Entry No. 6: Bring it on Ghana

Man, it’s been a whirlwind of a week. So much stuff has happened but I’ll try and point out the highlights and lowlights. Last time I wrote, we were heading to the casino to watch game 7 of the NBA finals. We ended up choosing the casino since it was open 24/7 and we had called them ahead of time to make sure the game would be playing, which they said it definitely would be. The cab ride cost us close to 200 rand ( a lot of money for a cab ride here), as it was about 20 minutes outside of the city bowl (downtown). However, once we got there we were immediately told that they were not allowed to switch the channels on the TV’s around the casino during this world cup period. They told us the only channels they were allowed to play were CNN and Discovery, because they had been told not to show sports games since it would divert people’s attention away from gambling on the floor. We were clearly not pleased to say the least, and after a little arguing we ended up taking a cab back to my apartment at around 4am. On our way back, Hillar came up with the idea of trying to watch the game at his hostel as they had a common room TV, so once we got back we drove there at about 4:30am in hopes of at least catching the second half. At Hillars hostel there is a restaurant/café and when we got there we realized the door to the place was open. Inside the café is a flat screen TV with satellite, which we immediately turned to ESPN in order to watch the game. During this process we were trying to be as quiet as possible since we were the only ones awake in the whole place. Nevertheless, about 10 minutes after we had started watching...the manager of the restaurant (whose name we learned was Brandon) walked in, which I immediately thought meant we were about to get in trouble or kicked out. However, instead of kicking us out, which I definitely thought was going to happen...Brandon asked if we wanted to turn the volume up and also whether we’d like him to pull down the projector screen so we can watch it on a bigger TV. We were absolutely shocked. I mean this was like 4:30am in the morning and instead of kicking us out, he just was so awesome about everything. The Celtics were also still up at this point so we were all absolutely pumped about finally finding a place to watch the game. He told us he had just woke up because the breakfast crew would be arriving shortly to set up for the morning and as we were watching, we chatted with him and kind of explained how basketball works and how important of a game this was...the guy had no idea any of the rules or the teams which was pretty funny since we were trying to explain the magnitude of the game to him. At about 5am, a few guys from Spain arrived and they were clearly cheering for the Lakers and Pau “Ugliest Man Alive” Gasol, which made the atmosphere a little more entertaining. Nevertheless, I can’t believe we lost at the end and I’m happy I wasn’t in Boston to witness that..either way it was an experience I’m never going to forget. No where else in the world would we have been able to walk into a restaurant at 4:30am in the morning and turn on a game by ourselves, then have the manager walk in and be so understanding and helpful in asking us if we wanted the volume turned up and the big screen pulled down. I love this country.

The next day I slept until about 1pm, and then met up with Hillar as the USA was playing Slovenia at 4pm here. Although I was given off from work, most of the other interns in my program were not...so Hillar and I decided to go to The Dubliner (where I watched the first USA game) about an hour before the game. When we got to the place, we were clearly outnumbered by the Brits, as England was playing Algeria later in the day in Cape Town...but we found a few Connect-123 interns and USA fans to hang out with in the bar . British people are such goddamn drunks and pricks... its hilarious. The majority of the crowd was British men in their 40’s or 50’s, absolutely hammered.... they were real hooligans. One of the USA fans started yelling some obscene things to them, and a British guy sitting next to us told me to try and keep my friend quiet , because we had no idea how crazy some of these English dudes were. He said we’d be better off not starting trouble with them. Either way, our USA chants were not met with the greatest response, but there was enough of us to be heard in the bar which was good enough. During the national anthems, when the USA anthem started playing...all of the English fans started singing “God Save The Queen” and drowned us out which caused a little tension as honestly that’s pretty disrespectful (but still funny). Since some USA fans got pissed off, the British dudes apologized and then started singing our national anthem as we all joined in. That was pretty sweet to see, I’ve gotta say. The best part of the world cup has been meeting people from all over the world, as everyone is pretty open to finding out where you’re from and willing to talk to you. The game itself was a tale of two halves...as typically, we went down early and then mounted a furious comeback. The third goal that was disallowed was one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen and even the British people in the bar admitted it was a horrible call and said they felt bad for us. Either way...to tie 2-2 after being down 2-0 is remarkable as we were only the third team to ever do that in a world cup game. If we had won though, we would have been the first team to ever win a game in the world cup when being down 2-0 at the half.

