to South Africa and Beyond:

Last day in Barcelona and flight to Marseille

I got up early to pack my things, shower and check out. I had to be out by 1130 which is later than most hostels but had a lot to pack up after spreading out for 5 nights.

After checkout I headed for the abstract giant face near Barceloneta metro stop near the beach. I met the girls, who had once again been forced to change buildings, and we decided to grab all you can eat sushi.

The sushi joint was sweet, a moving lineup of various sushi platters, fruits, noodles, flan and other foods moved past our table and we were free to grab as much as we wanted for the price, we also got ice cream afterwards!  The sushi was good but the company better. We actually got kicked out of the restaurant after we were done because a line had started to form for a table; first time in Europe this had happened to me, usually you have to ask for the check and can relax and talk for a bit after eating but here they rushed us the check without us asking and then politley asked us to leave straight away.

After stuffing ourselves we went back to the girls hostel and sat on the marble steps in their foyer just talking to kill time. We ended up sitting for hours before I had to jet to catch my flight. Goodbye this time was saddest because we knew we wouldn't run into each other again in Europe, perhaps someday in Philly or Portland.

I walked to the nearest metro, took it to Sants Estacio and then grabbed a train to the airport. I got to the airport just under 2 hours before scheduled take off, checked in and blazed through security. I sat down at my gate and read a book until about 2 minutes prior to boarding time when they decided to announce the flight was delayed 30 minutes. I wasn't too pleased because I had contemplated going to a resteraunt but wasn't sure I had time. 30 minutes later, 2 minutes prior to the new boarding time, they announced another 30 minute delay. Now I was getting worried about what time I would get into Marseille; with the two delays I would be pushing 1130pm which is the departure time of the last bus to the city and cabs are expensive.

This time we started boarding and were soon in the air. I took a quick nap during the hour flight and was awoken as we touched down.

As we deplaned the smell of fresh rain entered my nose, it smelled great.  It was 1120 as I got to baggage claim. Luckily my pack was literally the 4th off the line and I was able to race to catch the last bus.

The driver wasn't thrilled to have me when I tried to pay the fare with a 50 but I just looked at him and showed that that was all I had. He had plenty of change but was apparently not excited to use it.

By the time we reached St Charles station in Marseille it was midnight and the metro was closed so I had to hoof it the 2km to my hostel. My good fortune seemingly ran out as the rain began as soon as I stepped off the bus. I arrived at the Vertigo hostel door soaking but happy to be there.

I checked in for the night and told that I'd have to literally check out at 10am the next morning and then wouldn't be able to check back in until 3pm for my final 4 nights. I decided I'd just use the time as relaxation to update the blog, do laundry and just sit around doing nothing, which can be amazing on occassion.

I got into my room, very very nice for a hostel, crawled into bed with my book and read a bit before turning out the lights on my day.

 

 

 

 

 

Second day in Barcelona

I took my time getting going after such a long night the day before; I made some eggs and veggies for brunch and ate them while finishing The Associate by Grisham.

After a shower I made my way to the Picasso museum. After a good 90 minutes in line I was finally able to get in.

The museum is arranged in chronological order according to Picassos life and different periods. There was a lot of interesting information about the artist and paintings to see associated with each description. Unfortunately I did not enjoy this art museum as much as others I'd visited but it was still worth the small admission charge.

There was a temporary exhibition as well in which Picasso was compared, through various pieces, to one of the artists he admired while training to be a professional. This exhibit I enjoyed more than the permanent collection; I found more paintings and pieces that I liked and I thought the overall theme was more interesting.

After all the reading and staring At art, I was ready for the beach!  I'd been in contact with my lady friends that Andrew, James and I had first met in Switzerland, then again in Munich, Vienna and Prague, and they were also in Barcelona for a few nights. I'd planned to meet them on the beach and so they'd texted me their location and I went to find them. Unfortunately, the beach was crazy busy and the location they'd sent me was a bit to vague to really be able to find them. As I stood by the public toilettes, the reference point, looking around, one of the girls found me! I was shocked as I no longer had hair so I figured they wouldn't even recognize me; turns out that my red backpack betrayed my location.

We hung out and chatted about our adventures in Amsterdam and I filled them in on our French trip as well. The sun started to retreat below the horizon but we decided to stay on the beach; we did go to the small supermarket to get some snacks and box wine. We just enjoyed the fantastic view and music playing on the boardwalk as we sat on the big white sheet, stolen from a hostel no doubt.

We eventually decided a swim was in order. Unfortunately this turned out to be a terrible idea. As one of the girls and I swam and the second girl conversed in Spanish with a group behind our place, a man walked up an stole the girls backpack with all of their stuff in it. Luckily the girl out of the water noticed and was able to track the guy down and get the pack back.

After the girl and I returned from the water to dry off the man made a second attempt, foiled again by the same girl. The night was definitely over after these two attempts.

I walked the girls back to their hostel and we sat outside for a bit just talking and drinking some more box wine. Eventually it was time for me to walk back; unfortunately the metro doesn't run after 1am so I had quite a haul to get back. On the way I ate a tasty beef sandwich before getting straight into bed once I returned to my hostel.

 

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First full day alone - Barcelona

When I woke up on my first day in Barcelona I looked around the 8 person dorm to see if Andrew and James were awake; it took me a good five minutes to realize that I wasn't going to find them.

I didn't have much of a plan for the day, mostly just wandering and eventually the beach. I had been given a great map of Barcelona by the reception at Sant Jordi Hostel, it had all the great spots highlighted and roads clearly marked for easy navigating.

I decided to walk down the main street that runs from my hostel towards the beach as it seemed to have numerous sites marked. The first big site I saw on the street was La Pedrera, a Gaudi designed building. This was my first real exposure to Gaudi but I'd been told Barcelona basically belonged to him. The building was odd but strangely beautiful.

The next site was another of Gaudis buildings, Casa Batillo this time. This house was very colorful and had what looked like shark mouths as railings on the balconies. I was again intrigued by the design and was getting more and more excited to see the rest of th city and his designs.

I veered off onto La Rambla, a huge tourist street, and started seeing the human stautues everywhere. They were all so good. My favorite from this trip down the street was a man, painted in black and gold, sitting cross legged and seemingly levitating.

At the end of all the kiosks and street performer was a Christopher Columbus column. Atop the large column stands Columbus pointing in the direction of america; it was fun to see something so meaningful that integrates American history and Spanish in such a popular place.

Past the statue was a giant bridge in the marina which leads to a strip of land that has many bars, restaurants, an IMAX and an aquarium. Crossing the bridge I could see numerous cruise ships docked in the port to my right. I wanted to go left because that is where my map showed the beach.

I made my way around the tourist places and on to the port vell, the boardwalk that connects much ofthe waterfront areas, enjoying the hot weather and view of the Mediterranean.

Eventually I made it to the beach, a fantastic sand beach with plenty of areas to swim and ride the waves. The last beaches we'd been to were missing the waves so I was excited to get in. I had worn my swimsuit so I was quickly ready for a dip minus the sunscreen application, obviously SPF 50; I made sure to put plenty on my newly shaved head.

The water was fantastic, cool but it felt so good in the hot sun. I floated and swam a bit enjoying the refreshing feeling, all the while watching my bag inthe beach though as there were so many people around.

After a good long swim I got out and air dried for a bit before getting dressed again and heading further down the beach. In the distance was a bronze statue of what looked like a headless fish that I wanted to check out.

About halfway to the statue I saw what looked like a jungle gym on the beach but there were adults all around. Upon further inspection I realized it was just a bunch of pullup bars and situp machines. I hadnt worked out for a long time so I figured I'd just see how i fared with some pullups. It was a disappointing showing to say the least, made me anxious to get back to some Crossfit. I hurried back on my path to the statue.

There wasn't any description of the relavance of the statue so it remains a headless fish to me.

I walked back towards my hostel through the gothic quarter, admiring the fantastic buildings. I stopped to tour the Cathedral Barcelona as it looked appealing and it seems as though I've visited a church everywhere I've been so why stop now.

The cathedral was like most of the large churches I'd seen in terms of layout, large center isle with pews and then numerous chapels off to the sides. The chapels were all very different though, some were very ornate with lots of gold while others were exclusively paintings and wood and had a much darker feel to them. In the center of the church was an area designated for the choir with actual individual seats carved into the wooden benches. Just past the choir was a grand organ that had most definitely been refurbished recently. I took a lift to the top of the church to get a better view of the city. I was a bit disappointed as there was a lot of construction going on on the top so many views were obstructed. Back in the church, in a path off the main area I found a beautiful garden with a fountain, green grass and a couple statues, there were also a few more chapels and an art exhibit. In the art exhibit I saw perhaps the most extravagent piece yet, it was fully gold. The art was a throne of gold with a replica castle set atop the throne with two gold crowns perched atop the castle; it was an awesome site to behold. Overall the church was fun and interesting but didn't quite measure up to some of the others I'd seen so far.

I grabbed some supplies from a grocery store and returned to the hostel to make some dinner.

After dinner I joined a group of fellow guests in the common area, drinking and chatting; just getting to know each other. The hostel I was in was one of five in Barcelona owned by the same company and they went out of their way to organize nights out each night. This night was no exception so at midnight we left the hostel and made our way to a club right on the beach. We danced to the not so great music and tried to avoid the over priced drinks. It was a good time and great to have friends along but eventually we tired of the music and 4 of us decided to go for a walk on the beach.

The night was warm and the water looked inviting so we decided a swim would be nice. The water felt great as we just floated around for about half an hour.

We didn't know the fastest route back to the hostel from that spot on the beach and ended up in a dead end at one point and not making it back until about 430 am, exhausted but stayed up til 630 to see off one of the girls I'd walked back with because she had a ride coming at that time to take her to the airport; the sun was up but it was time for me to go to bed.

 

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We had to leave at 630am to get to the airport in time for James and Andrew to catch their flights so we woke up at 530. We finished packing everything into our packs and carryons and headed downstairs for a final hearty breakfast.

 

After our meal we were loaded up with supplies for our trip, water, biscuits, fruit and Kleenex. We packed our stuff into our Renault Clio for the final time and said our final goodbyes to our hosts.

 

An hour drive later we arrived at CDG airport just north of the city. We had to drop off Steel, our car, which was sad as we'd put 6074 km on the odometer during our travels. It had become a home of sorts; it is filled with memories that won't soon be forgotten and bonds that will never break.

 

Andrew and Ted had to say goodbye to James right then and there because his flight was out of terminal 1 and theirs out of terminal 2.

 

James will be flying from Paris to Dublin to Boston to Arizona, all in a day. When he gets back he will have only hours before he must report for his first day of work at General Mills, who makes Cheerios and Trix. He has an incredible future ahead of him but a new job/first real job is always scary and nerve wracking so if you'd like to send your love and support, I'm sure he'd appreciate it.

 

Next to go was Andrew. He is catching a flight from Paris to New York and then New York to Seattle, where he'll spend q night before flying up to Alaska. Once in alaska he'll make his way to Saint Paul Island where he will be studying, tackling and tagging, baby seals. He will only have the clothes which he brought with him to Europe and South Africa which aren't the warmest items so he may need to acquire some new heavier clothes. Also, the availability of food on the island is not great so he has to make bulk purchases before leaving the mainland and then pack it all up in a cooler that is provided for him. This experience will last about 3 weeks but should be an incredible learning opportunity and right up his alley in terms of what he hopes to do in the future. Wish him all the best in his northerly adventure before he returns to Middleton to help his sister with the twins, should come any day now!

And then there was one traveler left...

 

I, Ted, will continue the website and updates alone from here on out as I continue to travel for the next 2 weeks. Provided that I receive periodic updates from Andrew and James, as requested, as to how they are doing, I will lost those on the site's news section as well. As for me, I am headed to Barcelona then Marseille then Frankfurt, each for 5 nights, before returning home on August 19th.

 

I'm a bit nervous to be traveling without my faithful companions but look at this as another opportunity to test myself, learn about other cultures and of course enjoy seeing the world.

 

 

After a full day spent at the airpot in Paris, I was finally able to check in for my 630pm flight.  The flight was delayed until 745 unfrotunately so I didn´t arrive in Barcelona until after 9pm.  I had written down how to get to my hostel from the airport, utilizing buses and then subways, but still managed to get a bit lost after arriving at the final subway stop.

 

I finally found the entrance to my hostel and clambered up the two flights to the reception desk.  There was a preparty going on in the lobby when I stepped in so I was immediately bombarded with names that I will have to ask again for sure.  While chekcing in I found out that the hostel bscially organizes guests to go out each night.  I was far too exhausted to go out that night but asssured everyone that thrusday night id join them.

 

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After such a long and rough night, getting our car out of French impound, we didn't wake up until the early afternoon. We were hoping to make a day trip to Verseille but decided against it because we had to pack everything up for our flights the next day and also we had volunteered to cook for our hosts as a thank you for their generosity, although it would be impossible to truly repay them.

 

Instead of driving around France we hung out at the house, made a grocery list for our dinner, did some swimming at the neighborhood pool (only speedos allowed in the water for hygenic reasons), got haircuts (ted is buzzed again and James is looking good for his first day of work), figured out logistical items for our next journeys and totaled receipts from various items to finale debts.

 

Once our host mother returned with our groceries we set about to cook a monster meal. We'd been served basically a 4 course dinner each of our nights at their home so we figured we'd make a few courses as well.

 

We started with deviled eggs (Andrew), moved to some dorritos and homemade guacomole (Ted) then to a baked mac n cheese with a cracker topping (Andrew) and finally to a meat and veggie lasagna (James). We made far too much food fore everyone but it was all very well received. As we ate we enjoyed a nice whiskey, some red wine and finally a delicious rum to finish off the night as we were engulfed by the darkness on the patio.

 

After dinner we took a few photos together to remember the amazing time and then headed up to our rooms to pack up. We packed most of our stuff but fell asleep before it could all be completed. 

