Heartbreak followed by a thriller

I was both a little nervous and little excited yesterday. Nervous because Germany was playing Italy in the semi finals, and excited for the fireworks show.

I have no particular reason, but I just like the way Germany plays football (soccer for the prudent), and I wanted to win this and go all the way to finals. Lately I have been loosing all my bets, it started of with England losing to Portugal, and Brazil loosing to France. So I was really looking forward to this game and really wanted Germany to win it all.

At noon went to Karoline's place and I did paint my face with German colors, as I was rooting for Germany, but then on one of other friend's request I put on Italian flag on the face as well, but that didn't bother me much as I was still supporting Germany. After face painting we went to Bashayer's place to watch the game.

I can't tell how high were the emotions running as we had people from both the nations in this room. I think it is really bad idea to take anyone's side particularly when people from both the countries are your friends. But anyways I stayed the course and was rooting for Germany all along. The game was quite intense, and both the team gave their 100% or may be 200% yesterday. After scoreless regulation time, the game went to OT and within the first minute of OT, Italy started its attack it missed two golden opportunities. But Germans were quick to return the favors. At the 119th minute and both the teams still locked at 0-0 it looked like the game was going to be decided by Penalty Kicks, but something happened and a simple pass was converted in to a beautiful goal. It just sank me, felt shattered.

It wasn't as big of a deal to me as it was for the Germans, but I had to move on, and so I did, and moved quickly to Silver Lake. It was 4th of July and silver lake is the place for the annual Rochester Band Concert and the fireworks. I went to Hy-Vee and did some last minute shopping before heading to Silver Lake. I was accompanied by Tanuj and we went to the Soccer fields near Silver Lake where the band was going to play. We joined Kristy, who was playing in the band and Kristen and Travis who were already there.

Sat down had something to eat and then this Giant Hot air balloon inflated about 30 yards behind me. Out of curiosity I went there to take a close-up view. It was 830 and sunset was coming close also the wind was little strong and so they decided not to fly it. But I surely did take some pictures. Following this, the band started, Kristi was playing flute and piccolo. The band played really good music. It went on for about an hour and at 10PM the fireworks started. And what should I say; it was an amazing fireworks show. I enjoyed every moment of it. They went on for about 30-40 minutes, and just when people thought all was over, the grand finale started with a very rapid canon fires like fireworks. They were bright and loud, less artistic than the main event, but it surely did rock the place. I took a bunch of pictures and you can see them here. The whole stuff ended around 1045 or so and people started leaving for homes.

We had parked our car close to the field and so we were waiting for traffic to clear a little bit, and that's when I noticed a couple of cop cars coming in. At first I thought it was accident, but soon more cops cars coming in, rather I should say started pouring in. That's when I realized something bad, really bad has happened. I asked a few bystanders if they knew anything, all I can tell right now is that a big brawl broke up and some people got injured. And I thought, what a day these people (the ones in the brawl) chose to show their freedom/independence.

As I said it was a heartbreak followed by a thriller.