June 11th - Let the games begin!

After all the anticipation of the entire world for the last four years, the World Cup finally began on June 11, 2010. On that day, the boys, in addition to our friends John and Margie, had tickets to the night game in Cape Town: France v. Uruguay. More on that later. We wanted to make it down to Cape Town beforehand to watch the first game of the tournament on TV: the hosts South Africa v. Mexico.

From where we were located in Somerset West, we drove near Cape Town and stopped at a FIFA park and ride. From there we took the train in to Cape Town. When we arrived in Cape Town the place was buzzing with excitement for the South Africa game. We had to find a place to watch the game.



If you've ever tried to watch the opening game of the World Cup, which always features the hosts, in the country it's being played in, then you know how hard it is to find a good location to watch the game. We arrived later than we would have liked (typically), so we had our work cut out for us. As most bars and restaurants filled up, the best episode we had was when we found an Indian restaurant that had a TV, but it wasn't working. As an interested crowd looked on, the owners tried desperately to make the TV work, but it was not to be.

As we had little time to spare, Margie was busy devising an improvisational solution at a buffet restaurant called Karibu. We grabbed some sofas laying around outside and put them at a bad angle to get a glimpse of South Africa against Mexico.

The entire V&A Waterfront in Cape Town was electric with nervous excitement when the match started. It was a tense match until the 55th minute when South Africa scored. The entire Waterfront (and presumably all of South Africa) went mental when Siphiwe Tshabalala scored a great goal to put the hosts ahead. Unfortunately, South Africa could only manage a draw, which dampened the celebrations in South Africa but did not extinguish them.

Next, we made our way to the brand new Green Point Stadium, located conveniently right next to downtown Cape Town. Getting into the match was a bit of a drag at first, but after deciding to move to another entrance, we got in without much hassle. We had awesome seats as well, so we were all set. Now for my in-depth analysis of this match: it was crap.

We had a long day ahead of us the next day, so we said goodbye to John and Margie and got home early and got some sleep. USA v. England was our next destination, and boy would it take us a long time to get to that match.