 

 

 

 

Being Monday, the father and eldest daughter had to work early so it was only the mother and youngest daughter around when we descended the stairs for breakfast around 10.

 

Again we had pastries and fruit and leftover cake along with tea, hot chocolate and juice.

 

We had planned to leave rift after breakfast but relaxing on the bed for an hour or so seemed much nicer when the time came so we didn't leave until about 1230.

 

We planned to go to Marmottan musuem first but arrived and realized it was closed on Mondays so we decided to drive to Monetmartre. This area is filled with great souvenir places but also has a beautiful church, Sacre-Couer. We walked to the church and spent some time inside marveling at it's simplistic beauty. Outside Sacre-Couer is a gorgeous view of Paris, the best free view as dubbed by Andrew.

 

After free inside tour we paid to climb the 300 stairs to the dome and see one of the best views period of Paris!  We spent a good amount of time at the top takin pictures before descending the opposite stairs.

 

Back in the souvenir district we all found wonderful buys for our loved ones while enjoying more crepes!

 

We spent a great deal of time just hanging about before driving to the Bastille. The drive turned out to be quite an adventure in and of itself as 3 lanes turned to 1 turned to 5 turned to 2. We did manage to drive past the moulin rouge, through the Louvre roads and finally on the giant roundabout around the Bastille. It was a fun, scary ride but we found a parking spot eventually and walked!

 

Our destination was a bar hat James and Andrew had visited together 4 years ago. They'd become friends with the bartender. We arrived at the bar with the sign Bar des Famile and found the same bartender inside; he recognized the pair immediately!  We had a couple drinks, and a round on the house, before heading to another friends new apartment.

 

We went to the apartment of one of Andrew and James' friends that we'd met up with on our first night. There were many familiar faces here and a couple new ones. We sat around and conversed, mainly in French but some of the attendees also attempted to speak some English to help Ted out.

 

After some fun games of werewolf we packed up the party and moved to a bowling alley. The funny thing about this bowling alley was that It was minature bowling, small balls, no finger holes and small pins on strings. Also the alley was basically in the middle of a bar. We bowles a game and of course the Americans took the title; after all this trip was conceived in a bowling alley so we had expectations to live up to!

 

After that bar closed we headed to a place to do some dancing. Before entering we met a small time French director and one of his actresses so we conversed with them for a bit. We had a lot of fun tearing up the dance floor with our French counterparts before calling it a night.

 

It was approaching 330am, Ted had stayed sober in order to drive, so we all headed back to our car. Upon reaching th street we'd parked on we realized the car was no where to be found. We inspected the street further and realized we'd missed a sign stating that it was illegal to park where we had parked between midnight and 6am from Tuesday to Friday and it was tuesday morning currently. Also, the sign was topped with a big picture of a tow truck, whoops.

 

We were a mere 28 hours from returning our car and we'd managed to get it towed! With some good help from our French friends we managed to get an address for the impound so we said our final farewells emotionally and jumped in a cab.

 

We reached the impound at 430am, dealt with the fines and got our car back. We arrived back at our hosts late enough that some of the residents were getting up for work.

 

We were exhausted to say the least so we passed out!

 

 

 

 

Every first Sunday of the month major Paris museums are free. We figured we'd take full advantage.

 

We got up a bit later than we'd planned and went downstairs to find the entire family waitin for us to begon breakfast. The breakfast was chocolate pastries and bread with jams, jellies, honey and nutella along with fruit. We also got hot chocolate, tea and juice. We were in heaven.

 

We had our fill, thanked the family and headed into town.

 

Our first museum was the Louvre, perhaps best known for housing the Mona Lisa. We walked up to the pyramid entrance which had a line possibly 3 hours long which wasn't exactly what we wanted so James asked a security guard if there were other entrances and he said yes! We followed his directions to the lions entrance which had no line!

 

The Lourve is gigantic, which is an understatement. We spent about 4 hours inside and barely covered 1/2 the area, and we hurried quite a bit in that time. We saw the Mona Lisa, obviously, the code of hammarabi, the Venus de Milo and many more paintings, statues and other works of art.

 

We only had about 4 hours left before the museums would be closed so we didn't know how many more museums we'd be able to see. Musee D'Orsay was next. The line for his museum was long but we couldn't find any other entrance so we had to wait.

 

Unfortunately, the museums 5th floor was under construction so they had to move all of their impressionist works and others to hallways on the first floor. This made for a cramped viewing experience but we got to see many Van Goghs, Monets, Manets, Renoirs, Degas and many many more. We found the collections to be more our style than just the immense amount of works in the Louvre.

 

We had about 45 minutes til closing time so we hurried over to the Rodan museum but just missed the cut off for entrance.

 

Instead we walked back in the direction of our car, we had told our hosts we'd be back by 8, and stopped at a cafe along the way to people watch and have a coffee.

 

We made it back just in time for our scheduled dinner and sat down with the dad.  We enjoyed some cider with cashews and pretzels before he brought out the pre-cognac which we fully enjoyed as well.

 

Again we were treated to great conversation and a 4 course meal with pork and zuchinni as a main followed by cheese an a chocolate cake for dessert. Ted managed to spill a full glass of water all over Andrew, it wasn't bad enough that he didn't speak any French; his face turned bright red as he tried to apologize and everyone laughed.

 

Our hosts had done our laundry while we were out as well, we couldn't be more thankful. In order to try to repay the generosity that had already been shown us we volunteered our various cabins in Wisconsin as free vacation destinations when the family visits the Midwest soon. Also we volunteered to cook for them on our last night! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The one thing we wanted to see besides the Van Gogh museum was the Anne frank house so we decided to check it out before heading to Paris.

 

When we arrived the line was unbelievably long but we stuck it out and eventually were inside the secret annex. The mood was obviously heavy the whole time. Annes story acted as a single anectdote to an overall tremendous tragedy and in the end the message is for worldwide tolerance of all people. We saw many artifacts including the original wallpaper decorated by Anne, the bookcase that was put in place to guard the annex entrance, annes original diary as well as many of her other writings, short stories and quotes. Near the end of the tour we actually got to see an Academy Award, won and donated, selflessly, by an actress who was in the 1959 version of the Anne Frank movie.

 

It was interesting to find out what lengths Otto Frank had to go to in order to preserve the house and what he has done since it's opening to preach tolerance and teach the worlds youth to appreciate those who are different than themselves.

 

After the tour we got in the car, dropped off the key we'd forgotten to return and headed for Paris!!

 

Our drive to Paris would be our last long drive of our trip together. It was supposed to only be a 5 hour drive but traffic jams turned it into an 8 hour journey. Luckily we could finally make use of the cars GPS, it only has France maps.

 

Upon arriving we headed to the apartment of friends that James and Andrew had met 4 years ago on their French travels. We arrived and went up to a nice little place just outside Paris.

 

We drank some wine and Andrew and James conversed; Ted doesn't speak French so his communication abilities were limited. All in all it was a fun time for all!

 

After the gathering we headed to one of the friends apartments close by to spend the night. 

 

 

 

 

 

We thougt about renting bikes for our full day tour but decided against it in the end. Our first stop was the Van Gogh museum. The line was longer than hoped for but eventually we got in, and we were so happy that we waited.

 

With the aide of the audio tour we spent about 3 hours touring the art museum. The art was incredible!! We also learned a lot about Van Gogh's influences and his life throughout our tour.

 

There were also other artists featured in the museum, including an exposition of how modern technologies have helped reveal that a famous myth of how a painting was scratched by cow horns while stretched between posts outdoors is a complete fabrication; the scratches were from a paint knife and there is no evidence of the canvas ever being strectched.

 

Overall we had an amazing experience but were left a bit overwhelmed after trying to absorb as much information and history as possible. It's quite amazing how much art Van Gogh was able to paint during the 10 year period in which he painted; also he basically taught himself to paint.

 

From the Van Gogh museum we went to the Heineken museum in search of a freah pint but turned around when we found out it was going to cost €15 for a tour and there was no where to just buy a fresh draught beer.  From there we went on an adventure trying to find an all you can eat sushi place but arrived too late for the lunch price so we settled for all you can eat ribs and a pitcher of heineken at a sports bar instead, delicious!

 

After the meat sweats stopped we were tired so we retired to our new room, now we were all together in a room right off the breakfast area, for a quick napski before a night out.

 

First up was a torture museum tour. The place had an immense amount of actual torture instruments that were used during the dark ages and Spanish inquisition. It was creepy but at the same time very Interesting; for each cruel form of torture there were drawings of it in use and a paragraph about how and why it was used. We escaped without mark and discussed which form we would have preferred if we had to be tortured.

 

Our second stop of the night was to grab a snack because somehow we were still hungry after all the ribs. We each got a delicious chocalate muffin and continued on our way. James forgot his sweatshirt at the cafe so we had to turn around after about 5 minutes of walking but soon we were back on track.

 

We walked around the canals and enjoyed some of the nightime scenery before heading for he controversial red light district. We looked but DID NOT touch (although we did read about the constant hygenic testing they undergo as part of their job) as we walked with a hoarde of others through the maze of red and black lights.

 

Eventually we decided to just sit down and hang out for a bit while we watched people walking. We met a couple interesting people while observing and Ted somehow acquired a southern accent while telling a man he came from Oregon; a quote that has become a constant joke.

 

When we finally decided to head back to our hotel we had perhaps the adventure of the trip. We didn't have a proper map but thought we'd be able to find our way back by recognizing where we'd come from. We walked down street after street remembering everything, unfortunately we were walking in a figure 8; basically just retracing our steps twice! We'd come upon the spot we'd started and look at each other and just laugh at ourselves.

 

It only took us two hours in the end, it should have only been a 15 min walk; time for bed! 

 

 

 

 

The drive from Prague to Amsterdam is about 8 hours so we decided to leave around 11am. After grabbing a couple pizzas to go with the last of our crowns and messing up our directions a few times we were back on the open road!

 

Most of the drive was through Germany which meant we actually had Internet on the iPhone so we could look up where to stay in Amsterdam and get directions. Unfortunately most places were either too expensive, too far away or booked up for the night so we decided to just wing it like usual.

 

After one last missed turn near Hannover we finally made it into Amsterdam. The highway roads leading into the city were some of the nicest we'd yet driven on.

 

We cruised around for a bit until we stumbled upon what looked like two star hotel row. We checked each of about 12 hotels in the area, most were booked but we found a reasonable, still quite pricey, place and booked our two night stay.

 

After dropping our stuff off in our rooms, James in a different room, and building, than Ted and Andrew, we went across the street to relax on the couches.

 

After some relaxation we strolled around our area of town for a bit. There was some construction going on but that didn't mean the restaurants and shops nearby were suffering. There were people on bikes everywhere as well! There is actually a bike only path on nearly every street, between the foot path and street; being the tourists that we are, we got caught walking inthe bike path plenty of times.

 

After our brief tour and some delicious vlamesse fries it was bed time so we retired to our seperate rooms. Unfortunately for Andrew and Ted there were no longer any beds available in their dorm so they went to inquire at reception.

 

The man was a bit confused but wrote up a list of who was supposed to be in the room and follwed Ted and Andrew back to investigate. It turned out that they thought there were 18 beds when in reality there were only 16. Ted and Andrew were too to pick up their stuff and they'd be relocated.

After far too long, they were given a single room a d told to put a mattes on the floor for the second person.

 

Once the mattes was laid on the floor by the single bed there was no room to move; the door wouldn't budge, the bathroom wasn't accessible and the backpacks barely fit on the open ground space. They room was cozy but comfortable enough to sleep for a night. 

 

 

 

 

 

We had originally planned on partaking in a 6 hour tour of Prague this day but our night spilled into Tuesday a bit longer than expected so we slept right past the start time.

 

For lunch we decided to try some Chinese food. We all ordered a three course meal, soup, appetizer and main dish. The food hit the spot and the beers helped fill our stomachs to the brim.

 

After lunch we all made some progress on our books and then napped a bit.

 

We woke up and showered before packing the left over wine from Split and our last cigars for a walk around the city at sunset. Prague is a very beautiful city at any time with it's architecturally stunning structures including one of the worlds largest castles. We also read that Prague ia europes most haunted cities although we weren't able to experience that first hand.

 

We walked across one of the numerous bridges to the other side of the river stopping briefly along the way to take in a bit of the concert that was going on on the river. There were people packing the bridge  and many more in small boats crowding the floating stage. We continued our adventure up a hill toward a tower that overlooks the city. We stopped numerous times on the trail to admire the view of the city that we could see as the sun was setting, stunning.

 

Once at the top of the hill, base of the tower, we saw that we had just missed our chance to go up the tower which was disappointing but we did mange to find our romantic spot. We found a large 4 seater wooden swing to chill on while we smoked the cigars and sipped our table wine. We swung, talked about high school memories and watched the moon rise behind the tower.

 

After the romantic part of the evening we walked down the path towards the castle but detoured to Subway, yes we caved but only because it was the only thing open at 11!  After devouring our far too American fast food dinner we continued our self guided walking tour past a few other monuments and towards the astronomical clock. While gazing at this marvelous masterpiece we were solicited numerous times to go see caberet shows and get good "deals". We were able fight all the solicitors off and continue our walk.

 

A little further dowm te cobblestone we heard a loud group of people that we understood to be a pub crawl so we decided to join the fun. We followed the group to a bar called music bar. The bar was packed, that is until the groups time was up; once the group left, the bar was a ghost town but we hung out for a bit longer and a different pub crawl soon filtered in.

 

We weren't in for a long night so we just had a few beers and headed home, Amsterdam was on the adgenda for tomorrow. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Naps were in order after wandering around Prague a bit in search of a hostel; we've become very adept at arriving with no bookings and finding reasonable accomodation.

 

When we woke up we showered and prepared for our night, our plan was to buy a nice bottle and some cigars and hang out on a balcony somewhere. We walked down to the main tourist street to get some money and see a bit of the city. On our walk back we found just the shop we were looking for, made our purchases and got some free advice about where to eat.

