I have the worst timing ever.

Remember that time I told you Dortmund was on their way to becoming the German soccer champions? 

Well, way back in the beginning of May, they made that happen! The night of the winning game, it was complete madness in the city. Since I could hear the celebration from my bedroom window, I decided to go check it out. 

But that was only the spontaneous, post-win celebration. The official celebration would be an all day party about a week later. And even though they won the championship last year, this year was a big deal too, because they also won something else. I'm not really sure what it was, or how they won it. I just know one win was decided by the points of the season and came with a big silver plate looking thing. And the other was decided by one game and came with a big golden trophy cup.

And what better to do for the celebration (Meisterfeier, to the locals), than gather everyone, offer them beer, and parade the silver plate thing and golden trophy with the team through the city. So Katharina and I grabbed our BVB cups of beer and joined the masses to wait for the show.

they even turned the fountains yellow for the occasion

In retrospect, bringing that big cup of beer with was probably a bad a day. No, it was definitely a bad idea. It didn't take too long for me to realize I really had to pee. And about 15 minutes before the parade was supposed to roll through our area, the pee-dance set in (you know, when you bob up and down because you have to go so bad). But I figured, 15 minutes - I could make it, snap a few photos, then make a mad dash for our apartment that was maybe 200 meters away. 

But the city was overrun with people in the streets, so of course, there was no way they were actually going to show up on time. The minutes rolled on so painfully slowly. And I continued dancing in my spot, convinced that as soon as I left to seek a bathroom, they would turn up. Finally, after about 40 minutes of agony, I decided it was no longer worth it and headed off in search of a bathroom (I couldn't get back to our apartment because it was impossible to cross the street at this point). 

Of course, the only place with a bathroom was a tiny little pizza place with a line out the door. So I got in line and waited (and danced). And sure enough, about 15 minutes later, someone runs in the door "They're coming, they're coming!" Well too bad, I had already put in too much time in this line, and I was going to see it through to the end. 

I was able to catch the very end - at least saw the silver plate thing and golden trophy with my own eyes, which counts for something, right? But you can thank Katharina for all the pictures of the sacred soccer parade.