Our life in Weil: Euro 2008 in Basel!

It was so nice of the Swiss to host a major european football tournament to commemorate our birthdays this month. For those of you who may not follow soccer over here (or as they call it: REAL football...) this is the year of the European Masters 2008 tournament (EM 2008) which is being hosted by Switzerland and Austria. Sixteen european national teams are competing for the title. It is a bit unusual (and deeply saddening) to our British friends that England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales ALL failed to make the cut. Switzerland and Austria are both fielding teams but they are not expected to make it into the quarterfinals. We shall see.

Basel is one of the host cities for EM 2008, so Delynn and I ventured over Saturday to get a feel for the city as it prepared for opening day. Basel hosted the very first game - Switzerland vs. the Czech Republic. I read somewhere that 100,000 people were expected to come to the game. The stadium in Basel only holds 42,500, so where do you think the rest of the folks were? Yup, walking up and down the streets with their team colors on. We enjoyed being in the midst of the pre-game festivities because before the first game, everyone is still in the running and can win. The Czech and Swiss fans enjoyed pointing at each other and singing their fight songs (none of which we could understand...) There is a phrase that we heard repeatedly: Hopp Schwiiz! which is a dialect version of Hop Suisse! (Can you hear the difference?) This phrase means "Go Switzerland!" and is the direct equivalent of USA! USA! heard at so many international sporting events.

A sea of red and white. You might notice a couple of Czech fans with red, white and blue national colors.

The normally reserved Swiss get a little crazy for football... Notice the Matterhorn hat - I think it is homemade. Don't you love the umbrellas?

This is the Freiestrasse in Basel, a pedestrian street full of shops and uh, lots of people. They put up the awnings for EM 2008, but they don't keep out the rain. Even though it seems like a lot of people, this is a pretty manageable crowd (unless you get claustrophobic)...

I was never quite sure why the Schweiiz fans would be wearing Viking horned caps. Hmmm. Probably just because men like to think they are vikings. Go figure. Some adventurous person climbed up on the fountain statue and put a Swiss flag in the knight's hand.
Delynn and I were definately not wearing the right colors! Opps, what a cultural faux-pas. It is still a little cool and wet for late spring but we are enjoying every minute of the adventure of living here in our little corner of Germany. Speaking of Germany, they play tonight and are one of the favored teams to take the EM 2008 title. We will be back in the States before the champion is crowned. It is just a little over two weeks until we fly out and we have so much to do. We look forward to seeing as many as possible next month. Please keep us in your prayers and thoughts. We are still looking to find a automobile to borrow if possible while we are back in the Portland-Vancouver area. Please let us know if you have a vehicle for use. It means a lot to us.