 

We made our way over to Ferdinands for some beef goulash and dark beer for the equivalemt of about $5 or $6. Prague is definitely the most affordable place we've yet encountered.

 

After the goulash we headed to a hostel down the road from our own to meet up with our American lady friends, who we'd met In Switzerland and Munich and driven to Vienna, for happy hour in their hostel bar.

 

After a glorious reunion we sat down for some drinks. The five of us actually attracted another 2 guys and 2 girls to our table as well. Most of the people at the table had planned to go on a pub crawl that night but all decided to skip it as we were having far too much fun just chatting and sharing our traveling stories.

 

Eventually we excused ourselves to go back to our room for a bit to partake in our own private ritual.

Next we walked to a small bar nearby that had a nice terrace on top where we could just relax and smoke our nice cigars. The nigt was cool but very comfortable as the three of us just talked.

 

The group of would be bar crawlers had told us they planned to still go out so we didn't really think we'd see them again that night but our magnetism must have just drawn them to us because just before our pub closed the group showed up down below so we invited them up to join us.

 

Eventually we all decided to try out a 5-story club that was supposed to be popular, even on a Monday night. We walked over to the bridge where the club was locates and went on in, not to emerge until the sun came up; it was a great time inside! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently the wedding festivities aren't over after the first two days. We were gathered up by Andrews friend and father at 1pm and taken back to their house for the final meal and gathering of family. This wouldn't be as large or boisterous a crows but just some family and friends brought together to fight the headaches together and finish whatever food is still left.

 

When we arrived most people atthe house were just waking up so we sat down for some prosciutto and Turkish coffees. Everyone, including the newly married couple, was very interested in how we liked the wedding. We couldn't even begin to describe how much fun we had so we just smiled as big as possible and used the Croatian word we'd learned for very good.

 

After our brunch we headed upstairs to gather our laundry and just hang out for a bit before the dinner. We wanted to make it to Prague by the next day so we devised our plan to leave that night after dinner and drive/sleep through to Prague that night.

 

Dinner was the usual apetizers and then a steamed lamb dish, delicious as usual although we were beginning to reach our lamb limits.

 

About 8pm people started leaving so we said our goodbyes to people we'd had a lot of fun with over the last couple days. We packed our clothes into our car and returned to the house to say a proper goodbye to the father and mother of Andrews friend who had shown us hospitality beyond our wildest imagination, and it wasn't over yet. As we were kissing cheeks and embracing tightly, the father went in to the kitchen and returned with sealed packs o prosciutto, bags of bread, 6L of coke and a box of chocolates. He handed the items to us and told us to travel safe, take plenty of time to rest if needed and to call if we needed anything and at least when we made it to Prague; he genuinely cared about us and our safety after only knowing us for a couple days.

 

This experience of the wedding and all the activities around it has undoubtedly changed all of our perspectives and we all had witnessed what it is like to share true happiness with others without regard for money, status, race, nationality or language.

 

We departed the house and made our way back to our room to pack the last of our belongings. We said our goodbyes to the best man who had hosted us and we were on our way to Prague.

 

The drive to Prague was about 12 hours. We all took turns driving while the others slept. The sleep could have been better but we made it safely to Prague by about noon the next day. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had been told so much about what the day would be like but finally the wedding day had arrived and we'd get to experience a mostly traditional Croatian wedding first hand.

 

We woke up, showered and put on our wedding clothes; the dress is very informal for those not actually in the wedding party so we wore shorts and James even wore sandals, all of which were acceptable. About 11am we got a knock on our door an were told it was time to go to the grooms house.

 

We followed behind the best mans car and were actually appointed temporary guardians of the bouquet. Once we arrived at the grooms house we were amazed at the number of cars and people that were already gathered. We once again took our spots at a picnic table out back and were immediately served prosciotto, cheese, bread and sweets along with whatever beverage we desired.

 

It was not long before the back of the house was filled with family and close friends of the groom; and then the singing began. There was an accordian player along with a guitar player in the back and they struck up numerous tunes that everyone seemed to know, we asked if they were traditional wedding songs or just Croatian songs in general and were told they were a bit of both. The groom and his brother, Andrews friend, and the best man gathered around each other, joined by more and more family with each song, and sang their hearts out. It was an incredible site and very exciting; we definitely could feel the fun atmosphere already.

 

Eventually our appetizers were again taken, replaced this time by an incredible lamb liver soup which was eventually replaced by lamb itself. We did our best to pace ourselves because we knew it'd be a long day of eating and drinking.

 

Around 3pm, the entire party seemed to know when to leave without bein told, everyone proceeded to their cars and formed a convoy through the narrow streets all the way to the municipality where the bride and her family were. We initially thought we'd hav to drive all day so one of us would stay very sober but we were lucky and able to get rides from generous members of the grooms family. On the drive to the brides house our driver told us a bit about the traditional ceremonies that we'd take part in and some of the Americanized bits that'd been added, like the bouquet toss. Our driver also told us that it was tradition to negotiate with the brides family before shed be allowed out of the house once we arrived and that he was our sides chief negotiator.

 

Sure enough, once we arrived at the house our driver made his way to the negotiator of the brides side and settled on an acceptable price, this was all very much a formality we were told but it used to be a very important piece of the traditional wedding.

 

The band and groom went in to the house and soon the bride and groom, led by best man and maid of honor, came out of the house arm in arm to cheers and song.

 

For another couple hours afterwards we dined an drank and conversed with some of the younger guys on the grooms side. Th guys were awesome, teaching us some useful, and some more funny than useful, Croatian and they very much enjoyed as we struggled to repeat back the words. We think it's pretty safe to say we'd made friends!

 

Again, like all the party guests had internal alarms synced up, every made for the cars at the same time around 530. This time we were headed for the catholic church down the street. The lead car was waving a full size Croatian flag with an apple on top as we drove and honked our way through the town.

 

We milled around outside the church for a bit, enjoying the shade and breeze (an opportunity to dry some of the pit marks we'd developed thus far) before heading in for the ceremony. We had been incorrectly informed that the church would not be divided by groom side and bride side so we were startled when our driver came up and whispered that we were seated on the brides side and should probably move.

 

The ceremony was basically a traditional catholic church service with a wedding in the middle. The only people standing in front of the altar were the bride, groom, best man and maid of honor. The only ones to receive communion were the immediate families of both bride and groom.

 

There were two Catholics among us so, even though the mass was in Croatian, we were able to follow most of the prayers and knew when to stand, kneel and sit. At the conclusion of mass we filed out with most in attendance while the important people stayed inside for a couple more short cermeonies.

 

After finishing up the bride and groom exited and everyone went through a line to congratulate the newly married couple which was followed by picture time! We hung back, not wanting to force ourselves into the pictures but we were quickly spotted and enthusiastically asked to join the snapshot.

This enthusiasm and true hospitality shone through durin our entire visit. We were always made to feel at home and like we were family even durin this incredibly iMportant event for this family. We were never allowed to pay for anything, help clean nor help prepare anything; we were amazed and forever indebted to the family for their generosity and true kind an welcoming ways.

 

After photos were done we convoyed back to the grooms house for MORE food and drink and another unique tradition. When everyone was back at the house we witnessed the 4 main wedding participants each try to toss an apple over the house. He bride and maid of honor came up a bit short but HR guys both cleared the roof. Everyone clapped and it was time for singing again!

 

We remained at the house this time until about 730pm at which point we convoyed back to the brides town to a reception hall that was beautifully decorated for the occasion. The hall was packed with many more people than had attended the previous portions of the day, another reason we felt like we had been welcomed in to the family because only close family and friends had been part of the wedding this far. Also, we attempted to sit a one table but were quickly made, by the father of the groom, an incredible man, to sit at a table marked reserved for friends of the groom.

 

Obviously there was prosciotto, cheese and bread waiting for us at our table so we munched while others trickled in.

 

Unlike an American wedding reception, there were no toasts given.

 

The evening started with the meal and we conversed with some others around us who knew the groom very well. After the appetizers was a salad and then an incredible chicken soup which we all want the receipie for. After the soup we were treated to some traditional croatian dancing by a dance company. The dancers all dressed iN traditional attire and dazzled us with their dance. After they left the bride and groom took th floor for their first dance with confetti and bubbles falling all around them, they looked stunning.  The next dances were for everyone to join in on but we hung back for now.

 

After the first set of dancing we were served more lamb!  We had wanted to try the sheep eyeball so we asked our waiter for three sets. He just smiled and went to the kitchen. He returned with three full lamb skulls!  We all dug into some eyeball which was surprisingly tasty although we later learned there was a part we were supposed to remove before chowing down, oh well. Next we cracked open the skull and devoured the brains and tongue, also delicious. The Croatians at our table just laughed at us silly Americans but Andrews friend assured us that they ate the brain and tongue on occassion.

After this round of food we and a bit more liquid courage we found our dancing shoes and took to the floor. We started off doing some of the circle dancing in a large group of young guys and girls but eventually we decided to mix it up a bit and each grabbed a girl and did some swing dancing complete with spins and dips. We were told later that everyone was lauging at us but that it meant they were very happy we were having a great time.

The reception continued with the same basic structure, 30-40 minutes of dancing followed by a brief rest period durin which another course of food may be served. We continued to rush the dance floor when the music would pick up. Unfortunately, due to an event outside of our control we had to leave the party a bit early but early meant 4am. We had had an absolutely one of a kind cultural experience and loved every second.

 

When we got back to our room in the morning we sat up for a bit discussing how lucky we were that we'd been allowed to partake in this wedding and how all we wanted to do is repay the kindness in anyway possible. We figured that there wasn't much we could do or buy while in Europe so we settled on sending some representative gifts from our various cities once we returned to the states. 

 

 

 

 

 

We woke up and could only laugh at ourselves for falling asleep. We just chalked it up to a good night of recharging our batteries.

 

We packed up and checked out; at this point our packs were quite lite because we hadn't done laundry since Switzerland and so our dirty clothes bags in the car were bigger than any of the packs.

 

We decided to hit a beach in Trigor, an area known as Civo, because we heard it was very nice. This beach was a pebble beach like the majority of Croatian beaches. We arrived around noon but the place was jam packed already.

 

After parking and buying a couple necessities from a small shop on the road we wandered around to find an open spot. Eventually we found the best spot on the beach and jumped into the water. The water at this beach got deeper much quicker than the beach the day before and had much larger waves which made for some fun.

 

The view from this beach was also much more beautiful as we could clearly see a vast expanse of water with rolling hills of villages on either side.

 

After swimming we did a bit of sunbathing on the warm rocks as the salt water left salty deposits all over, even after a fresh water rinse.

 

Ted and Andrew found a bite to eat at a small restaurant on the boardwalk. The food was ridiculously good and reasonably priced for being one of only a few options at the beach. One of the other interesting options was corn on the cob which was being sold by men dressed in yellow shirts with blue hats and shorts walking around with bike horns.

 

Our stint at the beach was short lived because we were traveling to a small town in Herzegovina for a Croatian wedding the next day.

 

Google maps doesn't do driving directions in Herzegovina so we relied on signs to get us close and then some directions provided by Andrews former Grinnell teammate for the rest.  Along our route we enjoyed the rocky rolling hills that were everywhere.  We drove into Herzegovina, nearly blowing past border control.

 

Our first stop was in the town of Medugorjie to meet Andrews friend who would take us to our lodging location. After a bit of searching around for the specified meeting point we found Andrews friend waiting with two of his other former teammates who were in town for the wedding because they'd been traveling Europe as well. We followed Andrews friend to our fantastic room for our stay; it was 3 beds in a hotel owned by the grooms best man. We had a bathroom and a balcony on te third floor!

 

We dropped our stuff, cleaned up a bit and rode back with the friend to his house in the municipality of Cerin. The roads were unbelievably narrow with barely enough width for a single car yet they were two lane roads.

 

Upon arriving at the house, a beautiful 3 story house on a hill by a war memorial, we were greeted by numerous family members from the grooms side. There were picnic tables covered in food out back. We sat down to some prosciotto, meat rolls, breads, cheeses and sweets. As we began to munch we were told that these were just the appetizers so we should pace ourselves. We were also served house wine, homemade by the family from their vineyard (most people in this part of the country seemed to have their own small vineyards), house grappa, Croatian beer on tap and an assortment of non-alcoholic beverages.

 

After about 2 hours of munching and talking, we tried our best to communicate with family memebers but only a few spoke English well, the forwarnings were proved right; the appetizers were removed and replaced by a lamb liver soup which was then replaced by baked lamb which was subsequently replaced by fried lamb. We were all stuffed to the point of bursting by the time we were done; every time we ran out of something during our meal there was someone there to replenish the item. This would be an awesome feat if only for us but there were 6 or 7 fully packed tables of people getting the same service; the shear amount of homecooked food was incredible.

 

We asked a little bit about the next days agenda and were told to expect 15+ hours of drinking and eating with a small break near the beginning for a mass/wedding; we were psyched!

 

That night we went to see Andrews friend play futsal in the local tournament. All of the municipalities in the area have a team of players tht then compete against each other in a tournament. The court is unforgiving concrete and the competition is fierce.

 

Andrews friends team drew with the top place team but was overjoyed with the result as it meant they would advance to the next tournament stage.

After futsal was bedtime to rest up for what promised to be a looong day of fun. 

 

 

 

 

 

We slept, in the insanely hot dorm, until midday after our night out. When we finally got around to movin we figured we'd head down to a different part of the waterfront for lunch before hitting the beach.

 

We walked around the touristy part of the waterfront and stopped at an information booth to see if it'd be possible to go to Hvart for the night, we had heard this was the place to be for a proper party. Unfortunately it turned out that the ferry was 2 hours long and not really feasible for our plans the next day. Instead we planned to hit up Hemmingway or Vanilla as those were supposed to be the best clubs in Split.

 

We were craving some decent seafood as we were on the coast so we stopped into a nice looking restaurant. We got octopus salad, bruschetta, shrimp soup, small fish fry and a pasta with muscles; all was delicious!

