I do enjoy a good breakfast buffet (show me someone who doesn’t?), especially those that leave you alone with your own coffee pot.
While I left the range of cold cuts alone, this buffet will certainly be remembered for the intense variety of jams and jellies on display. I’m sure they will entice me to study the German names for various fruits, although Saturday morning they were convincing me to make some toast for the first time in ages.
Rather than fill up on bread, I ended up sampling the spreads by striping the toast in various flavors until I had subconsciously recreated the flags of a few World Cup nations.
Is it legal to consume a breakfast version of the Stars & Stripes? Perhaps I will consult Bruce Arena. A nation coach’s permission would probably be enough in some nations.
After breakfast, I took the subway — called the S-Bahn — to the official credentialing facility outside the Volksparkstadion, the 81-year-old home of Hamburger Sport Verein, the 1983 European champion.
With a week remaining before the renovated stadium opens its World Cup with a biggie (Argentina-Ivory Coast), workers along the mile-long walkway from the “Stellinger� subway stop and the stadium were busy paving, laying stone and painting railings in HSV’s deep blue.
The intricate murals along the walk that call for HSV fans to “Support Our Troops,� which are punctuated by unsettling one-eyed spies that seem to peek from behind bushes, look like they will survive the renovations.
After the United States’ news conference on Monckebergstrasse, I returned to my hotel on the banks of the Elbe. But not before being swept into the “Schlagermove,� an annual parade along the Reeperbahn, the main drag of the red-light district, which celebrates the color, pageantry and — yes — excess of the 1970s.
The highlight of which (and there were many) was what must be the world’s biggest mustache. Certainly the biggest I’ve ever seen. The short, squat middle-aged main had what looked like the hairy equivalent of two North Shore giants crashing down on his cheeks simultaneously.
That I was not quick enough with the digital camera will surely be a “big one that got away� moment that will haunt me for some time.
Sunday: Mexico camp in Gottingin.