For us, EURO2012 has officially begun.
Game day.
Let me rewind a little bit. Steve and I headed over to the fan zone fairly early in the day (after Steve dragged me out of bed, as I would've been content to sleep for a few more hours. Being sick sucks :( ) to get in the EURO2012 game day mood with a little help from the thousands of Dutch fans (I read that a fan camping site had two thousands Dutch fans camping there, with that number expected to grow) and the less numerous but still visible Danish fans.
We walked around Shevchenko Park next door, which houses a zoo. Steve, at first, wanted to visit the zoo (they currently have a dolphin exhibit, with a dolphin named Nemo), until he realized that animals in concrete cages in hot, humid Ukraine will probably be very unhappy. Zoos are kind of sad, when you think about it. But I did get this giant cotton candy for a dollar! :D
There were also some animal handlers with different animals around the park near the zoo, so we did get to see some cute little creatures like this monkey and these silly birds.
For some silly reason, we decided to walk to the stadium from the fan zone to the stadium, which is 3.6km away (a little over two miles... I should've worn a pedometer or something so I could measure how much we end up walking this trip). We figured we would get there around when the stadium opens (the stadiums all open three hours before kick-off), giving us time to eat and peruse the fan shops before game time. On our walk, we kept an eye out for somewhere to eat, and were convinced by a lady (shop owner, I guess) to come inside. We pointed to a couple things on the menu, as the teen cashiers don't speak a lot of English, and end up getting..... chicken nuggets and a burger! What....
About five minutes after we left this little cafe place, we come across McDonalds. (They are everywhere here!) Steve laments the fact that we could've gotten a real burger, had we waited just a little longer. Oh, well.
In the little plaza area next to McDonalds, there is a cool fountain, and in the spirit of game day.... Someone dyed the water orange!
We finally made it to the stadium about two and a half hours before game time. We looked at the official shops for a bit before going inside to sit down and relax before game time.
Our seats ended up being right behind the big Denmark fan section, which was a little unfortunate for us as we were cheering for Netherlands in honor of the Dutch people who helped us find our hostel, but there was Oranje permeating pretty much every section of the stadium, so we weren't alone in Holland support.
We tried to take a video of the opening ceremony, but it didn't turn out that great. :(
It was a good game to watch, although Holland wasn't as aggressive as we expected them to be. But it was awesome seeing all these big soccer names in live action. And being in the Danish section wasn't so bad, because they were lots of fun, full of chants and songs and excitement, especially after Denmark scored!!!
Perhaps the most exciting thing for me was seeing the most awesome crowd wave EVER. It seemed like all 40,000 people in the stadium participated, and it went all the way around the stadium FOUR TIMES!!! I've never seen such a successful wave in my life.
For those of you who don't already know, Denmark ended up winning the game 1-0. This came as a big surprise to everyone, including the Danish boys we met at the hostel later (more on them in a bit) because this was supposed to be Holland's "easy" game. No one expected the Danes to win, and now Holland has their work seriously cut out for them just to get past the group stage.
Group B in the EURO2012 tournament contains Holland, Germany, Denmark, and Portugal. These teams, at the start of the tournament, were ranked #4, #3, #9, and #10 IN THE WORLD. In all major soccer tournaments, even though the groups are randomly assigned, there is always a really tough group, nicknamed the Group of Death. This time, there are four teams all in the top ten in the world, and four of the top seven in Europe. It will be a huge upset if the World Cup runner-ups don't even make it out of the group stage (we all know Germany is going to beat them in the next game :P ). Anyone who put money on this game or who is participating in EURO2012 fantasy leagues is probably very unhappy right now. And anyone who bet on the Danes probably went home with a lot of money!
There are two subway lines with stops right next to the stadium, but the authorities had closed those stops in order to get the fans to disperse and not clog up the metro. Great idea, really. Anyone who has sat in the parking lot for an hour in an attempt to leave Home Depot Center after a Galaxy game can appreciate any stadium's ability to disperse a crowd quickly. Fans are actually banned from parking at the stadium; there are various "Park & Ride sites around the city that have shuttles taking fans with cars to the stadium and back. So, without any car traffic to worry about, all the fans flooded the streets on our walk to the next metro station. The Danes were jubilant; the Dutch were very quiet.
Steve and I opted to head back to the hostel to watch the Germany-Portugal game rather than going to the fan zone. We sat up on our floor watching the game with two guys from Denmark who were about our age. We watched the game together and chatted about the game, the tournament as a whole, world travel, and the LA Kings. We also spent probably ten minutes trying to figure out why, in a country that is so cheap for us (8 Ukrainian hryvna per $1), McDonald's is so much more expensive here!
Overall, a long, tiring, and very good day.
Coming here to EURO2012 was such a good idea. :)
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