There’s a classic Cheers episode in which Sam keeps getting partway to a boys-weekend-out retreat at a ski resort but keeps rethinking something Diane said and returning to the bar. By the third time, he says he’s been back and forth on the road so much, they’ve changed the signs to “Welcome to Vermont, Sam.”

Funny itinerary on this trip, especially after the recent change that wipes out my trip to Dresden. I spent three nights in Berlin, then did a whirlwind of six cities in seven days. When I arrived in Wolfsburg on Sunday, I was “done” in the sense that I’ve now seen every city, every stadium and (pending a possible change) every hotel.

I’ll spend the remaining three days going back and forth between two vastly different towns. One thing they have in common — I’m taking every opportunity to leave my luggage somewhere. I spent last night in Wolfsburg; my suitcase spent the night in Heidelberg. If I can’t change hotels for Wednesday night, my suitcase will spent the night at the Wolfsburg train station while I spend the night at the Holiday Inn that’s 15 minutes away on foot.

Heidelberg is a tourist destination nestled by the Neckar River and framed by mountains. It’s gorgeous. Like Augsburg, it has a quaint walking district, though on my Saturday visit before the USA-Colombia game, it had more tourists (many American) than students and other locals.

The Marriott hotel is terrific, and it has a scenic view. Its lone drawback is that it’s rather far from the nice walking district and most restaurants. The hotel staff recommended “Das Boathaus” on the river, but it was closed for lunch. I settled into a Thai place that looked sketchy from the outside — one of the windows is actually broken — but offered up one of the best meals I’ve had here.

Other ESPN personnel also were staying in the Marriott, so I met up with my old buddy Brandi Chastain and fellow TV analyst Rebecca Lowe, a witty English woman, to get a ride over to the ESPN production truck thatthey’ve shown off many times on espnW. Seeing it in person gives you an even better sense of how well they use such a small space. I walked up into the truck and was immediately five feet from the broadcast desk where Bob Ley, Briana Scurry and Tony DiCicco were prepping for a live broadcast.

I shot a fun video in and around Heidelberg, but it didn’t make it to espnW for a couple of technical reasons. A bunch of U.S. fans realized Brandi was in the truck, and they gathered for pictures. She’s tremendous in these situations — immediately putting everyone at ease. We sat outside the truck with some more U.S. fans to watch part of the Sweden-North Korea game, then headed over for more American-style refreshment at Starbucks.

Along the way, I shot video of a gang of street performers that I could swear will be Germany’s answer to Mumford and Sons before we know it. They were pretty good.

Here’s the funny thing about Heidelberg — it’s not actually hosting the World Cup games. Those are in Sinsheim, a 40-minute train ride away. This curious arrangement is a result of a small German men’s soccer team, its sudden windfall of money and its success. Hoffenheim, an even smaller town than Sinsheim and Heidelberg, had a club sitting in the lower divisions that suddenly drew a big benefactor. Now it’s a Bundesliga club that even had a good storybook run in the upper reaches of the table for most of a season, and it has a gleaming new stadium in Sinsheim.

I was surrounded by U.S. fans on the train and interviewed a couple of them for my video. One couple had come from Saipan on a flight itinerary that sounded like a two-week diplomatic mission. Another guy was from Houston (shoutout to Jenna here). I even talked with one player on the train — Sarah Huffman, who plays alongside several U.S. players with the WPS team magicJack and had played several years for my hometown Washington Freedom. (No, I didn’t grill her for information about the team.)

The most unusual aspect of the Sinsheim stadium is that the media, rather than being up in the rafters, are almost at field level. So when Heather O’Reilly scored and the U.S. team lined up to salute, they saluted us. (They had no way of knowing that, of course.)
I spotted the ESPN crew stepping out of the stadium and got a ride back to Heidelberg with them, which was a bit lucky on my part. I got back and finished my story just in time to watch the heavyweight title fight between Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye. It was the perfect cure for insomnia.

The next morning, I finally met Bob Ley for the first time after having spoken with him online and on the phone a couple of times. Very nice guy, as you’d expect.

I also traveled with fellow journalists — ESPN.com’s Jeff Carlisle and my colleague from traveling to Whistler with USA TODAY, David Leon Moore, took the trains with me from Heidelberg to Wolfsburg. They’re following the U.S. team, which was immediately flying (yes, flying, for some reason) up to Wolfsburg for their Wednesday game with Sweden. I’m covering that, too, but I have this back-and-forth to Heidelberg in between. (This was originally a back-and-forth to Dresden.)