 

After lunch we found an Internet cafe for an hour or so to check up on email and facebook but also to post a much overdue update to our site.

Finally it was beach time!  We went to one of the few sand beaches in Split. The beach and water were packed with sunbathers, swimmers and loads of people playing a handball type game that looked like fun. There was also a couple of guys who had brought there own poles to set up as goals in the water for a game of keeper wars.  Andrew and Ted lathered on the SPF 50 before we all hit the water. The salt water was refreshing and a lot of fun; the salt content almost made floating possible for Ted.

 

After a tasty crepe we headed back to hostel Dujam to shower and relax before a big night out. We stopped at a Konzum, corner grocery chain, to pick up supplies for the nights dinner (meat, cheese, bread and carrots).

 

After returning, showering and eating we all lounged around reading our various books. We planned to head out about midnight but by 11 we were all fast asleep without much hope of waking; our grand plan of another epic night in Split had turned out to be an epic fail. 

 

 

 

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Vienna

One of our travel ladies is an art lover who has a favorite painting
that happens to be housed in Vienna at the belvidere museum. The
painting is The Kiss by Gustav Klimpt. Because of this and our desire
to experience some culture beyond the finest beers of each country we
tagged along to the art museum. The art museum is actually two
seperate buildings seperated by gardens on a beautiful campus. The
lower smaller building housed the temporary exhibits and paintings.
The upper building housed Gustav's work including the Kiss and Judith
I. All of the artwork near Gustav's was brilliant and fun to look at.
There were some very funny busts housed in the permanent collection
that had ridiculous expressions. Some of the exhibits like the medevil
room didn't trip our triggers as much but the overall experience was a
good one and provided some material for debate about favorites.

Following our 4+ hours spent looming at art we found a grocery store
and got fixings for a picnic. We walked to Stadtpark and sat down for
some sandwiches and euro box wine.

After a lovely meal, ants and Mosquitos started to descend on us so we
got up and headed back towards the belvedere where there was an
outdoor movie showing. We went inside stephensdom and lit some candles
and then We walked along the shopping street stopping briefly to see a
musical performance and bad magic act. At the starbucks, James and
Andrew decided to walk futher and see other sites while Ted and the
ladies went straight to the movie.

James and Andrew had a heck of an adventure on their walk. They met a
couple from new York and stumbled upon a human rights concert where
Annie lennox was playing. The couple paid for the drinks and James
coversed about business. Meanwhile ted and the girls found the movie
and plopped down on the cement.

Eventually Andrew and James made their way to the movie and met up
with the others. The movie was English subtitled but no one really
paid attention long enough to really enjoy the film. Instead we all
enjoyed he stars and the reflection in the fountain of the museum on
the other side. The reflection seemed to go on for miles.

After the movie we all headed to some late night pubs but they were
basically empty. We still had a few beers before Andrew and Ted had a
bit of a tiff. Eventually all was ok and we retired back to the room
for the night.

 

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Monday at Tiber

The morning was rough but we got up and called romadrive, expecting directions on how to get our car. Unfortunately, there were more complications. The car was still in Tuscany for an unknown reason and the earliest we could have it was 4:30.

Again we were frustrated but couldn't do anything. We lounged at the pool again and discussed what to do once we got the car. We wanted to hit up Cinque Terre for a day before going to Switzerland.

Early in the afternoon we called romadrive again and were told the car was delayed til Tuesday!  We ran out of sim card minutes during this call and were not satisfied with their details, or lack thereof. We spent a couple more hours calling France, USA and Italy Renault numbers to try and figure the whole mess out. What we got was that our car was in traffic and Tuesday would be our day for sure; there went cinque Terre.

We decided to go see Toy Story 3 that night because we heard it was playing in English. It turned out to be a very funny movie and one that we would highly reccommend.

We went to bed that night with bags packed and fingers crossed!

 

 

 

 

Sunday at Tiber 2.0

We rested up a bit on Sunday, sleeping in and lounging by the pool. Sunday was the day of the world cup final so we made plans for watching the game in Rome at a bar reccommended by one of the workers at Tiber who'd accompany us as she was very nice.

While checking emails, Ted saw one from romadrive, renault's Rome partner, which said they'd received out message and our car would be ready on Monday!

Early afternoon we headed to town to find our bar. On the walk, Andrew stopped to pick up a replica spain jsersey, Ted and James were already in their orange. The bar was a gigantic place with seats for a couple hundred people. The seats were all empty but the problem was that they were all reserved!  Luckily for us, the man running around setting up decided to bring in 2 new tables with chairs just for us.

We knew our friends from high school, Rene and Marcus, were in Rome as well so we called them up and invited them to join us!  They arrived just before the match and filled up our two tables.

The final was a bit rough with very little flow as the Dutch fouled often and were shown numerous cards. A deserved red, boot to the sternum, was only shown a yellow and a non foul resulted in a defenders second yellow.

Finally, in overtime, iniesta found the net and his goal turned out to be the winner as Spain claimed their first ever cup title. We were a bit disappointed that the game wasn't as exciting as hoped for but more disappointed that we weren't in Spain like we'd planned.

After the game we headed to campo dei fiori and sat down for drinks at Sloppy Sams. We spent some time catching up with Rene and Marcus which was a lot of fun. As the night progressed we decided to join tables with an eclectic mix of people near us; there were Scottish and Irish among them, a young couple and a group of women. We had a riot of a time talking with these new friends.

At many points while outside sloppy SAMs we were hassled to buy items like roses or little trinkets but one occassion stood out. A man brought a mega phone, with recording capabilities, over and started showing off it's features. He put the thing in teds face as if to ask him to say something so he said Holla because Andrew was still in his Spain jersey. The holla was now recorded. Andrew offered €5 for it, thinking it would be far too low. Themam came back offering to sell for €25. Andrew put up five fingers, thean said 15, five fingers again, the man said 10, five fingers sent the man away this time. It wasn't long however before the man returned and said 7; Andrew said 6 and it was a deal!

Later on in the night Andrew managed to sell the mega phone to the scottish man at our table for €8. Then, on the way out of the square, he managed to buy a new one for €5!  Ted re-recorded Holla and it remains on it still!

It was too late for trains when we left Rome to return to tiber so we had to wait for the 3:06am bus. Eventually it came but we had to get off at the Mancini stop to catch the 24 bus. We got to Mancini a little after 330 and the next bus wasn't til 430 so we slept a bit on the concrete. By the time we got back to tiber the sun was on it's way up and we were exhausted, with a car to pick up in a few hours.

 

 

 

 

 

Flights to Rome

Our flight out to Cairo wasn't until 945pm so we hung around our hostel for most of the day; we all read our books and made some substantial progress!

We called a cab to take us back to the airport in the early afternoon. We still got to the airport before our check in opened so we got a bite to eat at one of the restaurants by the entrance.

Eventually our check in line opened, we went through security, waited a bit at our gate and boarded our plane out of South Africa.

We got a good hot dinner about an hour into our flight and then it was lights out, after Hachiko that is. We awoke for a hot breakfast before landing in Cairo.

We spent 4 hours in the airport this time before the long, arduous process of boarding an egyptair flight.

This fligt was quick but we still got a nice meal and a nap in.

We landed in Rome on July 10 at 1:25pm, we had left SA on July 9.

We picked up our checked baggage and raced to a phone, to call Renault and get our car. Upon figuring out how to properly dial the Renault number from a pay phone we were informed that our car was not even in Rome. Apparently the truck which was to deliver the car from France broke down in Tuscany. We were told it would be Monday before we could get it so we, irrationally, cancelled our booking all together.

Our hope was to find a different rental car and still make it to Spain for the final.

We rushed through the sweltering airport to the rental car desks to get quotes. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any car for less than €100 per day, way out of our price range.

We contemplated our options and, realizing Spain was not going to happen either way, decided that we'd wait til Monday for our Renault car.

We phones the Italian renault office and they weren't there to answer; they'd all gone home forthe weekend!

Now we were in a bit of a panic. We left a message saying we'd changed our minds an also emailed the American contact. Because it was a Friday we weren't sure exactly what would happen now. The only thing we could do was head back to Tiber camping in Rome and hang out for a few days.

We grabbed a shuttle to Termini, a subway to Flaminio, the Roma-Nord to Prima Porta and the Tiber shuttle to the hostel/campground.

Upon arrival back at Tiber we immediately saw there would be a sharpie party that night, our first Night in Rome was the toga party!  A sharpie party is when everyone wears a white t and has a sharpie to sign others shirts. We were put back in the same dorm as last time but this time around it was nearly full, we finally found beds in a room with a nice guy from New Zealand.

We immediatly jumped in the pool for the last 10 minutes it was open because we were so hot from the two days of travel.

We lamented our situation but set about to enjoy a nice meal while watching the 3rd place match.  After dinner it was party time!  We met a lot of new people and signed a lot of tshirts!

 

 

 

 

Final Full Day in SA

We had hoped to do some wine tasting just outside of Cape Town but slept too late on our last morning so we wernt able too. Instead we decided to take Andrew's friend's advice a d grab lunch at a township butchery that came highly reccommended.

This was also to be our final goodbyes with the British as we were leaving that afternoon. 6 of us piled in to our car and headed to the butchery: andrew's friend called ahead and placed our order so the meat was hot, fresh and ready to go once we arrived.

Some townships are not safe to go to but we were assured that this township was more than safe. This fact was solidified in our minds as we pulled up and there was a nice Chrysler 300 sitting out front and no one was messing with it.

As promised the meat, sausages, t-bones and chicken, was ready for us right away. We also were given 2 full loaves of white bread for our meal. The meat was in no short supply and was delicious!  We devoured everything. While we were eating we had a nice chat with the butchery owner who introduced us to others as well. We left full and very satisfied!

We had to say some emotional goodbyes to our two British friends when we dropped them off this time. Our times spent with them had been nothing short of amazing and we were sad to say goodbye to them. We hope to stay in contact with them and definitely see them at the next cup if not sooner!

We headed back to our room, packed up and headed for te airport. We flew from Cape Towm to Johannesburg for our last night in South Africa.

We had hoped we could stay with the same woman we'd stayed with our last time in Joburg but we found out that she had come down with a terrible flu and bronchitis so we were on our own for lodging.

The first hotel we tried, attched to the airport, wanted 2500 Rand for the night and we said absolutely not. Instead, we phoned a backpackers nearby and secured 3 beds for 450 total. We hunkered down, as jozi is much colder than cape town, and shut our eyes for the final time on this part of our adventure.

 

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Climbing Table Mtn and a Good Night

We got up early, grabbed the Brits and headed a few minutes down the N62 to Table Mountain, South Africa's highest peak and a true natural wonder of the world. Table Mountain is incredibly picturesque and seemingly rises up to provide Cape Town with protection.

There are cable cars that can ferry you up to the top but we are adventurous travelers so we elected to hike it! We were told it would take us about 1.5 hours to climb and were warned to be cautious of winds and cloud cover. We were a bit absent minded and neglected to bring our own water so we all had to pay the steep price at the base of the mountain.

We got some breakfast and headed down the road towards our pathway up. The walk to the path was marred by incredibly high and cold winds whipping at us, all not dressed warm enough. We finally made it to the beginnign of the path up the mountain and we started our ascent.

One of our Brithish pals didn't fare too well in the early going as he had a nice vomit but afterwards was no worse for the ware.

The path up is a winding, steep mess of boulders that create natural sort of stairs but many are very large steps and footing is less than ideal. The only safety precaution on the trail is a few lines of barbed wire fence. We snaked our way back and forth up and up, stopping every so often for some water and to take in the breathtaking views of the city and ocean below. The higher we climbed the better the view got. We made it to the summit in under 90 minutes and felt pretty good about our accomplishment as it wasn't the easiest of climbs.

Once at the top, like it's name suggests, the mountain is relatively flat but offers a couple nice trails. We hiked away from our transport down, the cable car, and to a part of the top that promised a 360 degree view. Once reaching the next view on our hike we played around a bit on the rocks situated there. We were like kids on a jungle gym, although if we weren't careful here we could have fallen a few meters onto jagged rocks. We took pictures and video and headed back to the cable car area. More beautiful but different views awaited us on the other side of the mountain.

There was a nice restaurant that we ate lunch at before buying a few souveniers a d heading back down.

We returned the Brits to their backpackers and we retired to our beds for a little nap before another night on the town.

The Germany v Spain semi was that night so we met the Brits at a Thai restaurant to dine and watch the game. The food was magnificient but the game disappointed a bit as there wanst much from either side. Spain won in the end but we were disappointed in the game overall; we had actually done some small wagering on goal scorers and first to be cautioned but no one won because a defender scored and there were no bookings. We all agreed that there was no doubt if given the choice before the semis of which we'd most like to go to, we all would have chosen the Spain game but after both were played, we were very happy with the exciting semi we got to witness first hand!

Our money from the wagering pot would have to go towards drinks for the night.

That night we went back to Zula, after drinking Cristal at a lame Cuban bar. We again played drinking games but this time we played one that the Brits taught us, called 21. We trapped a couple nice ladies in our fun before hitting the dance floor!

We partied the night away until they shoved us out the door at 4. Street carts provided us some sustanance in the way of boerwoers rolls before we hopped in a cab this time and headed home.

 

Retun to Top

 

 

Nederlands v Uruguay and drive to Cape Town

July 6 was the day of our final match, a semi between The Netherlands and Uruguay. We put on our oranje and drove to Cape Town, where the match would be played.

The drive wasn't too bad, only about 5 hours and some beautiful coutryside. Needless to say, after our great sleeps the day before none of us slept in the car on the way.

Andrew had made arrangements through a friend from Senegal to get us accomodation in a spare room for a great rate. What we didn't realize was that the house was located on a hill over looking Green Point stadium!  The view from the house was fantastic and just added to the excitement factor for the game.

