Entry No. 4: USA! USA! USA!

Wow, what a weekend. Finally taking a day off to relax before I start work again on Monday. Thought it would be easiest to just recap whats been going on here over the past couple days

Went out to a bar called Tommy’s for the SA-Mexico game and the place was madness. If you haven’t seen or heard of a vuvuzuela (look it up) because it is one of the loudest horns I’ve ever heard and people just carry them around blasting them. They almost got banned for the world cup, but South Africans went crazy over the situation so they allowed them to be brought into the stadium and people pretty much just bring them into bars to create noise.

The bar we went to for the game was absolutely packed and we got there about a half hour before the game. Everyone was decked out in green and yellow and people would start chants and the whole bar would start chanting with them. When SA scored, a guy in front of my tackled his friend to the floor and I got pushed on top of them. I thought I was gonna get stampeded but man it was wild. The first goal was awesome and even though they tied, everyone seemed pretty happy with the result.

As for yesterday, we got up around noon and took a cab to Newlands stadium in order to watch South Africa play France in rugby. I honestly don’t know the rules to rugby but it was cool to watch people just crush each other. One French guy got absolutely laid out (truck stick Madden style) and had to be taken in a stretcher off the field. South Africa dominated the entire game so it was fun to be there, but I prefer football.

Afterwards we went out to Long Street in order to get dinner and go somewhere for the USA-england game. We ended up choosing an Ethiopian restaurant off of Long Street called Cape Addis I think. I’ve never eaten Ethiopian food but it was pretty damn good. They make you wash your hands before you eat and you pretty much use this bread like thing to pick up your food and it was delicious. Weird experience though and we thought it was funny we chose to do something like that right before the USA game.

Once dinner was over we went to a bar called the Dubliner on Long Street and it was packed for the USA-england game. I’d say USA and England have the most fans in South Africa right now so there was lot of support for both sides. We went to the back of the bar as all of the Connect-123 interns were there. There was a group of English guys in front of us and there was a whole lot of shit-talking going on back and forth throughout. One thing I have to say that America needs work on is our soccer chants as we pretty much had no comebacks for anything they said. The best we could do was sing God Bless America but haha it wasn’t like any of the chants they had. When England scored in the first five minutes, we were pretty much like uh-oh and I thought we might get crushed. However, I’m pretty happy with how well we played overall and Dempsey’s goal really got us going again. The goal that their keeper Green let in pretty much just describes England in a nutshell...huge chokers when it comes to the big games. The England fans were stunned when that happened and it was pretty hilarious to see how quiet but angry they got. I almost fell bad for them, since soccer is probably our 4th or 5th best sport.

We thought their might be a brawl between both sets of fans but at halftime we got to know each other and tensions cooled. Either way it was a lot of fun. I’ve uploaded some vids and pics so check em out. The internet really sucks here though so they might not show up..it takes like an hour to upload like 4 pictures, ridiculous.

Overall, I’m having a blast and Cape Town is a beautiful place. Although entertainment wise they’re a little behind the times, for example Will Smith-Miami was playing on the radio today. The people are extremely hospitable, cordial, and friendly so it’s real easy to meet the locals and have a good time.

My buddy Hillar arrives here in a couple days and we’re going to a few matches, so hopefully I’ll have some more stories in a little while.

My goals are to learn some Xhosa and Afrikaans at work so I’ll be concentrating on that for the week. Don’t be surprised if I start using clicks in my words when I get back to the States.

Cheers,
PD