Hello all,
So I'm sitting here in an internet cafe, sipping an espresso con panna (they don't have Starbucks here, but they do alright), and blogging when I should be frantically working on two assignments due tomorrow. But this is so much more important, because...
Last night, I went to Rustenburg and watched Ghana kill the USA in an epic game of football.
This game was pretty awesome. A few figures:
USA goals: 1
Ghana goals: 2
Souveniers bought: 0. This was not me being cheap...shockingly, they weren't selling any souveniers (except those cursed horns, which I'll get to in a minute) at the arena. I'll be sure to get some gear before I leave, since they're selling it (oddly enough) everywhere else.
Times I lost circulation to my extremities: 3.
Times I cared: 0. There was a game to watch. USA! USA!
Seats empty in the arena: 27 (out of 40,000)- this is an official figure
We somehow managed to hire a bus large enough to take all 18 of us, and the drive was about 3.5 hours from Gabs to Rustenburg. A sidenote about South Africa: Does anyone else think it's a tad obnoxious that they just named themselves for the entire region? Every time I try to tell someone that Botswana is in southern Africa, they immediately assume that it's part of South Africa and I have to explain that it's actually a country of its own. Granted, part of the problem here is that no one knows anything (myself included) about African geography.
To be honest, I'm happy that Ghana won. Firstly because my friends and I were surrounded by Ghana supporters, and I might have feared for my life if they'd lost. (Not really, they were all very friendly.) Secondly, soccer just really means a lot more to Ghana and the rest of Africa that it does to us. If the US went to the finals, most of us would be kind of excited, but it's nowhere near the same passion.
So, life has been pretty good. I should probably do some homework. Probably.
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Hillary, It's interesting you should say that no one cares in the US, because the level of interest in the WC this time has been very high. Maybe not Ghananian high, but high. We watched avidly and cheered loudly at the US goal (now, we also searched the stands for you, and we think we saw you, but that's separate).
ReplyDeleteI look forward to hearing about the game and the trip. Did those cursed horns make your ears numb? It did look cold by the end.
Love from NJ
(PS--Jacob off to camp successfully yesterday, Evan to Columbia today, me to Texas tonight, Mom tomorrow). Love you