We headed down the hill towards the Waterfront, the stadium is right on the Ocean, to meet up with our British friends once again as they'd been in Cape Town for a few days already. We grabbed a beer at the dubliner and some grub at a German restaurant called the Paulener. By game time we were set!

The walk from the restaurant to the stadium was only about a block. We had tickets but had to leave the Brita at the gate as they needed to scalp some. We entered the grounds and were shocked to see a Mcdonalds as the only structure within the gates apart from the stadium. We took pictures in front of the magnificent stadium, which almost looks like an alien space ship from the outside, before finding our seats. For this game we were in the lower bowl just behind the net first defended by the Uruguain team.

The game started and got off to a quick start with some hard challenges and good attacking soccer from the Dutch. Only 18 minutes in we witnessed, what we believe to be the goal of the tournament when Van Brockhurst ripped a shot from 25 yards out in to the upper 90; there was nothing the keeper could have done to save such a strike.

We found out shortly after the goal that our British friends had strategically waited until after kickoff to scalp tickets and managed to get category 1 tickets for only about $120 (they are face valued at $600). The cheeky bastards had gotten some of the best seats in the house for nearly nothing, well played mates!

The Dutch, as we'd seen before, decided to back off after going up a goal and it cost them in the 41st minute as Diego Forlan, one of the players of the tournament, found net with his own left footed blast. 1-1 at halftime.

The second half belonged to the Dutch as they scored twice more, both great goals as well although one may have been offsides. Uruguay managed to get a goal back in stoppage time but came up short in their comeback attempt.

Overall, the match was fantastic to see live!

We met up with the Brits again after the game and had to listen to them gush about their brilliant seats. We headed to Long street for a night out at Zula. Zula was a lot of fun as we played landmines on a small bar table for most of the night. We grabbed some late night curry before embarking on a trek back home on foot.  The walk was quite a distance but, unlike joburg, we were completely safe walking at night and the views were stunning as the stadium was still lit up from the game.

We went straight to bed as Table Mountain's peak awaited us in the morning.

 

Day after whiskey tour

The original plan was to do some ostrich riding and head to Cape Town on the 5th but, once again, plans change. Instead, we enjoyed a wonderful breakfast with our hosts and their brilliant young daughter. After breakfast we retrieved our car from it's parking space back at the marina. We stopped on our way back to George at a tyre yard to replace the spare tire we had blown on our drive to George. After that we returned to the backpackers we were staying at and proceeded to sleep off the previous night's activities. We all slept for 10+hours through the night, it was a good way to catch up on some sleep and prepare for our final few days in africa.

 

Bungee and whiskey tour (our 4th of July celebration)

After arriving in George, James hopped on the computer and did some research; we were planning on hitting up Knysna for the oyster festival and then Ootshorn for ostrich riding but needed directions and more information. While looking things up James discovered that we were a mere 1.5 hour drive from the world's largest commercially available bungy jump so that's where our day started!

We drove out to the Bloukrans bridge in Tsitsikamma to face some major fears. The Bloukrans Bridge is apparently the worlds third highest bridge at 216m high as it spans a gorge about 400m wide. On the way to Tsitsikamma we drove over a few bridges, that we eventually realized were tiny in comparison, and discussed how we felt about jumping from each. Most of the smaller bridges instilled a good amount of terror in us. Once we drove over the Bloukrans Bridge we were nearly in need of new trousers.

The bridge itself is quite beautiful as is the gorge over which it sits. There are sharp, trecherous looking rock faces lining the gorge on both sides, a river flowing through the bottom and exiting into the ocean on one side; a truly magnificent site to behold. However, the beauty quickly took a backseat to fear as we watched a few people take the plunge, their bodies but tiny specs as they plummeted towards certain death.

At registration they weigh each person and write down weight, jump number and jump time on your hand. The weight, we found out, is to determine which bungy cord you will be connected to.

After registering we sat around for a bit contemplating how we imagined the jump would go and our techniques for jumping in to the open air. We also asked a few of the workers about their jumping experiences; all the workers said they'd jumped countless number of times and the jump no longer was anything but routine. We also saw the official Guiness World Record certificate which certified the jump as the worlds highest.

Soon enough it was time for our walk to the center of the bridge; the jump platform sits directly below the main road above and is 216m from either wall of the gorge. Our guide, Elvis, briefly explained some of the important points we needed to be aware of for the jump and then led us on to the worlds scariest walk way/bridge.

The bridge which takes jumpers from safe, solid ground to the jump platform is supposedly a diamond contructed platform, with holes everywhere, supposedly for wind and rain to pass through with ease, with steel railways and a cargo net to enclose the walker. Honestly, however, it felt as though we were walking on a chAin link fence that was going to give way at any second. Also, the holes provided a terrifying view straight down 200+ meters. All of us thought this bridge was scary but none more than Ted perhaps as he is already deathly afraid of heights; in the 216m of walkway, Andrew and James built up about a 60 or 70 meter lead on Ted who walked at a snails pace behind. Ted said that he nearly gave up and turned around after only 3 steps onto the bouncy structure.

Finally we all made it safely to the cement platform under the road. There were techno beats blaring and a party atmosphere going; likely to try to pound the fear out of peoples heads and eliminate the sound of those screaming as they fall. We all nervously danced to the beats as we patiently awaited our turns. We watched others jump/fall technique on the TV provided and began to solidify our own plans.

James was up first and jumped like a champ! When he returned, just before Ted's jump, his eyes were a bit bloodshot but he was smiling and let us know how much of a rush it was. Ted was next and about to face his worst fear when the DJ started playing a techno song called game over, not exactly the lyric one wants to hear before a possible jump to death. Also, Elvis had Andrew tie Ted's leg restraints at first but thankfully redid the job himself before strapping him to the cord. Ted jumped and survived as well!  Andrew went last and seemingly ran back a couple steps as the guys counted down 5..4..3..2..1..BUNGY! He says he just stumbled but of Course James and Ted had to give him a hard time about maybe getting scared and backing out.

The jump itself consited of a 4-5 second freefall after which you are slingshotted back towards the bridge before another few freefalls. Once you stop bouncing a man is sent down to get you. The man puts you in a seated position before you are raised back up to the cement. While waiting upside down, it feels almost as if your feet are about to slip out of their harness so you want the man to hurry!

We had to walk across that same darn bridge to get back to the safety of the earth. As we exited we all agreed this was the scariest most adrenaline filled experience of our lives! Andrew remarked that the bridge walk and jump had just made him develop a fear of heights.

Andrew and Ted both bought the DVD of their fall as proof that they'd done it, and therefore wouldn't have to do it again!

After the terrifying jump, we drove to Knysna where there was a Whiskey and Jazz cruise waiting for us as part of the annual oyster festival. We sat down to a great seafood dinner before the cruise and enjoyed the scenery of the bay around us. It was a small bay with some small boats docked all around.

After dinner we got an early start on our Whiskey tasting as we sampled some of the offerings from The Wild Geese lineup. The man serving us also taught us how to taste whiskey, how to add proper water to open the flavours (never put Ice in whiskey!), how to look at the legs of a whiskey and a bit about how whiskey is made. The whiskey were excellent and just whet our pallats for the impending cruise.

We got on the boat and took stock of the different companies with stands, none of which we'd ever heard of. The woman in charge came around and gave us a piece of paper with 12 squares on it; we later learned that this was their way of covering their butts in terms of responsible drinking, no one was supposed to have more than 12 tastes. During our 3+ hours aboard the ship we learned a lot, made a lot of friends, had some delicious finger food and of course sampled some incredible whiskeys!  Bonnahaubin was among the best and the man serving it was wearing tradiional scottish kilt!

The plan was to hang out in the marina area for a few hours after the tour so that we would be completely sober before driving again but plans change; no we didn't drink and drive at all!  At the conclusion of the tour we were hanging out and talking with the organizer of the event and she invited us to join her and her extended family at the outdoor bar for some more whiskey and fun. Luckily she also offered to let us ride home with her and stay at her place so we jumped at the offer.

We had some great fun with everyone at the bar, all different ages from 10 to 60. We even sang the national anthem for everyone in attendance, it was Fourth of July after all, being in South Africa is no reason not to celebrate!  We found out that the women who'd invited us was involved in the music industry and had seen some amazing converts in her time.

After the fun at the bar we piled in to her car and her husband drove us to their beautiful home on a hill overlooking the marina we were just at. There we listened to numerous vinyl albums from their massive collection before retiring for the night.

What a July 4th in Africa!!

 

Ted played the roll of "Dad" per usual and woke everyone up at 6:40 so we could leave by 7am on our long journey southward to George where we will spend 2 nights; we will attend an oyster festival and do some ostrich riding.  We managed to get in the car and on the road on schedule.

 

Andrew took the driving duties first with James shotgun and Ted in the back.  Less than 2 hours in to the drive there was thump thump thump sound coming from the rear of the car; we had completely shredded our right rear tire.  Andrew pulled off the road so that we could attempt a change.  Thoughts entered our head of our trip being severly threatend because a spare tire would not get us the 1,000+km we had to go.  Fortune smiled on us a bit, however, as our Corolla happend to have a full size spare tire!  We jacked up the car, removed the lug nuts and tire, put on the new tire, replaced the lug nuts and hub cap and lowered the car back to the road.  The whole ordeal only lasted about 35 minutes and we were back on our way to George!

 

We stopped in a small town about 4 hours from George to grab some food and watch the Germany v Argentina game.  Germany blasted Argentina to our delight.

 

 

We arrived at Wit's Campus park and ride in time to catch the second half of the Netherlands v Brazil on TV in the pub basically located in the parking lot.  None of us really had a favorite in the game, just hoping for a good game and we were not disappointed as the Dutch overcame a 1-0 deficit to win 2-1. Near the end of the game we actually met a professional hockey player, from the Tampa Bay Lightning, who was traveling South Africa with his South African girlfriend.

 

After the early game was through we walked with our new acquaintences, talking about where we were from and our individual sporting experiences, to the buses that would take us to Soccer City.  We got our forearms stamped with the letters 'WITS', apparently so that we could remember where we had parked, and boarded the shuttle.

 

We drove within spitting distance of the beautiful stadium, illuminated against the dark sky, but we kept going and were not dropped off for a few more minutes.  It turned out that we had to walk about 3km in order to get to the stadium but the walk was worth it as we got the chance to take in the whole of the historic stadium.

 

We were a bit early so we grabbed some pepper steak pies and found our seats, 2nd deck behind the Uruguain keeper.

 

By the time the first whistle blew, the stadium was alive with the vuvuzelas and thousands of Ghanaian flags.  There were two distinct pockets of Uruguain supporters, each about 100 people, but the rest of the 84,000+ in attendance were clearly supporting the African side.

 

We were orginally a bit disappointed that we weren't lucky enough to be watching the Germany v Argentina or Netherlands v Brazil quarterfinal matchups but by the end of the match we were stunned and excited that we were at Soccer City on the night!  Ghana scored first on the stroke of halftime and the crowd roared even louder than previously.  Diego Forlan drew the sides level in the second half with a brilliant free kick over the wall and keeper.  The score was tied after all 90 minutes and also after 120, seemingly headed for penalties.  With about 20 seconds before the final whistle, Ghana had one last push that led to a great header which was heading in to the back of the net; Suarez had a different idea as he slapped the ball away, an obvious red card.  Gyan stepped to the spot with a clear chance to clinch Ghana's spot in the final 4.  His shot, however was struck far to hard and high as it clattered off the center of the crossbar.  The extra period expired and spot kicks were once again in the cards.

 

Despite the absence of Suarez in the penalty lineup, Uruguay managed to win the battle and the game, improbably sending Ghana home; a result that minutes before seemed near impossible.  Suarez raced out from the tunnel to celebrate with his teammates as Ghana and the fans were left stunned.

 

We had just witnessed an epic World Cup match and we realized it immediately.  James couldn't stop saying that he couldn't believe Gyan had "hit the crossbar" as we made the long walk back to the buses.

 

After collecting our car we headed to the house of a girl we had met at the opening concert.  We had kept in contact throughout the last couple weeks and she had graciously offered to host us for the night.  Before heading to bed our host took us for some chocolate banana milkshakes and burgers.  The food was incredibly good and left us satisfied for our 3 hours of sleep that night; we had a 7am date with a 13 hour drive!

 

 

The one request our host mother had of us was to do some gardening and raking for her so we woke up on Thursday and grabbed a rake and tools. We spent a couple hours picking weeds and collecting the leaves from the garden out front, placing our pickings in a compost heep out back.

 

We had hoped to make it to the beach in Durban for a swim as it is the only location with nice enough weather and warm enough water to make a beach trip fun.  Unfortunately, the day was a bit cool and overcast so we decided to hit the links instead.

 

Our hosts were nice enough to lend Andrew and Ted a couple sets of clubs but James, being different, has to be left handed and had to rent clubs.  When we arrived at the course and asked about rates we were told our attire was inappropriate as we were not in collared shirts.  We all brought collared shirts on the trip so we just popped back to the house to change and then it was tee time!  The course, Umhlali Country Club, was beautiful. Lucky for us there was a lack of brush and shrubbery near the bases of the trees so we didn't manage to lose as many golf balls as we did in Ireland.

 

Andrew was the first to hole a par; he made a nice up and down from the fairway on a par 3.  James' par was next, although unorthodox to say the least.  His tee shot went to the far side of the fareway, on the hole adjacent to ours.  His second was a good shot to within a few yards of the green; a decent chip and a long putt later and he had a par 4!  Ted was last to get a par but managed not to be left out of the fun.  Ted's par was not pretty, that is until the last shot.  A good drive, flubbed 2nd and 3rd that sailed the green with a 4th from behind a hill and a severe downsloping green.  Ted's 4th was beautiful, though, as he chipped it to the front of the green/top of the hill, the ball ran directly in to the hole!

 

In the end, we had to end our round short, after only 8 holes, due to darkness.  We teed off the 9th hole but managed to lose sight of all the tee shots, one of which we are pretty sure landed on the clubhouse roof with a loud ping.  When the scores were tallied James came out victorious by 2 shots over Ted.

