World Cup 2014 in Berlin

Everyone is football mad in Berlin right now....its the World Cup!! However, it's not actually called the World Cup in Germany, it is 'Weltmeisterschaft'! Abbreviated everywhere as WM.

We are not big football / soccer fans, but we don't mind getting swept up in the WM atmosphere. Living in Berlin the games are being shown at 6pm, 9pm and 12pm - which means for the majority of the population it's feasible to be watching every game. Unlike in Australia where the time difference is a killer.

So we've already enjoyed the fantastic demolishing of reigning WM champions Spain by the Netherlands (5:1), seen England defeated by Italy (2:1) and Australia defeated by Chile (3:1).

With much excitement, the city geared up for Germany's first match, against highly rated Portugal. As for all games, most cafes, restuarants, bars - any kind of shop really, has a makeshift TV set up for the games. With it being the home side the turn out was amazing.

We headed out through our local district (Friedrichshain) to watch the 6pm match. Biergartens were packed, and this pub down the road had a makeshift thing on the go which was already full...

We went to the local 'party street' Simon Dach Straße, and grabbed some Deutschland flags from the Air Berlin promotional girls along the way.

Checking out places along the way...

And took up a position outside of one of our favourite Döner shops to watch the game.

12 minutes in and Germany had a penalty opportunity. Germany's first goal of the WM created quite some excitement, but not as much as I was expecting. Video of 'the moment'

It was still great to hear a whole street erupt with cheering, but perhaps because it was from a penalty it wasn't such an exciting build-up as a 'normal' goal. Someone let off a firework.

By half time it was clear Germany was going to win. The great thing about where we were was that we could  easily get our dinner as we waited for play to resume, Kebabs and Noodles and some beers.

A funny thing was going on with the coverage, some TV's on the street were a second or two ahead of ours...meaning we could tell what was going to happen before it did. The crowd excitement of a play building (Ja, Ja JA) and then the result (TOOOOOOOOOOOR, or the disappointment of a dashed hope - OOOHHH GAASP!) It was quite funny.

So by the end of it, Germany had kicked arse 4:0 and are naturally going to be the Champions by the end of the tournament. :)

It's going to be pretty exciting to be part of more of this atmosphere as Germany progresses to the next stages and the games become more and more crucial.