Adventures

What a day.

I had my first experience of German football as an away fan, in the Viktoria Köln 1904 section at Rot-Weiss Essen. It was a great game with Viktoria unlucky to lose 1-2 to a stoppage time penalty.

After the final whistle us visiting fans were escorted away from the stadium by police in riot gear. They herded us onto a couple of (free) buses provided by the city, and we were whisked away through the back streets to the main railway station.

We had a police motorcycle in front of us and two police vans following us, all with blue lights flashing. More police in riot gear met us at the station and herded us in the back door. 

I am told it was for our own safety.

I enjoyed my (Blipped) beer. It was cheap (€4.50) and excellent. Faced with those circumstances I had another. 

In the morning I had run the Volksgarten Parkrun in Düsseldorf. It was a beautiful (but cold) morning and it is a lovely course. The Extra is how the park looked at the start area at 9am.