Day 3

Another 7am start, another pillow to the head to wake that lazy so and so next to me

As it turns out we needn’t have got up so early because most shops don’t open until 10 but we did camp outside Starbucks as we noticed it opened up at 9

Using my best German I got Hattie a falafel roll and I had an egg and bacon bagel, both with hot chocolates - delicious

Then we went shopping

I bought this little beauty for later on:

Plus some things for Joss and Kieren but no clues here, they will just have to wait - but if Joss was hoping for Dortmund shin pads she may have hit the jackpot….

It was at this point (ish) that Hattie read to me an email she’d received from the company we’d bought the tickets from saying “obviously” they weren’t actually affiliated with Dortmund so if we had issues with the tickets it would be best if “we told the stewards we had gotten the tickets free from a friend and we should then leave the queue and phone an emergency number”

Nothing says it’s all legit like having to pretend a friend had gotten it for us…..

Understandably Hattie panicked whereas I told her that everything would be fine although on the inside I was already designing the plan in my head where I’d take the blame, be sent to prison and hopefully become someone’s bitch that wasn’t hung like a donkey…

I deserve an Oscar…

We then dumped the stuff back at the hotel (Hattie had gone Dortmund mad too) and we went across the road to the Football Museum

We loved it

and being in Germany, there were one or two trophies to show off….

I fell in love with a vintage German shirt so my spending plans went out of the window

Again we decided to dump our buys (yes of course Hattie got a blue vintage shirt), put on our Dortmund clobber and off to the underground to get to the station

So weird not having to go through turnstiles - if a conductor was there he’d ask for your ticket but as he wasn’t we didn’t have to show anything

The station was 2 minutes from the stadium and in that time we managed to buy 2 bottles of beer from a man with beers in a bucket and as it was raining we took shelter just outside the station

Beers drunk, we queued to get in - Hattie’s female queue was much shorter and so I saw her get patted down and then she was asked for her ticket ……

The steward studied the ticket…. then ushered her on.

Hattie put the ticket’s QR code on the machine AND SHE WAS IN!!!

I got through too and we both did a happy jig in the forecourt - we are foreign - they expect that kind of thing…

We bought beers and at the end of the day we now have some more commemorative glasses

We were then hungry and so I went for bratwurst - bloody lovely to taste but I think you’ll agree, slightly stingy with the bun

Hattie had curry wurst and I tried it - lovely again

I then got a bit peckish and had seen some giant pretzels so we tried them - very tasty but a tad salty

As an aside, we both found this lady’s hat unacceptable 

Then we settled down to the game - it was amazing!!!

Even hearing “you’ll never walk alone” yet again just added to the experience 

We came for the “yellow wall” but it was in fact the Borussia Monchengladbach supporters that were the stars. They had 3 drummers beating out the rhythm of their songs and they were SO loud

Admittedly they had plenty to shout about as they went 2 up in the first half but as Dortmund came back to be winning 3-2 by half time you’d think they would quieten down but if anything they got louder!!!

Now I thought I would be an advocate for drinking at the game but the number of people who got up for a wee during the match really has made me rethink. Add to that I missed the first 5 mins of the second half because the toilet queues were so bad and I’m now very much on the fence

The second half was a much cagier affair until injury time when the visitors sent their keeper up for a corner

The corner was cleared and the Dortmund striker ran away with the ball to score in an empty net to make the final score 4-2 - a bloody epic game

We then all left (81 thousand odd) and in the dark we missed the near station and when we got to the next it was guarded by some heavy duty machine gun toting police, so we decided to walk the 2.5 km - luckily it wasn’t raining

A quick change at the hotel and we completed the fast food double by having a KFC in a restaurant even more chaotic than last night’s McDonald’s - but this time we got the right stuff but we’d heavily over ordered

After eating it all (of course) we didn’t feel like traipsing through the market again because it seemed like the whole of Dortmund was there - it was rammed

So instead we decided on beer, chocolate and football on the tv back at the hotel - a lovely restful end to a very tiring but enjoyable day