 

 After golfing we decided to take in a local brewery tour.  The small microbrewery, Luyt Brewery, had two offerings, an Ale and a Lager, both of which were brewed on site and basically bottled by hand.  The beer was delecious and we learned that they had plans to increase their operations and output so that they could distribute beyond their current Durban distribution.  We had a nice chat with Johnny and another bar keep and headed to Nando's for some famous South African "fast food."

 

We returned to our hosts for a photo shoot and goodbyes as we would be leaving early in the morning for a return to Johannesburg for Ghana v Uruguay at Soccer City.

 

 

 

We had not yet been to a game park that was host to all of the big 5 (lion, rhino, elephant, water buffalo and leopard) so we were excited about our chances of possibly seeing all of them in a single trip.

 

Our shuttle left from Gateway shopping center, about 30 min away from our hosts, at 7am. We were a bit late as getting around and getting out the door is not exactly our strong point.

 

We had to make one stop, at a casino to pick up 11 Brazilian, before embarking on the 3 hour drive to the park. The bus' seats were far too comfortable to stay awake for long and soon the entire bus was snoozing.

 

Upon arrival at the park we exited our bus and climbed into open safari vehicles. Our tour guide, Jerome, took us on a beautiful route through the maze of roads in the 96,000 hectacre park. During our ride we managed to find numerous buffalo, tons of giraffes, some monkees, some nealla and impalla, a bull elephant, a few rhinos, half a lion and some zebras. We couldn't find any leopards but were told that this wasn't unusual at all during the hotter months so we weren't terribly disappointed.

 

Our tour included lunch at the Hilltop Camp which sat atop a large hill in the park and overlooked much of the 96,000 ha. Lunch took quite a while as service was a bit slow and the Brazilian seemingly all had special orders and complaints.

 

As we attempted to board the bus to leave the park the Brazilian contingent was no where to be found. They eventually trickeled on to the bus one by one. One of them even had a little verbal spat with the bus driver about when we were supposed to leave and about his satisfaction level.

 

Eventually we were able to exit the park but not before stopping and spotting a few more animals.

 

We all agreed that the trip was fantastic and that our guides, both in the bus and the park, were very knowledgable and good at their jobs. We had a great time durin our 12 hours and would just have to find the leopard another time.

 

We had visions of possibly going out for a bit that night but upon returning home we crashed and never left the couches.

 

 

 

Our British friends mentioned the huge aquarium/water park as something fun to do so we decided to check it out early Tuesday morning.

 

uShaka Marine World boasts itself as one of the five largest aquariums in the world and also has a dolphinquarium. We wandered around after entering, looking at different tanks full of exotic fish species. We were having fun watching worm like fish retreat into their holes as we waved our arms near the glass when one of the employees mentioned that the dolphin show was about to begin.

 

We b-lined it for the dolphin theatre and sat down for the show. The show was a bit odd, but fun at the same time. Along with the usual dolphin jumps and tricks, the show included a narrative about King Shaka and survivors of a ship wreck. Of course no entertainment during the world cup is complete without Waka Waka being played and these prrformers didn't disappoint.

 

After the dolphin show the seal show began. Ted came in a bit late after making final arrangements for the Hluhluwe tour for the next day. The seal show was set against a pirate ship background and centered around one pirate's search for the lost treasure of the golden frog!  Another fun family type animal show; we even got sprayed with water during this one.

 

Next, since we were already a bit damp from the seal show, we went to the water park next door. We had some fun going down the few different water slides they offered.  We horsed around on many of them, trying to stop so that all three of us would be in a pile up the whole way down, fighting for the front spot and first splash. They had a couple nice high, straight drop slides as well. Once when Andrew went down the biggest drop an hit the water, a girl in line exclaimed "that was a biggg splash!" however, Andrew an Ted concurred that James' splash was indeed the largest.

 

After the water park we met back up with our British counterparts for some bunny chow, a meal we were told not to miss out on! Bunny chow is basically a curry, lamb, chicken, beef or veggie, served in a hollowed out half loaf of bread!  Lucky for the five of us there was a bunny chow place a out 50 meters down the boardwalk from the waterpark. We feasted on the delicious delicacy and drank the south African version of chocolate milkshakes before piling in to the car to drop our friends off at the King Shaka airport for their flight to Port Elizabeth.

 

Next on our agenda was to check out a proper beach but it was overcast and cool so we just admired the Indian ocean and its waves from the pier.

We arrived back at our host house, cleaned up a bit an headed to a local pub to take in the Spain v Portugal game with one of our lovely hosts.

We had some food and drinks and watched Spain leave the pitch victorious as David Villa continued his goal scoring ways.

We headed to bed early that night as we had to be in town by 7am the next morning to catch our shuttle to Hluhluwe game reserve.

 

 

 

 

We didn't luck in to any matches in Durban but we really wanted to see a game inside te Moses Madhiba stadium as it always looked exquisite on TV.

Netherlands was playing Slovakia the day after we arrived in Durban so we decided to test our scalping skills and just head to the stadium.

 

Durban has perhaps the most well organized park and ride/walk system of any host city, it was certainly tops among the cities we have been to so far.

 

We arrived at the drop off zone for the stadium and when we looked up we realized we were starring down the road right in to the stadium itself. The stadium has a large open space on one side and this is what we saw about 800m straight ahead.

 

We walked up, in amaEment of the stadium's beauty and elegance, to an entrance but there were no apparent scalpers. We were 3+ hours early so we didn't fret. Instead we walked clear to the other side of te stadium where James managed to find a man selling 2 category 2 tickets. When James said we needed 3, he said he could help and immediately guided us to a young woman selling a ticket as well. After a quick negotiation, quick because they asked for category 3 money for cat 2 tickets, we went to stealth mode as we exchanged money for tickets away from security eyes.

 

We didn't know where the tickets would be but we knew they'd be decent as they were cat 2. It turned out that Ted's ticket was only 2 rows from field level, at the pk spot on the side of the field across from the players bench. The other two tickets were similar in location to our cat 3 tickets to previous matches but closer to the bottom of the upper deck.

 

The previous day we had been in contact with our British friends, the two guys we had met briefly in Johannesburg at our hostel, and found out that they'd be at the game in Durban as well. We made plans to meet them after the match!

 

The match was a lot of fun especially with the stacked Dutch line up. The game was also Arjen Robben's first match back from injury and he scored the first goal!! Snejder scored a second goal for the Netherlands putting the match out of reach for Skrtel and Slovakia. Slovakia did manage to score in the last second on a penalty kick but it meant little else other than Robben would not get credit for the match winner.

 

We all rendevouzed and met up with the Brits and made plans for the night. We all really wanted some Indian food because we had heard Durban has the largest population of Indians outside of India. We went to get our car and the Brits went bak to Banana Backpackers to shower.

 

The iPhone GPS died before we met back up so we weren't exactly sure where we were going. This led to a fantastic adventure driving around Durban looking for curry. We spent some time in bad places, at one point a man actually said to us "you boys are in the wrong part of town". We went too far on a highway and couldn't find our way back. Eventually we asked a police man where to find some and he gave us directions. His directions, however took us to a closed house of curries. Luckily we passed a sign for Indian food on the way to the house of curries and we went back to te sign. The Jewel of India it was called and it was delicious, although at that point in the night anything would have been tasty. James went for the hottest item on the menu and talked/sweated his way through the whole meal.

 

After finally filling up on our cuisine of choice, we dropped our British friends back off and headed home, exhausted.

 

 

AMMENDMENT:  We forgot to mention that, while talking to the Dutch supporters traveling doctor, we managed to brush elbows with Patrick Kluivert!

 

 

 

 

 

In the morning we got on the road very quickly and headed for Durban. We really wanted to get to Durban at some point but none of our tickets took us there so we decided that we'd go durin our longest break between games.

 

Andrew is still the only one of us who is fully capable on the manual transmission so he is doing all inner city driving and much of the long disstances as well.

 

Ted did volunteer to do some of the driving to Durban. He drove about 250km. He made it through the first toll just fine but managed to stall the car at the second toll plaza on his drive.

 

James napped for much of the drive!

 

We stopped just outside of Durban to take in some food and the England v Germany game. After a controversial No goal decsion and subsequent convincing Germany victory we got back in to the car to finish the journey.

 

Our host for our time in Durbam is another of James' relatives, this time distant relatives whom he had never before met. The hosts and house are beautiful!

 

We devoured some dinner and crashed in front of another 2nd round match, Argentina v Mexico.

 

We are so grateful for all of our hosts this far on our journey; they have all been so amazing and brave to open their homes and live to three strange men from America.

 

 

 

We awoke around 10, packed up our clothes that had been drying on the clothes line, and headed towards Rutenburg for the USA v Ghana second round match.

 

Rustenburg isn't terribly far from Centurion so we were able to make it to the city before the early match, between Uruguay and south Korea.

 

We hadn't yet secured lodging for te night so our first task was to search for a hotel, b&b, guest house or hostel. The first hotel we went to was fully booked and far out of our price range but they gave us a book of Rustenburg lodging complete with a nice map. We continued down the road to a nice looking bed and breakfast. It too was booked solid, however the manager was nice enough to offer to find us a place to stay while we went to eat.

The restaurant that was reccommended was delicious, the match was alright. As we left the restaurant, James took a shot in the dark and asked the motel next door if they had a room for the night. For a great price we were able to get a room with a two beds and a TV so we snapped it up!

We didn't even go to our room, just took the keys and got in to the traffic for Royal Bafokeng Stadium. While waiting in the gridlock, we watched numerous cars zoom past us on the gravel/dirt shoulder. We contemplated following those cars but decided against it in the end. The traffic actually didn't last too long and soon we were cruising at the posted speeds towards the park and ride (Phokeng East). A couple of times we thought perhaps we might be lost but we hve learned that when trying to find things around stadiums, it's always best practice to follow the world cup banners on the light poles; if the banners abruptly end then a turn is necessary. This strategy guided us perfectly to our park and ride destination.

 

This experience with Rustenburg park and rides was much better then the first time we were there. This time the buses were correctly and obviously labeled and there were gated and labeled queues for each park and ride.

 

As we approached the stadium, we immediately saw that the Video boards were working, unlike for USA v England. We got painted up and made for our seats. Our view was pretty much the same as our first trip to the stadium, just on the other side of the stadium.

 

There was a frenzy among the USA supporters, a sort of nervous excitement as we all hoped to avenge our loss from four years prior. The national anthem was belted out by all those in attendance wearing the red white and blue; it is an incredible and awesome experience to sing the song of your country with thousands of others!

 

The match began, unfortunately, much like the first two, with the opponent scoring an easy early goal. Gyan put us in a hole but the team seemed to respond well as they gained composure and confidence throughout the first half. The USA had a couple chances but failed to capitalize.

 

The second half was a very even battle, neither team dominated but it seemed like the US had the better of the opportunities. Unfortunately, they again failed to score in the run of play. Luckily, however, Ghana gifted us a penalty kick as Dempsey got tackeled from behind in the box. Donovan cooly drilled the spot kick off the post and in for the tieing goal!

 

We went crazy and had renewed hope of continuing on in the tournament.

 

The second half ended in a draw and so the match headed for another 30 and perhaps more penalties.

 

The Achilles heel all tournament was early goals and an early goal in the OT put the US out of the 2010 World Cup for good. It wasn't the best build up or most athletic goal but simply a hardworking half chance volley finished over Tim Howard.

 

On the day, and even the entire Cup, the USA just didn't finish their chances; they created plenty to have won all of the games they played but they didn't do the most important part of putting the biscuit in the basket and it cost them their tournament lives.

 

We were dejected and stunned as we exited the park to cheers of "go home U-S-A". We had promised a reporter from Italy/CNN that we would give an interview after the match so we called him and waited outside the stadium. Tancredi Palmeri is his name, we met him while laid over in Cairo. We were using the Internet and he was asking how to get the wireless network. We struck up a conversation after finding out about his job writing football articles.

 

Tancredi found us and took us a ways out and around the stadium to a make shift interview location with the stadium as the background. We answered a few questions on camera about how the game and tournament went from our perspectives and then we headed to the shuttles.

We got in the car and followed the banners in reverse to find our way back to our motel for the night. Our room was surpisingly nice but we really just needed a place to crash for the night so we washed our faces, watched an episode of Cane and passed out! 

 

 

 

Sun City

We had to leave by 7am on Friday to make it to Sun City for the bird show at 10am.  Our host drove as we all dozed in and out of sleep during the 2 hour drive.

Our host’s cousin is the head landscaper at Sun City so we were allowed in to tour the grounds.

Sun City is an absolutely massive resort near Pilansberg that has 3 separate hotels, cabanas and time shares situated among millions of plants and trees as well as South Africa’s premier golf course.

We walked around the grounds, learning from our impromptu guide about some of the feature of the resort including that there are dozens of baboons that freely roam the grounds, we did manage to see many of them!  Our walk ended at the animal park where we fed some of the animals, saw Meer cats, learned a bit and then it was time for the bird show.

When I say bird show, it wasn’t exactly a show but more of just a demonstration.  The trainers have to let some of the birds off their leashes to get exercise, flying, and to eat.  We saw an owl, a vulture and a falcon fly and eat!

We learned that the Ghanaian and English national teams were staying in the Palace, the largest and most expensive of the hotels on the grounds.  We actually saw one of the Ghanaian coaches out for a jog on our walk.

We were a bit hungry by this point and so we were going to try Nando’s, hilarious commercials on youtube if you want to laugh.  On our way we stopped by the aviary, walked across the rope bridge and saw a man who carries a paintball gun to shoot the baboons to stop them from entering the hotel rooms.

Nando’s was delicious!

Before leaving we visited some official FIFA artwork created specifically for this World Cup and stopped at the cultural village on the grounds but were not allowed inside.

