GO RED DEVILS!!!!!!!!

WOW! World Cup MANIA has hit the city!! In 2002 Korea hosted, so I can't even imagine how that was if it's like this now. The first game was on Tuesday night at 10pm (since it was played in Germany) against Togo. We were allowed to wear full battle gear to school, since many of us were going to watch the game after. Right after work, a bunch of us went downtown to City Hall where 640,000 people (that's right) went to watch the game. That's how many people live in the city of Milwaukee. Woah. There are huge TV screen on buildings all over (like in Times Square or Miller Park) :) Everyone was wearing red and so many glowing devil ears....They closed off several lanes of the street (but kept 2 open) and it was really interesting to watch the crowd behavior. We arrived about 2 hours before the game, and it was already packed (to be expected). People that were in the street were expected to sit down on the dirty pavement. WHAT?? But the people on the sidewalks can stand. We were standing and then all the rows in front of us started sitting by request of the riot police so we had no choice. Luckily, there was a Korean flag already on the ground so I just sat on that, but was quickly berated by a Korean sitting next to me so I replaced the flag with a piece of newspaper. ("but the ground is diiiiiiirty....") After sitting for about 5 minutes, my friends and I realized that we weren't going to want to watch the game sitting down, so we took off to find standing room. No problem. It was great. The Koreans have many chants and they use "thunder sticks" (balloon-like rods that make noise when you hit them together). "Tae-han-min-gook!!" was a really popular one, meaning "The Republic of Korea". In addition to watching the game among 640,000 of my closest friends, Korea WON, 2-1, so it was CRAZY after. Red devils dancing and chanting and singing and shooting off fireworks. Soooo many people stopped us (the foreigner Red Devil Fans) to get pictures with us, and thank us for cheering on their team. We really, really felt like celebrities. It was insane.
A funny side note: I got a Red Devils bandana to wear....and oddly enough, it says "We are twelfth" on it. Huh? I'm thinking, who would broadcast that they are ranked 12th?? But later I found out that there are 11 players on the soccer team, and 12th means that the fans are like the 12th player. Ok. Get your grammar right next time you print a million bandanas.
The rest of the games are at crazy times (like Friday at 4 a.m.) so I doubt the crowds downtown will be quite like they were on Tuesday. I'm glad I got to be a part of the mania (and it was just to watch the game on TV)!
If you look closely in the group shot, you'll see me in the middle! The other white people are Geoff and Gilles.