Wolfsburg was wet, windy and quite cold. I began to regret leaving my sweatshirt back in my luggage in Heidelberg. I skipped the hotel for the moment and took the shuttle bus to the stadium, which took little time.

After the game, I had two pieces due — one for Soccernet/ESPN.com, one for espnW. The game report for Soccernet/ESPN is my now-infamous “Marta’s Maradona moment” story. The espnW piece hailed Marta’s brilliance. In hindsight, that approach may be a little schizophrenic, but if you read the details, I don’t think I’m totally wrong. One comment on the Marta/Maradona story has valid criticism. Another asks if I was even born in 1986 when Maradona played. Nice to know I still look so young.

Then the part I was dreading — a 25-minute walk to a hotel I had not yet seen. Taxis are not plentiful. Buses stop running early.

Here’s Wolfsburg in a nutshell: Suppose Disney ran a car company and built a small theme park and pedestrian strip to go with it. The car company is Volkswagen, and it has built up several neat comprehensive areas. The stadium is part of a sports park that has smaller soccer fields, water skiing and even beach volleyball, which would have been amusing in this weather. Next to that is the Autostadt, a bunch of attractions celebrating cars. Walk across the river — on a bridge with moving sidewalks — and you’re in the Porschestrasse, a pedestrian strip in which the only things open at this hour were the ever-handy McCafe and two casinos.

I was in my raincoat, which kept me surprisingly warm, and I was just hoping I’d be able to find the hotel. Fortunately for hotel-spotting purposes, it’s a Holiday Inn. So when I saw a bunch of big green lights and a familiar logo, I raised my arms in triumph. Then I walked all the way around looking for the bloody entrance.

I saw the Norway and Sweden team buses parked out front, and I asked if the teams were staying there. Oh no, I was told, just the drivers. The next morning, the entire Swedish team walked past me as I checked out.

The hotel is charmless, as if they built all these big rooms and had no idea what to do with the space. But I found I could get online cheap using Skype credit, and I had a nice video chat with my loved ones.

I liked the Porschestrasse on my morning walk back to the train station, which is a little more than halfway between the hotel and the stadium. Plenty of neat places to shop, a big museum, even a small playground which I found by accident on my night walk when I wondered why the sidewalk was suddenly squishy.

They say cold, damp air doesn’t make you sick. Well, they’re wrong. The lingering summer cold I brought from the USA was nearly gone, but it roared back this morning.

But as I write on the now-familiar train ride between Wolfsburg and Mannheim (where I’ll change for Heidelberg), I’m feeling much better. The cars were crowded, but a couple of the compartments (where Jeff, David and I camped out until someone showed up with reservations yesterday) were wide-open. So I’m by myself in a compartment built for six. The waitress has been extraordinarily nice, and I’ve enjoyed a Warmes Schinken-Kase-Baguette for the second straight day. The conductor saw that I was American and wished me a happy Independence Day.

The familiarity makes things easier, but it’s a bit sad to think I’ve seen it all now. No more new towns to explore, though I may have a chance to see more of Heidelberg given that I’ll have 24 hours until my next game rather than my usual three or four. No more new scenery on the trains. No more new stadiums to dazzle me.

But that means I’m nearing the end of a wonderful trip and getting ready to go home to the people who are coming with me the next time I go to Germany.

From Heidelberg-Wolfsburg, posted by Beau Dure on 7/04/2011 (23 items)

Generated by Facebook Photo Fetcher

jQuery(document).ready(function(){ jQuery(function(){
jQuery(“.gallery-icon a”).lightBox({
imageBlank:”http://www.sportsmyriad.com/wp-content/plugins/facebook-photo-fetcher/jquery-lightbox/images/lightbox-blank.gif”,
imageBtnClose:”http://www.sportsmyriad.com/wp-content/plugins/facebook-photo-fetcher/jquery-lightbox/images/lightbox-btn-close.gif”,
imageBtnNext:”http://www.sportsmyriad.com/wp-content/plugins/facebook-photo-fetcher/jquery-lightbox/images/lightbox-btn-next.gif”,
imageBtnPrev:”http://www.sportsmyriad.com/wp-content/plugins/facebook-photo-fetcher/jquery-lightbox/images/lightbox-btn-prev.gif”,
imageLoading:”http://www.sportsmyriad.com/wp-content/plugins/facebook-photo-fetcher/jquery-lightbox/images/lightbox-ico-loading.gif”
}); }); });