WC2006: Smile For The Cameras

ON A TRAIN TO MAINZ (11:37am local time) -- After the now-familiar routine of breakfast at the hotel and a quick hop online next door, our first order of the day is to head down to the Hauptmarkt and watch the big clock on the church do its little song and dance at noon.

Since we won't be returning to the hotel, we're already decked out in our full U.S. regalia, and I've got the drum in tow. More so than a previous matches - Kaiserslautern parade notwithstanding - the drum is a camera magnet. We're interviewed for what looks like an online radio station - zoomtv.de, but I haven't checked to see what they've posted - and maybe one TV crew. The square is pretty quiet, so depite the badgering of some Trinidadians, I keep the drumming to a minimum, thinking there will be time enough for that later.

Ooooh, foreshadowing!

We head over once again to O'Shea's, where the party is just getting started, much to the chagrin of the locals trying to walk through on the way to wherever it is Germans go right after noon. They probably have a word for it that consists of all the individual words for "where Germans go right after noon" all stuck together.