A Good Week-end, A Nation Disappointed

Throughout the remainder of last week, the entire nation of France was swelling with pride and expecations for their national team in the final game of the World Cup. That was all there was to talk about. The game was scheduled for Sunday night at 8:00pm. Everything else was just killing time until that moment of truth.

Now, there is a common European complaint that Americans are overly patriotic and that we wave the flag too much. I don't buy it. I have never seen so many flags as I have in France the past two weeks....as the national team has gone from being a joke to being a legitimate contender for the championship. The window box above is the rule, and not the exception. All were waving the flag and waiting for Sunday.

On Friday night, Theresa and I went to Karlsruhe, Germany, to meet our friend Lakis for drinks and dinner. As luck would have it, there was a street festival going on in Karlsruhe (actually in the village of Durlach, which is nearby.) It was a perfect evening of street musicians and sausages and exotic beers. Perfect until the rains came and soaked us all. Below is a picture of Theresa on the Right, and then Michael and his family in the center, then Lakis, and then Holger Roeder. (Holger is on the project with us in Fegersheim. Lakis and Micheal are good freinds who work for one of our software vendors in Karlsruhe.)

Saturday was a day of shopping and napping. Germany played Portugal for 3rd place in the world cup...and won. Good for Germany. Yawns throughout the rest of the world.

On Sunday, Gary Philpy and his wife Jan came to town. We went, of course, up to Mount Saint Odile. The picture came out fuzzy so I will not post it. Then we went to the village of Eguisheim to do a little tourism and wine tasting. As the picture below hints, the town and all its windowboxes were in full bloom. Flowers, flowers everywhere.

One entertaining moment came when a soon-to-be-married young man passed through on his bachelor party. He is the one dressed in the Santa outfit. His friends are on the bicycles. His mission is to beg gifts from everyone and anyone in the town for his upcoming wedding. The blue thing strapped to his back is what the grape harvesters would wear. In his case, he was tossing all his beggings into his back-basket.After a beautiful afternoon in Eguisheim, we returned to Strasbourg. Headed to Murphy's Pub at 6 pm to stake out a table for the game. Five hours later, after France and Italy had played to a 1-1 tie, the game and the championship was decided on shoot-out of penalty kicks. France missed one. Italy missed none. And in a matter of minutes, all of the elation in France became depression. Italy had won the world cup. Millions would soon be celebrating in Rome and Milan and all points Italian. In Strasbourg and all of France, the people were folding up their flags and heading home for the night.

Holger, our friend mentioned above, says that soccer is just like life. You can do everything you're supposed to do and do it perfectly....but still lose out to someone else in a stroke of fate. This is what happened to France. The dominated the game in every way but could not score a goal when then needed to. To the lucky goes the victory. To the victor goes the spoils. It will be a week or two until the French come out of their funk of disappointment. But such is life. C'est la vie.