After the game, Hillar and I headed down to the waterfront since we had tickets for the England/Algeria game (our first world cup game) that night. . The waterfront was absolutely packed as it’s where the most of the people go before entering the stadium. We clearly did not fit in with our USA scarves and jerseys since the majority of the people were British fans and decked out in red and white. We ended up getting into the stadium right as the national anthems were playing and I have an awesome two-minute video, which I hope to upload of the teams coming out and England's anthem playing. I’d say 80% of the fans at the stadium were British and their were England flags hung up everywhere...Algeria pretty much only had a corner section of the stadium to themselves but they were going crazy wild too. I felt like I was at a Premiership game with all the England banners though, you’ll be able to see from the pictures. The game itself was pretty poorly played, as all of England’s players just looked really tired. The highlight of the game was probably when some fans in the Algeria section started lighting off flares and going nuts around the 70th minute, but then the South African police put an abrupt stop to that. As for the game, Rooney looked exceptionally exhausted as he pretty much just stopped playing around the 70th min, as he was clearly frustrated from his lack of chances. I took a video every time England had a corner, and now I have about 10 videos of them just sucking on corner kicks. As a USA fan the result itself couldn’t have been any better for us, as it clearly put us in the drivers seat due to the fact that if we won our next game we would be into the knockout stages. As for a general experience, Green Point Stadium is an awesome venue and absolutely beautiful from both outside and in. There is honestly not one bad seat in the entire stadium...I can’t wait to go back for our next game there.

On Saturday we went to Boulder’s Beach, Simons Town, and Cape Point as our program had planned a trip for all the interns that wanted to go there. I ended up driving behind the bus that was taking everyone, since my roommates and I hadn’t signed up by the deadline and Hillar was coming with us too. Boulder’s Beach is a beach that has a massive penguin colony, and it was pretty funny to see them all just waddling around. I’ll put up some pictures for you guys to see. After Boulder's, we headed to Cape Point which is close to the most Southern point of Africa. Its where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet so its definitely a place worth seeing. You can climb up to the lighthouse and to different cliff points, and there are some absolutely awesome views. Overall, the trip itself was fun and I’m glad I went but I was pretty exhausted by the time we got back. Driving a Hyundai Atos (my dope car) for 2 hours back and forth is not ideal. By the end, my legs felt like they had been sat on by Big Baby.

On Sunday...Hillar, Mike, Keenan and I took a city bus tour of Cape Town and we went all over the place. It was definitely helpful and a good idea, as I feel I know where everything in the city is located now. Even though Cape Town is pretty huge (3.5 million people), the city and surrounding area are pretty easy to navigate and not that confusing to understand. We ended up getting lunch in Camps Bay, which is considered one of the wealthiest beach areas around Cape Town and when you’re there you honestly do not feel like you’re on the African continent. Its similar to a South Beach or San Diego. Unfortunately, it was cloudy as hell when we were there so you couldn’t even see the beach, so I'm def going to head back when the weather is nice. I still don’t understand why the clouds here are so low even though we’re right on the water though. Where is George Tsak when you need him?

During the week, we’ve been going out for world cup games at night as I’ve been working during the day. We’ve been mainly going to Long Street since it’s close to my place and mainly just hanging out. Hillar and I have been playing a lot of pool at a bar called Stones on Long Street and my game is finally starting to improve since I’ve pretty much sucked at pool up to this point. I’ve never played that much, but at this point I've been crushing Hillar (he's scratched with the 8 ball left like nine times). I think the only reason I'm decent is probably cause they play on much smaller tables here, but either way its been a good place to just lounge and chill while watching the games. We went to Rafikis for the Spain game, which is quickly turning into one of my favorite spots in the area...and my boy David Villa finally put Spain on his back. His first goal was just plain nasty but I can’t believe he missed that penalty. Either way Hillar and I will most likely end up seeing Spain play either here in Cape Town or in Joburg as we have tickets to both of round of 16 games for their Group H.

