We watch the World Cup

Last night we had a donor kebap at a narrow shop around the corner from our hostel; the proprietor’s daughter (about five or six, maybe) was playing with her ‘pinguin’, after she‘d had a go at cracking some nuts by bashing them on the marble counter top.
We strolled down the Hauptstrasse, looking at the shops - it seems that German shops must stay open till all sorts of hours as a matter of course, but they’re closed on Sundays - and were just checking something out when Celia said, with some excitement, They’re playing the NZ national anthem. And they were. An ‘Irish’ pub had just begun showing the NZ v France quarter-final game on a huge screen. We bundled ourselves into the pub, found some space near the back with three friendly young Americans, and made ourselves at home. A female bartender kept coming around to get drinks for people, so that everyone could stay in place and not have to lose their spot.
The Americans had never seen rugby before and were surprised at the energy and brutality. Even the way one of the players is hoisted up in the air during a line-out gave them a thrill. It was a great game which NZ should have won: a couple of moments undermined their chances. One, when there was an ongoing ruck towards the try line by the NZeders, they lost the ball at the very last moment. And Dan Carter’s replacement missed a goal kick. Either of those would have kept them in the game.
Back at the hotel, the bed turned out to be fairly hard, but not impossible. (It still doesn’t beat our hardest hotel bed ever which was in Roxburgh.) Celia still has a cold, and needs to rest a lot, so we didn‘t get up till fairly late. Even then we were up long before the place downstairs where we were supposed to get our hot drink and croissant (the ‘breakfast’ part of our hotel bill). They finally opened about 11.00, so we had the coffee and croissant as a morning tea instead, having made ourselves breakfast in the hotel room.