Four Goals and a little bit of Verdi!

The day truly started with lunch! We had wraps (they have a specific name that I've forgotten) that were a lot like gyros. I chose the chicken instead of lamb. They. were. amazing. Afterwards, we headed to the Goethe Institute for the first time for a lecture. We talked about the differences between the Classical and Romantic eras. I say 'we,' but Meg did a great job of heading up the lecture/discussion! We knew the big Germany v. Argentina game was going to begin at four, and we wanted to be near Hauptbahnhof to watch it with the locals! We ended up finding seats close to a relatively big screen tv outside a hotel's outdoor restaurant. It's really hard to explain how the Germans cheered and booed as one unit...it's really something else. Futbol in Germany is definitely something to write home about (pun intended..this is a blog)! A really sweet South African lady who (of course) spoke English was constantly high-fiving our group and tried to teach us a German fight song. Needless to say, every goal was a gigantic celebration! At the end, we went to grab a quick bite to take with us on the streetcar on the way to the opera, and we boarded our normal tram. Due to the ridiculous amount of people in the streets and cars (everywhere), they rerouted all of the trams...as we flew past our stop, Kathleen and I realized we were more than likely going to have to run to make it to the opera. We quickly got off, and hopped the tram heading the direction from which we had come...only to have it skip the Theatreplatz again. We thought we were the only two having this problem, and were beginning to jog from the synagogue stop when we saw like eight members of our group booking it 50 yards ahead of us. We all ran about three blocks, and had we not, we wouldn't have made it inside. The ushers closed the doors to the Semper after our last group member entered. We were FRONT ROW again for Verdi's Falstaff! It was a LOT easier to follow in Italian (still with German subtitles) than the Russian from last night. It was a lot more comical, too...less tragedy. After the opera, we went to get ice cream and plotted out our plans for tomorrow! My plan for now is to sleep. Gutenacht!