The USA game yesterday against Algeria was absolutely nuts and I cannot believe they won in extra time. All of us went to a bar called The Purple Turtle, as it was one of the few places that was showing the USA game and not the England game in the Long Street area. The place was absolutely packed with USA fans (over 100 I'd say) and since we had so many chances to score (Dempsey’s goal should have def counted), we were all getting extremely nervous as the minutes starting creeping closer to 90. When we finally scored though, the place erupted and was absolutely mayhem as everyone was hugging each other and screaming and yelling...so damn awesome. The funniest part of being at the bar was that they would only play three songs for whenever the game wasn't going on and after when the place turned into a dance party. The only songs they played on repeat were: Party in the USA, Sweet Home Alabama, and Summer of ’69. Just hilarious if that is what America is perceived as over here. I ended up buying a USA flag for 40 rand off a guy on the street when we left the bar and tying it around my neck like a cape. USA fans were just in the streets yelling and rejoicing after the game. Everyone was giving us high fives and people would just start chanting USA USA USA if they saw another USA fan around. The only downside was in the middle of the celebration right after we scored, Hillar got his phone stolen and I got my sunglasses taken. Nevertheless, we’ll live and you just gotta roll with the punches here. It was an awesome day overall though, we did great.

As for our next game...we clearly would end up being the team that has to play Ghana...which is now the only African team left when the world cup is in Africa. Thus, everyone in Africa is supporting Ghana now...so we are just going to get hated on so much when we play them on Saturday. I know we can win though and I have a lot of faith in our boys. This is the best world cup team we’ve ever fielded I think, as Donovan and Dempsey are world-class players at this point. I cannot wait for the game.

Tonight, Hillar and I go to our second world cup game as Netherlands takes on Cameroon here in Cape Town. A bunch of other Connect-123 interns, including my roommates Mike and Keenan have tickets to the game as well, so it should be an absolute blast. Supposedly, 15’000 Dutch fans are arriving at the FanFest Grand Parade area around 4 o’clock and then celebrating/walking towards the stadium together. Should be crazy, just expecting a huge wave of orange. I’m pretty excited as we have great seats for this game as well...corner of the stadium second level.

Our plans for the next few days are to climb Table Mountain on Saturday morning (hopefully the weather is great), and then go somewhere for the USA-Ghana game at night. Then, Hillar and I are flying to Joburg on Sunday morning as we have tickets to both round of 16 games there. Our flight leaves at 7:30am and we’re seeing Argentina play Mexico at Soccer City stadium on Sunday night.... which should be absolutely awesome. We also have tickets for the other round of 16 game in Joburg on Monday at Ellis Park Stadium, which will most likely be either Brazil or Portugal vs. Chile or Spain (assuming Switzerland doesn’t qualify). We are then flying back to Cape Town on Tuesday and we also have tickets to the round of 16 game here in CT that night at Green Point Stadium. That game will also be either Brazil or Portugal vs. Chile or Spain (depends on who finishes first and second in their groups). If Spain advances, the fact that we will see them play either Brazil or Portugal (since we have tix to both possible games) is so damn sweet.

Also, although I pretty much talk about going out and the world cup atmosphere (since that is what I feel people want to hear about), I do work at Tygerberg Hospital everyday and that has been quite a rewarding experience as well. Once the world cup is over, I think I’ll focus a lot more of my attention to working at KIDCRU (the unit I'm working at in the hospital) as much as possible. I will definitely dedicate a blog entry towards what I’ve been doing at work exactly, (maybe once the world cup ends)...although I’m not sure how much I can say from a legality/confidentially standpoint. Either way, this country is not just all about the world cup, and I’ve been really glad that I can also work during my time here as that was one of the main reasons I wanted to be in South Africa. One thing I can say for certain, is that working at a hospital here has already opened up my eyes towards the medical field and helped me clearly realize that the medical profession is about helping others as much as possible first...and then worrying about everything else in your life later. For example, one of the doctors whose patient visits I’ve been sitting in on is actually on her leave (vacation) from LAST YEAR during this week, but she has still come in for a couple days this week so she could see some patients. People here certainly need dedicated doctors like her, as that is what working in the medical profession is all about. Overall, I’ve had a great and valuable experience at work so far, and can only hope it continues. I’ll definitely talk about it soon for those that want to hear.

Its gonna be an absolutely jam-packed and crazy upcoming week, I’ll def post again after all the games we go to but in the meantime, go USA! Enjoy the upcoming matches; this tournament is about to get even wilder. As the South African World Cup slogan says: Can you feel it? It is here!