Well long day coming in from Abercrombie and Fitch in Ohio. The whitest place in terms of people, I have ever seen. It is almost like a cult there, in that everyone wears the same clothing, they look the same, all the guys are thin and wear the T-shirts and shorts, the girls are all desperately thin in general and all basically have the same look to them. Anyway, so I got home on the Friday night and went shopping and what not, to get ready for my flight on the Saturday night to Frankfurt.

Anyway so the day passes and I hustle everywhere to get the shopping done and the money moved around to the appropriate accounts. So Beth comes over while, Tara, Maggie and Wing Ki are talking about our asia trip in basically a month from now. We hang out and then head over to Craig’s for Ed’s birthday. We spend 15 minutes and then we have to head to the airport.

Limo picks us up and we head over the airport and catch the flight to Frankfurt. Flight was uneventful really, although I must say, in traveling, you really do get what you pay for. Air Transat seriously and when I say seriously, sucks!! It was a full plane but the seat we’re small even by economy standards. The temperature in the plane was consistently too hot, so that everyone was sweltering on the plane. The service was quite atrocious, when things are considered, since there was a charge for everything, which isn’t the problem, since you expect that when you buy a cheap ticket, that you get crap, but this was ridiculous.

So once we got into Frankfurt, we cleared customs, it was just like the world cup again, well with one significant difference: it wasn’t the World Cup. This was quite the big difference, since the services and manner of the people, well the apparent one, was quite different. When we here, for the World Cup, if you looked at your map wrong, there would be 10 people who would jump to help you. Not this time, in general, most people in the airport were quite unhelpful; in fact most people were more interested in staring at the motley crue collection of the West Indian, Sikh and Ethiopian traveling party. The staring would be a theme over the whole week.

So according to the plan, I would not be taking my luggage with me but rather I would be checking the luggage in Frankfurt. This would save on time and wondering how to lug this huge suitcase around. So this was done, and I collected my claim ticket in Terminal 2, and then we were off. First was to validate the rail ticket downstairs at the rail ticket office.

Day 3—
Yesterday I spent all day in Zurich and no one here cares about that… so I will skip that and move to today!!

Got up this morning and Slade and I decided to go the FIFA fan area by the Frankfurt Waterfront!!

It is brilliant.. this HUGE 50 ft screen floating in the water.. and thousands of people milling about.

Tons of english fans and even they love us! I have this big trinidad jersey that says Trinidad on it… and I have pics with Socceroos, English fans, and brazillian girls….. but everywhere… everyone calls out Trinidad and we cheer.

It is great… and by the waterfront they have the Trini flag.. once I can upload pics, I will post pics of the Fan area! Tons of conversation with people and everyone loves us! It is amazing!!

The other thing that I am jealous of.. how friendly and amazingly helpful everyone in Germany is. For today alone, 11 people have helped us, given directions, or explained something to us. In English and very halting English! There is an electricity in the air that is tangible and papable, especially with Germany playing tonight.. tons of German flags etc everywhere!! just amazing!!

There are also tons of fans here who wanted the experience but dont have tickets… and I could see if i lived in Europe, I would come here regardless without tickets, it is a phenomenal atmosphere.

For Carnival, it is a one love atmosphere… but only Trinis can appreciate it… here… it is a one world, one family atmosphere, and make no mistake, THE WORLD IS HERE and they know and love Trinidad!

They cant pronounce SOCA, or dance or eat a HOT HOT curry but they will still cheer for us and that I am amazed by, since in Trinidad, people would never be this friendly, and I dont care who will disagree… but only once ur here, can one understand the sincerity of the people.

Anyway, Friday and Tobago Soldier on dey way.. TI is in Dortmund liming with the boys too.. we liming in Frankfurt at the Fan area and i hope to have pics online for everyone to see the fan area here.

BTW… I have never eaten so much meat and bread… these people love their meat… like seriously love their meat. Anyway ah gone, will post more, and to those, thanks for the PMs and e-mails—- I will post this stuff as long as people wanna read it

till tonight after Germany play!!