t have a wide enough lense. addidas has some pictures as well as some of the other stuff. (we did see the huge kahn on the way to the match in munich.) i don’t think the picture is actually painted directly on the ceiling so i suppose it will be gone after the world cup. too bad. even if it is an addidas ad.

the cathedral is supposed to be important because it holds the “relics of the magi“. i’m not saying they aren’t real, but even the supplied story is highly suspect. not surprisingly, the bones and what not haven’t even been carbon-14 dated. regardless, it’s an impressive building. here’s 2 bad pictures. there really wasn’t even space around it to get a full picture with my camera.

of the places we’ve been (not many), it doesn’t seem like there’s a very good job of integrating new buildings with old. there doesn’t seem to be that many old buildings anyway. it may just be the cities we’ve been to (frankfurt, cologne, munich (really only the stadium though)).

we got back in time to watch the germany v poland match. there was a bit of celebration in the streets after germany won. the trains are great. we got up to 300km/h on the way to cologne. it appears that they go a little slower at night.

the 13th, we just went to the fan fest for france v switzerland and brazil v croatia. brazil did what good teams do, win when not at their best. i was a bit disappointed with france. nothing spectacular from either match.

i’m sure other stuff probably happened. maybe i’ll start doing better now that i’m not behind. tomorrow is the big day. we lose and we’re done. hopefully, we can at least have a better showing than the last match. maybe someone will actually show up to play. it’s absolutely time for any player who thinks they are somebody or wants to be somebody to stand up and be counted. yada, yada, yada.