And only after 2 months, here is the second installment of the World Cup Odyssey. Don’t even ask why it took so long…
Christy and I headed in to Cape Town just
after lunch ahead of the England-Algeria match at Green Point Stadium. The train we were on from Kalk Bay must have been on it’s last legs as it took us over an hour to get into town, by which time we were starving. Stopping along the route to the stadium we had a pizza and then hustled past the apartments, restaurants and bars covered in British flags opposite the stadium, to find a place to settle in for the US-Slovenia match. We found a little Asian place just across the street from the stadium and prepared ourselves for the ulcer-inducing match ahead. Wow! What heart. As we all know, the US should have won that game instead of drawing, but throughout the World Cup, the majority of the refs have been less than impressive. Nothing as egregious as what happened to England and Mexico in the Round of 16, but still, bad reversal of a clear goal.
It was during this ridiculous come from behind draw that we made friends with the two South Africans sitting next to us. After a few rounds of Jagermeister , we discovered that Glyn owned a chain of hotels around South Africa. He had been given the tickets from some guests and was there to have a good time, and to bring Christy and I along for the ride. About 1 hour before the first whistle, we headed to the stadium with our new friends and agreed to meet up afterwards for some more drinks. What a dismal match. England played uninspired and the Algerians almost stole one.
While I was exhausted and ready to get on a train back to Kalk Bay, Christy convinced me to head back to the pub to meet up with our friends for a few more drinks. We also wanted to follow up on an offer that Glyn had made to put us up one night in Durban in one of his hotels. Since we already had accommodation in Durban and we did not have anything in Jo’Burg confirmed ahead of the Brazil-Cote d’Ivore match in two days, we wanted to see if Glyn could help us out there in instead. We were then introduced to their two British friends and we proceeded to have an amazing night. For some strange reason, everyone (with the exception of Christy for some reason) around the table resembled somebody famous. We had a Richard Gere look-alike, a chubby Bruce Willis, me in the role of Robert Dinero, and Mini-Me from Austin Powers. More shots of Jagermeister, with a few Tequila thrown in for good measure, and Glyn was not only agreeable to putting us up in Jo’Burg, he was insistent that we not return to Brad’s, but accompany him back to Franschhook in the vineyards to stay the night in one of his villas. So…at 2:45 in the morning, we finally left the pub and drove the 45 minutes out to Franschook. All I can say is wow. We drunkenly slept for 5 hours in a beautiful villa before beginning our odyssey back to Kalk Bay where our car awaited us for another 1,400km drive.
Yes, I forgot to mention that we had planned to get on the road around 6am for the 14+ hour drive to Jo’Burg. That plan went out the window the minute we decided to return to the pub after the England match. A taxi picked us at the villa and raced us to the Paarl train station, which we missed so we headed down the tracks to the next stop. We got there just before the train and somehow stayed awake for the 2 hour ride into Cape Town and then back out on another train to Kalk Bay. Luckily we were not dressed up for the game the previous night like the Livingston’s we saw or else that would have been the longest walk of shame ever. We arrived back to Brad’s around noon and promptly took a nap, agreeing to leave around 4pm and drive through the night. We really couldn’t put it off later because our next game was at Soccer City that next day and really did not want go directly to the game.

