Are you going to Germany to watch football?

[VetLegion]

Well, is anyone from here going?

I'll vent a little. I'm relatively close, so I considered going... but due to time constraints I probably won't be able to. But I'm tremendously pissed off at Germans for their anal system of selling tickets. For those of you who don't know, tickets are tied to a particular person - you can't resell your ticket.

Essentially, they've killed any possibility that I could go there at the last minute, buy a (overpriced) ticket from a street dealer and catch a game.

So I guess I'll be watching the games on TV like the rest of the world, but I think we can agree that that sucks. I want to go and feel some of the great atmosphere that always occurs when people from all parts of the world converge in one place and get moderately drunk

[Lawrence of Arabia]

I tried twice, didnt win the lottery, so I tix to a warmup game. switzerland - italie, in geneva may 31. theres a huge square in geneva, and they are going to have a huge screen during the world series where all of the swiss games will be shown live.

[duke o' york]

I'd go to a German league game (the tickets are so cheap! ) if I was there on holiday or business (fat chance), but I'm not going to the World Cup.

[Locutus]

I might, I don't have tickets yet but I suspect the rules about person-tied tickets are overrated, these things usually are.

Also, getting into matches of European countries is probably pretty hopeless, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were still seats available for Trinidad and Tobago vs Paraguay or Australia vs Japan or something like that, and that could be great fun as well. I've seen some good matches at the U21 World Cup that was held in the Netherlands last summer between countries I can barely place on a map and of which I knew none of the players

[Pekka]

Locutus, yeah but junior games are usually always pretty good because they have lots of untaimed PASSION.

[Ecthy]

This place will be full of tourists. Good or bad?

Good for tourism oriented business to earn money. I work in a tourist business Bad for general feeling on the city rail, with loads of drunken foreigners who don't give a **** about how clean your city is

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Pekka
Locutus, yeah but junior games are usually always pretty good because they have lots of untaimed PASSION.

As long as the cute lady supporters on the bench have plenty of untamed passion I don't really care about the people on the pitch

[Ecthy]

I've just been confirmed in a funny observation, that should rather stay unmentioned to avoid offense

[Ned]

I understand Germany is being criticized for forcing an additional 40,000 women into prostitution to service the tourists.

[VetLegion]

Right. Two years ago I went to the Athens Olympics, sat on a train in Zagreb, got off in the middle of Athens, found an overpriced roof to sleep on, found a street dealer, bought a ticket and went to see Croatia play handball in the semifinals. Here is to the Greek organizational genius

On the other hand to see something in Germany you have to play a frigging lottery, plan two years in advance, pay a fortune, be miserable or a combination of all those things

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by Ned
I understand Germany is being criticized for forcing an additional 40,000 women into prostitution to service the tourists.

Since when has prostitution been a state-run business in Germany?

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Ned
I understand Germany is being criticized for forcing an additional 40,000 women into prostitution to service the tourists.

Echty I think he just called you a hooker

[Colonâ„¢]

Re: Are you going to Germany to watch football?

Originally posted by VetLegion
Essentially, they've killed any possibility that I could go there at the last minute, buy a (overpriced) ticket from a street dealer and catch a game.

Restricting market-workings.

[Ecthy]

Maybe what he means by "Germany" is not the state itself but the society as a whole.

Is prostitution the core of our economy then, with everyone having their parts in it one way or another?

Maybe what he's on about is the state "letting the forcing of prostitution happen". Then again, it happens not in Germany but in Eastern Europe. Our borders to the east are open, our eastern neighbours' borders to the east are not. If the additional prostitutes come from our EU partners in the east, it should be on them to blame in the first place, not us.

So what's the fucking point?

[VetLegion]

BTW Germany deserves all the bashing it is going to get, because this is clearly going to be an organizational disaster. People are going to get drunk and, unable to sell their tickets, stadiums are going to be half empty. The other half will be pensioners from Middlenowherebadenwaffenstaffen who reserved their tickets somwhere around the glorious year of 1965.