We headed back to our host’s house in Centurion for what promised to be another delectable meal of cabbage and meatballs; I don’t know how we got so lucky to find such amazing hosts but both of our hosts on this trip have been nothing short of fantastic!

 

 

 

Predator Park and Carnivore

We had heard that the hands on portion of the predator park was best early in the day before the animals got hot and tired so, despite the late night before, we rolled out of bed before 8 and got ready for half a day in a wildlife game reserve.

We and the canadians packed 6 full grown men in a car meant for about 4.5 people; 2 in the front, 3 in back and Ted in the hatchback trunk. The park came highly reccommended and was quite close, just a 15 min drive.

You are allowed to drive your own vehicle trough the park and so that is what we did. We drove through the reserve on dust and rock roads in a car with 13 inch wheels and large weights in the back. The experience was unimaginable; we were mere feet from all sorts of wild animals such as lions, cheetahs, wild dogs, rhinos, tigers and other exotic species. It is tough to truly describe how you feel when the only thing seperating you from a animal with a giant horn is a piece of sheet metal and glass. The animals all looked relatively calm but we weren't confused, we fully realized that they are still wild animals and if provoked could turn ugly in a snap. Our drive was about 50 minutes and then we arrived at the play time!

The park has breeding programs an also takes in animals from other sources. Sometimes they acquire animals that are rejected and must be hand raised by humans in order to ensure survival. It is these animals that are then placed in a special area where visitors can, for about $4/animal, have some play time. These animals still have wild animal instincts so it is of utmost importance not to be timid or tease the animals. The animals they currently have available for this type of interaction are white lions of various young ages leas than 1 year, cheetahs and servals. They also have tigers (Siberian and Bengal) and a black leopard available for viewing, these animals were incredible to view, especially up close where you can really understand how massive the tigers are and how beautiful the print on the leopard is.

We all decided to have some play time with the white lions. Andrew and Ted played with the lions of age 6wks, 2months, 4 months and 7 months and James got in the pen with 2, 4 and 7 month olds. The lions were so cute, especially at the youngest age. We got to roll around, wrestle and literally play with the lions. They were all fun and exhibited many of the same tendencies such as biting our arms/legs and sucking on our fingers (yes we had our whole hands inside lions' mouths). The biting and playing obviously had varying amounts of force from very gentle to just able to pierce skin. We came away with holes in our clothing, scrapes, bruises, a bit of blood and huge smiles on our faces!  It was a blast to roll around with a real lion as it clawed and bit!

Upon exiting the park we read that they'd be feeding the true wild white lion tribe at 1 so we did a u-turn and tried to make our way back inside to witness this. Unfortunately we weren't able to because a car had caught fire inside the park and was eschewing giant plumes of dark noxious smoke in to the air.

We returned, instead, to our hostel for the japan v Netherlands game before heading to Carnivore, basically a Brazilian steakhouse set up bit with much more exotic meat selections; mmm meat!

 

We sat down at Carnivore and received our first skewer of meat just as Ghana v Australia kicked off; we did not put our flag down until the final whistle blew.  Well over 90 minutes worth of pure meat perfection.  We ate 10 differerent varieties in that time span (Chicken, Pork, Crocodile, Zebra, Beef, Impalla, Pork Ribs, Kudu, Lamb and Venison).  We left just enough room for a bit of dessert which was a choice between bread pudding, chocolate mousse and cheesecake, all of which were once again delicious.  We each had our own unique favorites but tops were crocodile, chicken and the lamb.

 

We headed back to the Thatchery afterwards for a nice nap in the sleeping bags before a fun Saturday night!

 

 

 

USA v Slovenia

We woke up a bit early to Mike's alarm, we found out that was the man's name above Ted. It wasn't a big deal as we all just rolled over for some more Z's.

We had booked a shuttle from the Thatchery to the USA game but Andrew started talking to Mike and found out that he too had a car and was going to the game; he was incredibly generous and offered us transport for just a beer when we arrived. We tried to get our shuttle money back to no avail but still decided to go with Mike as he offered more convienence and flexibility plus another opportunity to get to know someone.

We left Muldersdrift, the city where the Thatchery is located, around 11:30. Andrew was in charge of the GPS as we drove in to Joburg, not in the greatest neighborhoods, and towards the Wits campus park and ride facility near Ellis Park. We had to grease a palm as we didn't have a park and ride ticket but it wasn't too tough to get in. We stopped quickly at a little bar right by the park and ride for some food, beers and a shot of local whiskey.

On out way to the buses to the stadiums  we had our first bad experience with south Africans. The line for the buses was about 30 minutes long. After we had been in line for about 15, there was a group of 5 south Africans in their late Teena or early 20s that decided they didn't need to wait in line. Ted decided to approach them and ask them to go to the end of the queue and wait like everyone else; Ted was immediately backed up by a couple older south African gentleman in line, who were very upset that these people would represent their country so poorly, as well as Mike. The group refused to move despite all of te protests and a lackluster attempt by security to move them. The 3 guys in the offending group did some pushing and shoving and even accused Ted and mike of cutting in line, the very offense which they were commiting. In the end, cooler heads prevailed as Ted and mike turned their backs on the group and decided it wasn't worth throwing punches. The group did their best to stir the pot even more though as they blew their vuvuzelas purposefully in the ears of Ted and mike who had to bite their tongues and laugh to stop from reeling round with fists of furry. All other south Africans in line apologized profusely for their countrymen and assured us they were not representative of the country itself. We thanked them for their concern and we let them know that everyone else we hav met here has been incredibly welcoming, inquisitive and kind. Every country has their bad apples and we certainly won't judge the country or event based oN the actions of these immature individuals.

We eventually made it to Ellis Park about 30 minutes prior to kick. Our seats were fantastic; even with the pk spot, upper level about 20 rows up on the side defended by Tim Howard in the first half. The stadium was beautiful, much better than the Rustenburg stadium we were at for USa v England.  We spent the first few minutes at our seats gettin painted up!  Ted was the U, James the S and Andrew the A; everyone seems to love our face paint!

The US got off to another horrendous start as they left a Slovenian midfielder all alone about 22 yards from goal for an easy goal over the head of Tim Howard in the 13th minute. From there, the US still couldn't get much going until the 40th minute when a streaking Donavon was only just barely denied an easy tap in goal on the far post.

From a near equalizer to shock as the US quickly gave up a second goal right before halftime; by most accounts the Slovenian player was offside and the goal should have been disallowed. The whole team seemed to be lacking in motivation and desire in the first period, perhaps they were complacent as they thought Slovenia would be an easy match.  Unfortunately there are a lot of parallels between the USAs performance thus far in the world cup and their performance last year in the confederations cup where they rolled over in the first two games before deciding to play the football they are fully capable of for the remainder of the tournament.

The USA came out with passion and fire in the second half and quickly found the back of the net. It was donavon on a run down the right side as he beat his defender and made his way to the endline and towards te keeper. He probably should have crossed it from the angle he had but there were no dark shirts to target so he decided instead to rifle a shot over the Slovenian goalie.

After that goal the USA returned to looking a bit lax and lazy until late in the game. Eventually the USA found an equalizer as Donavan chipped a ball in to Altidore's head, Altidore flicked the ball in towards the corner of the six and Bradley won the foot race with the keeper to buldge the ol onion bank!

The US kept up the pressure after this and actually briefly went on top after a whipped in free kick was expertly finished. The center official blew his whistle and waved off the goal to silence the roar of elation that had filled the stadium. The call? No one in the stadium could figure it out; certainly not offsides and there was no foul that could be seen.

The final whistle blew and we were happy it wasn't a loss but couldn't figure out why it wasn't a win. Everyone we talked to that night and every replay suggested that the USA was simply robbed of a deserved victory as the only visible fouls were being committed by Slovenian defenders. We started calling the result a 3-2 draw.

We met back up with Mike outside the stadium and made our way back to his car. We collectively decided to head in to Sandton to catch the late game, England v Algeria, and to root for a draw.

We parked in Sandton city and wandered around Nelson Mandella Square for a bit looking for a fun looking place for te game. We were stopped numerous times for photo requests with the USA face paint  In the heart of the square we were stopped by an ESPN cameraman who was shooting footage to be played live in the states. We lined up in the correct order and started going wild. After the long shoot he let us watch as our faces were broadcast on ESPN!!

Eventually we found a great bar to watch the game at; it was located adjacent to the mall and had plenty of fellow American supporters who immediately welcomed us on the couches they had claimed. We drank, conversed and watched a fantastic result unfold; England 0 Algeria 0!  The USA just needs a victory in their final match to seal their advancement.

We made the long, 45+ minute drive back to our hostel. It had been an alright day as far as results go but we were still confused as to why we hadn't won; oh well, predator park tomorrow!

 

 

 

 

 Day 2 at Thatchery

It had been a while since we all worked out together but after a good long snooze in our sleeping bags, because it was frigid at night, we all go up and made use of the large green area outside our dorm. We were able to find a suitable tree for the gymnastics rings which made for some pre workout fun as well.

After lunch and the Honduras vs Chile game we made out way back to the casino. We were just in time for the Spain game. The casino has a great set up for watching matches with 4 giant screens and stadium seating in their parking garage.  We were shocked and actually happy to see Spain go down to Switzerland, one of the biggest upsets in recent world cup history!

After the big upset James and Ted sat down at the poker table again and Andrew made haste for the roulette. We played for a bit before the SA game against Uruguay at which point Ted and Andrew went to a sushi bar to relax and watch the game because the Casinos viewing area was overrun with vuvuzelas being blown inside. We love the spirit and pride that the horns bring with them, provided they are blown outdoors, inside they are terribly annoying and seem inappropriate. James remained at the tables during te game.

Unfortunately, Diego Forlan almost single handedly took the air out of the country with his two strikes. Afterwards it was back to the casino floor for the end of the night.

Of note is that black has been very kind to Teddy on the roulette wheel!

Transfering to The Thatchery

Unfortunately we had to bid farewell to our second host after only 2 nights. He drove us to our new hostel bit not before a stop off at one of south africa's most acclaimed tourist destinations, the SAB (south African brewers) brewery tour.

The tour was about 2.5 hours and at the en we got to sample 2 full beers from their vast selection of beers; they are partners with Miller/Coors in the USA. The tour was fun and informative. We learned all about how different beers are made and about the history of beer dating back to the Egyptians and early African societies.

Our host drove us to where we believes our hostel was located, based on the map provided by hostelbookers, but it turned out that that was not even close to it's true location. After making some calls we eventually found it but were very disappointed to find out bow far away from town it was.

The Thatchery is very nice though; it has two campuses, just across a gravel road from each other, lots of open green areas, fireplace in the lounge along with wifi and a computer. Our dorm is very similar to our set up at Tiber in Rome, small bunk beds with 10 ppl per dorm.  While trying to figure out what our plan for the night would be we found out that the hostel offered free shuttle service to a local casino, Silverstar. We jumped on that opportunity and headed over!  We grabbed dinner at the food court, the service couldn't have been any slower! And then hit the cAsino floor for some poker, James and Ted, and roulette for Andrew. By the time we returned to the hostel it was 3am and time for bed, we almost surely woke up our dormmates with our very early return but it had been a fun night; the guys that drove us back from he casino made us think we might be getting about to get robbed but the guys turned out to be really nice!

Cheetah Park

We took an hour drive to the Ann Van Dyk Cheetah Park in De Wilt, stopping along the way to view our host's exhibit in Pretoria. His photos are incredible and all of us have visions of possibly purchasing some after we get back to the states.

The cheetah park tour was amazing. Before we even started our tour we got to do something that not many people get to do; we got to literally pet a cheetah named Byron which acts as an ambassador cheetah for the park. The park tour consisted of a brief description of how they train Anatolian shepard dogs to help SA farmers keep cheetahs and other predators off their farms. Also we got to see and hear about honey badgers, ostriches, wild dogs, wild cats, brown hyenas, caracal and obviously cheetahs as well. In many instances we actually got to see the wild animals eat as the workers fed them. Some of the animals actually eat iams or eukanuba pet food specially formulated for the wild animals; other animals were fed gigantic horse steaks. As we drive through the wide open spaces of both the wild dog and cheetah areas, the animals would run circles around the moving vehicle making us almost breathless as it looked like we were going to run them over.

We all agreed the experience was fantastic as our tour guide was great and we got our first taste of true African wildlife.

We are absolutely planning on trying to hit up more animal parks and game reserves on our trip as we are in Africa for the world cup but also to try and see what the country and it's wildlife are actually like.

Day after USA game

To say the least, we were exhausted the morning after the USA game but we rallied and got up a bit early to say our proper goodbyes to our first hosts. We took pictures, signed the guestbook and headed out for Montecasino, where our next host would pick us up. Montecasino is a casino but also has a very nice bird/animal park. We toured the grounds and saw some of the most poisonous snakes known to man including the puff header and black mamba.

Montecasino is home to a fast food wrap place that most likely caused James to become the first victim of sickness on the trip. Andrew and Ted had the beef but James opted for the contaminated chicken, a poor choice in hindsight.

Our new host who lives in Centurion came and got us around 1 that afternoon and took us to his house. His house is beautiful and he has 3 cats and 2 dogs!  Our new host knew we'd be tired so he let us turn on the Slovenia Algeria game and zonk out for a few hours on the couch.

That night we sat around getting to know our new host, a freelance photographer, and he made us great dinner!  We were excited for our next day because we were heading to a cheetah park!

We have finally fully awoken after a loooong day yesterday which included the USA vs England game in Rustenburg.

We have been staying in Randburg, just outside the city of Sandton, which is quite a ways from Rustenburg.  Luckily we had found a man from Chicago, a 5 time World Cup spectator veteran, who had organized fan buses which would depart from downtown Sandton and take hundreds of USA fans to Rustenburg for the game.  The 6 buses were labeled 1776, 1812, 1950, 1994, 2010 (all obviously important years for the US) and "Short Bus"; the short bus was for those fans desiring a quieter experience/ride.  We decided to board the 1950 bus at 2pm.  The bus was basically just like an american coach bus but with 2 seats on one side and 3 on the other and had no bathroom (which makes for some funny stories).  We were told to anticipate a 3 hour trip to Rustenburg; the match kick off was set for 8:30pm.  Being the smart young men that we are, we loaded up on sandwich fixings and adult beverages for the ride.

