Football fever!

It's here... the World Cup, el Mundial, die Weltmeisterschaft and I am excited.

Excited as in, planning my social life around the world cup games, checking the scores every morning, visiting the FIFA website to read up on the players, and reverting to talking about the World Cup in almost any conversational setting.

When did this happen? Last World Cup I only watched the games because it was either that or sit home alone.  This World Cup I'm messaging my friends to plan seeing the game together. I suppose it started happening when I was still in Colombia, and bought my jersey in faith that Colombia would make it into the World Cup since they were doing so well in the qualifying matches.

With Colombian friends after the Colombian victory over Greece  

And I'm even more excited now, since my team (Colombia.... in case you weren't sure) made it to the round of 16!  (And that other team I'm supposed to cheer for, you know, the US, they're not doing so bad either.  I'm hoping I can beg off of rehearsal for this play I'm an extra in so I can see the public viewing of the Germany-US game here on campus.  After all, it isn't every day you get a chance to cheer for your country while living in the country of the opposing team.  That could be an adventure.)

Just to even things out, I did cheer for Germany last Saturday.  I was in Berlin and we joined thousands of others at a triple screen outside public viewing area set up behind the Brandenburg gate.  I even had the German flag painted on my face, compliments of the random German guy behind me and his flag face paint crayon thing.  Despite the fact that Germany surprised us all, and didn't easily beat Ghana, it was still fun to be surrounded by thousands of fans in the heart of Germany, cheering on the German team.