Thursday, June 18, 2009: Confederation Cup update! I’ve scoped the best places to catch midday football in Cape Town, and depending on how awkward you feel about drinking by yourself (gulp), there are various PG establishments that serve hot chocolate and peanut butter sandwiches (Deano’s, Dean Street, they don’t think it’s weird if you show up two days in a row!) Apparently it’s considered poor form to be a lone sports fan, especially an American one, well, a blonde female at least, and I get a few stares. Hmm. Not concerned. In football news a phenomenal game played between Brazil and Egypt, Brazil pulling it out 4-3 at the end with a last minute penalty for handballing in the box. (Anyone who played with us during our summer soccer tournament in 2006 will remember a similar incident in our game against the dodgy Europeans who smoked at half time and wore colored shirts and designer shoes to play.) Later that night New Zealand played Iraq and nobody cared. That night the US loses a cracker against Italy, looks like the Cup might be out of our hands, and the much anticipated (and joked about) Iraq – US final may never come to pass.
Tickets still not available to Saturday’s South Africa v. Spain final round match in Bloemfontein. Anxiety sets in.
Friday, June 19, 2009: Bingo! Have managed to corner a guy who knows a guy who has Hyundai comp tickets to tomorrow’s match. Headed to town to meet him at the top of a parking garage and exchange. (Sounds much dodgier than it actually was.) In fact the garage was the location of a commercial shoot for Hyundai, so I got a first-hand glimpse at the behind the scenes action. Well, all I really put together was that there’s a guy in charge of making puddles, and he has to do it just so, and the car has to drive really fast over the puddle just so, making sure not to get water or dirt on the visible underbelly, and this has to happen 8 consecutive (and identical times) before someone in the audience who looks important with an earpiece and a cell phone cries out, “We got it!” Right. Anyway, long story short, tickets are in hand and they’re pretty.
Now we just have to sort out tickets for the four others who are planning to carpool with us. Deadline is 4pm.
It’s 4:30pm and no tickets are available. Grumpiness sets in.
It’s 5:30pm and no tickets are available. Time to drink.
Drinking. It’s 11pm, time for bed. WAIT! A text… tickets are up, bought, we’re off on a 1000 kilometer trip to Bloem for the game tomorrow. Leaving in T-minus 5 hours…
Saturday, June 20, 2009: Pipe dreams do come true! It’s 1004 kilometers (approx. 600 miles) to Bloemfontein, in the Free State. We set off in my friend Gavin’s bakkie that seats two in the front, two in the back, and however many people you want in the double cab. We realize this trip is going to be an epic journey and set up a makeshift bedroom in the back.
The game plan is simple: leave Cape Town in order to make the 10 hour trip in time to watch the first game in the Springboks/Lions test at 3 – this tour only comes around once every 12 years so we reckon it’s important to make it. Then potter around Bloem, get into the spirit of things (if you know what I mean) and head to the stadium early enough to avoid the manic rush. Well we all know the best laid plans are the first to go, and sure enough, after three leisurely Wimpy stops we realize there’s no chance of us making it all the way to Bloem for the rugby. New plan. Find a dorpie on the way that looks like they have a bar and a TV (hopefully in the same place).
That dorpie is Trompsburg. 80 kilometers south of Bloem this tiny town a kilometer off the highway looks like nothing has changed for 50 years. After passing one hotel boasting a “ladies bar” and a liquor store with benches but no TV we stumble across the “Manor House,” a tiny hotel and eatery with not one, but two TV’s and a well-stocked liquor cabinet. Score!
The best part about Trompsburg? They, like many of the small towns up the N1 to Bloem and eventually Joburg, announce their presence by writing the name of their town on the nearest hill in block lettering formed by white rocks. “Springfontein.” “Trompsburg.” “Richmond, est. 1843, www.richmond.co.za.”
One happy American:
Petrol to Bloem, per person: R300
Wimpy and Spur burger prices, average, per person: R50
Cost of tickets: R200
Beers: R15
20 hours in the car with people that are luckily still your friends, watching Fernando Torres play football in real life, real time, a chance to hear 36,000 people singing an old freedom song simultaneously, and making the most of living in the 2010 host nation: R565
AND despite the 2-0 loss to Spain Bafana has claimed a spot in the semis, thanks to a 1-1 draw between formidable opponents Iraq and New Zealand.
Sunday, June 21, 2009: Sunday started at 12am Saturday and ended, well, never. Apparently no one sleeps in Bloem, they just party hardy through the night, drinking their way through pub after pub without regard for the morning (or the 10 hour drive facing them on the way back.) Again, that bed in the back of Gav’s bakkie comes in very handy.
I’ll spare you the details of the very long, very hungover, very grumpy return trip to say that we made it back in time for the second half of both the US/Egypt and Brazil/Italy games, two unexpected smackdowns that left favorites Italy and Egypt out of the semis. There had to be some money lost on those games.
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