As we drove we conversed with the others on the bus about everything under the sun and we watched the South African countryside as it passed by; perhaps it may be surprising to note but South African has many decent highways and road systems and so most of the drive was very pleasent.  That is until we got near to Rustenburg.  After about 90 minutes on the road, a couple of guys basically forced the bus drivers to pull over to the side because their bladders couldn't take it anymore.  This led to a mass exodus of the buses and a lineup of American jerseys alongside the fence.  We stopped again about 15 minutes later at a gas station for the sake of the woman aboard.  By this time we had reached the heavy stop and go traffic of buses, cars and minibuses.  By the time we arrived in the city limits of Rustenburg, the bladders were calling again and this time the bathroom was a small alley between two car dealerships.  By the time we arrived at the stadium's park and ride facility it was about 6:30 but the buzz was fantastic; american cheers were in full force and our posse of hundreds looked menacing!

We made our way via taxi to the stadium and proceeded to the gates!  We had brought some beers to finish before entering the stadium so we hung out on the foot path with others in the same position.  We high fived USA fans and jeered at the English.  After finishing our lubrication we busted out the face paint!  As you can see in the photo attached, most of the painting went well as Andrew did the U and the S but James and I didn't do so great on Andrew's face with the A (we plan to do the same colors and letters for the next matches so hopefully practice will make perfect).

Before taking finding our seats we hit up the water closet; the only reason this is noteworthy is because of the short exchange that James had there with an English fan.  The English fan remarked to James that Tim Howard was nothing but a second rate keeper and that the English squad had at least 2 goalies better than T How.  This was funny at the time as none of us could believe the statement but it turned out to be histerical after the events during the game.

We got to our seats about 45 minutes before kickoff.  We were sitting behind the goal, off the right post on the side that Tim Howard defended.  Our view was great and our seats were amongst a mostly American crowd with people willing to lead cheers throughout the games so we were never silent!

During the singing of the national anthem of the USA, there is magical sense of unity amongst all the countrymen in the stands and even imagining all those watching at home; it is something that you can't truly be understood or felt unless you are supporting your country live.

The game started and vuvuzelas blew, yes we have one too!  England basically blind sided us by scoring so quickly that we hardly knew what had happened.  Despite being shocked and now down a goal, our cheer leaders picked us up and we roared as loud as ever.  Dempsey/England's keeper drew the score level in the 40th minute and we hugged and kissed everyone around us; face paint got smeared everywhere!

I believe that the USA played pretty well throughout most of the first half, keeping posession very well.  However, England looked much more dangerous with the opportunities they had; the USA settled far too much for outside shots and was not nearly creative enough in the final third of the pitch.

Lucky for the US we have Tim Howard because he was the story of the match as well as the man of the match.  He kept the score at 1-1 numerous times despite an onslaught of English opportunites in the second half.  Altidore had perhaps the greatest chance to win the game of any player on the field but just barely missed.  His miss happened right in front of us and we could clearly see the ball pop up and him lose a bit of control just before getting to the six yard box which caused his shot to err.

In the end a 1-1 draw is an impressive result against the favoured English side.  It was great to note the completely different reactions after the game of the two teams.  England couldn't get to the locker room quick enough but the US lingered on the field and actually came over to our end of the field to thank us for our support.  All of us and the USA fans around us used what little voice they had left to let the boys know how much we appreciated their effort and how much we look forward to the next games.

Overall, the atmosphere was incredible although English flags dominated the second deck railings.  We made quite a few friends on the bus and in the stands around us, pointing each to our website and also gathering quite a few phone numbers to try and meet up for the next matches as well.

Just getting back to the bus was an adventure; we had to bully and shove our way in to a taxi with thousands of people fighting for the same ride.  Once back on the bus, we were again proven intelligent as we had enough food left for a great snack.  We enjoyed our turkey, ham, salami and cheese sandwiches as many complained that they were hungry.  It had already been a long day and by the time we departed it was 11:45 so we tried to get some sleep on the way home.  Thankfully we didn't make 3 stops on the way home but we did make one at the same gas station and those hungry people took nearly an hour to find and purchase their food.  This was a bit annoying and one particular man on the bus was very outspoken, until Andrew reminded him that he was nothing more than an idiot (different words may have been used).  We arrived in Sandton at 3:30 am, exhausted but we still had to find a taxi home.  The taxi was a bit more expensive than we would have liked but we were in no mood to haggle much at that point.  A day which had begun before noon on June 12 was finally at an end on June 13 at 4:30am as we were alseep before our heads hit the pillows.


Frustrations:

We had a few frustrations/comments on the game in Rustenburg.  First, the stadium only held about 40,000 and I believe they had about 3500 field level seats covered up so attendance was in the high 30 thousands, quite small for a World Cup game.  Second, there was no scoreboard whatsoever; I don't just mean no replay board, I mean no clock, no score, nothing!  Finally, the transportation back to the park and rides and other various travel facilities was horrendous; there were no markings for where certain taxis were going and so it was bascially a crap shoot for the 30+ thousand people trying to fight their ways in to buses not exactly sure where they would end up.

Also of note is that for the second World Cup in a row, the only beer allowed to be sold inside the stadiums is Budweiser.  I noticed it in Germany and was appalled knowing the rich cultural history of beer in Germany and once again here in South Africa, which has great beer of its own, Budweiser was the exclusive beer inside the stadium.

We certainly realize that this is South Africa and not the USA but we feel that FIFA and South Africa could have done a better job at least with the scoreboard and transportation issues.

We hope you are enjoying the World Cup games so far!!!

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Opening Game

We awoke before the sun on the day of the opening match; it wasn't excitement nor anyone moving about the house, it was the noise of the tournament that was filling the streets. The vuvuzelas were everywhere and the noise cloud was so loud it seemed as though the horns were right next to our ears.

We took our time getting around in the morning before walking to the taxi rank in randburg and hopping on a taxi to Sandton. The ride to Sandton had typically taken only about 15 or 20 minutes but on this historic day there was traffic everywhere, you might think traffic in a certain direction makes sense but this traffic was on every road in every direction, out trip to Sandton took almost 2 hours!

From downtown Sandton we had a 4-5km walk to the Innesfree Park fanfest. We had heard the park was packed by noon and it was already 2 so we weren't sure we'd be able to get in but we wanted to at least try. We joined the flood of thousands walking to the park. The park wAs pretty full but there was still room so we squeezes our way up toward the middle of the hill.

The fanfest was brilliantly set up with no real bad places to watch from and the screen was big enough and clear enough to pick up every moment. By the time the opening ceremony was over the park was filled with around 40,000 ppl, all going bezerk and getting excited for the first kick of the 2010 world cup.

The first half was brutal for Bafana Bafana as Mexico looked really good. The fans kept up the spirit but we could sense the excitement level could plummet if Mexico were to score first. We heard that no host nation had ever lost the opening match and we were scared this may be the first. Luckily the half ended in zeros. The second half was a totally different story with South Africa scoring first. The place erupted in hysteria, hugging, vuvuzelas even some joyous tears flowed. Bafana Bafana had done exactly what they needed to do. Unfortunately Mexico found an equalizer and SA missed a brilliant chance late but a tie wasn't as devastating as a loss would have been and so the country remained world cup crazed!

The fanfest emptied within minutes but we stuck around, grabbed some food and even won a vuvuzela from Coke for Teds awesome celebration dance. We watched the first half of France v Uruguay before it got too cold for us and we decided to treck it back to Sandton. We popped in to the mall to watch the end of a disappointing tie.

We returned to our host family's house a bit early to rest up for what promised to be a long but fun day on June 12 as we headed to and from Rustenburg for USA vs England.


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Thursday morning we slept in a bit before heading back to Sandton City and Nelson Mandela Square shopping centers; we took the minibus taxis to get there.  Everyone we've met continues to be so welcoming and nice, even in the cramped quarters of a 15 seater van.  We grabbed a bit to eat before attempting to locate the bus that'd be taking us to Soweto where the FIFA World Cup Kickoff Concert was being held at Orlando Stadium.  We were told that we should catch the metro bus to Westgate.  We walked outside the malls and found a sign with FIFA insignia that said "Metrobus to Westgate" so we figured we were at the right locale.  Half an hour past, no bus; an hour past, no bus.  We started to get worried as traffic was starting to build up and we weren't sure any bus would ever come.  We decided to converse with some others who looked like they might be waiting for the same bus.  Turns out that the bus system is terribly unreliable in terms of timing and so the fact that it was 2+ hours late was nothing to worry about.  After waiting for about 95 minutes, the bus finally showed up.

 

The ride from downtown Sandton to Soweto was an adventure in itself.  It was quite a long ride, about 75 minutes.  For the first 45 minutes, everything was calm, Andrew and James even managed to nap for a bit.  That all changed about half an hour outside Soweto; once we started getting close the chanting and vuvuzela blowing started in full force.  The passion of the people was once again evident.  Between songs we managed to secure help from a couple people who would make sure we didn't miss our stop.  They stayed true to their word and we thanked them as we exited the bus, a block away from Orlando Stadium.

 

Once inside Orlando Stadium we made our way to ground level general admission where our tickets put us.  We had opted for the cheapest tickets but from what we could tell there wasn't a bad ticket to be had.  We were about 2.5 hours early so we grabbed a few beers, only 15rand (about $2) per beer!, and started chatting with those around us.  We met a group guys and girls from the Sandton area that were quite great.  We also met a man who had brought his son to enjoy the concert.  This man had a unique passion and wisdom that drew us in and kept our attention without fail.  He offered to show us around anywhere in Sandton if we gave him a ring later on our journey; we also offered to stay in touch for when he visits the states next year as he will be in the Northern Cali area and will likely be making trips to Arizona and Portland where James and Ted are from.  The actual concert kicked off with Black Eyed Peas performing many of their famous song.  The next part of the concert was full of local acts that were familiar to South Africans but we were a bit lost, although the music was fantastic!  K'naan performed his Wavin Flag, John Legend did a duet before performing Green Light on the piano, Alicia Keys lit up the stage with her New York (African locales substituted after the first verse).  To round out the concert, Shakira made the crowd go wild!  She did a few songs before her official World Cup anthem of Waka Waka!  The conclusion was all of the artists on the stage singing Everyday People together!  We bolted from the stadium, not because we didn't enjoy it but to beat the traffic.  Our new friends had offered to give us a ride back in to town so that we didn't have to take the jammed buses!

 

 

 

 

Our second day in Rome consisted of touring the Colosseum and the Palantine Hills with our new friends Jason, Callum and Jerry.

 

We arrived at the Colosseum metro station and as soon as we walked out of the tunnel we were awe struck by the sheer size of the thing.  There were actors dressed up as Roman soldiers available for pictures, for a fee, but they were far from the portrait of what a Roman soldier should have looked like; they were portly, covered in tattoos and seemed more interested in texting then acting like a soldier.  The queue was incredibly long to get in to the Colosseum but we luckily  we stumbled upon a helpful tour guide that explained we could purchase a guided tour outside and skip the line all together.  The bonus was that our tour price also included entrance and a guided tour of the Palantine hills and Roman Forum.

 

We met our tour guide shortly after purchasing the tour and proceeded inside.  Unfortunately, we did not have the greatest tour guide for the Colosseum; her information seemed somewhat incomplete and she made some sort of gutteral sound between her tidbits.  The guided part of the tour only lasted about 45 minutes, after which we were free to explore for about 2 hours ahead of our next tour.

 

The Colosseum was a masterpiece of human creation and invention.  The ancient system of pulleys and counterweights used to hoist animals, gladiators and scenery from the hidden maze of cages and storage areas beneath the main stage was fascinating.  We discovered that there were around 12 different types of gladiators and they were designated based upon the weaponry which they were given for their particular battle.  We also learned that during the first 100 days after the Colosseum was originally opened, there were some 9,000+ wild animals slain.  Despite not being able to walk the steeply inclined steps up any further than the second level, we were still able to get a fantastic view of the structure and in one opening a great view of the city that is Rome.

 

Our tour guide for the Palantine Hills, David, was great.  Even though it was his last tour of the day, he combined a wacky sense of humor along with passion for Rome and the wisdom he was imparting.  We were taken from the inception of Rome to how the hill became the home of the emperors and then to see the ruins that remain of the different palaces built for each emperor.  At one point in the tour, David was explaining a bit about the original marble that still existed and that we were stepping on and then he noticed Ted's frog colored fivefinger shoes and instead of continuing his historical dialogue, he made everyone take note of the "coolest shoes he'd ever seen."  The tour concluded with an amazing view and explanation of the pieces of the Roman Forum including the residence of the 6 vestal virgins and sacred fire of Rome.  After the tour, David circled some suggestions on a map of places we should visit while in Rome; a couple of the suggestions were a great pizzeria, Montecarlo, and the "World's best coffee".  

 

As it was dinner time, we decided to check out these locales.  The pizzeria was fantastic and remarkably economical.  The coffee was enjoyed by Callum, Jerry and James.  They said it was good but there wasn't any exclamation of "amazing" or "best" especially when the bill came for their tiny espressos.

 

While trying to catch the last metro out to our hostel, we cruised quickly by the Spanish steps.

 

 

The next day we went for a complete guided tour of the Vatican and then to a church full of human bones displayed in designs.

 

As it was Saturday, the Vatican was PACKED, the line stretched around multiple blocks for entrance to the Vatican museum.  Lucky for us, David's tour company does Vatican tours as well so we had already booked our guided tour which once again meant skipping the queue.  There was still a bit of a wait as there were multitudes of guided tours as well but we made it in pretty easily.

 

The first stop on the tour was a complete explanation and illustration of what we would eventually see inside the Sistine Chapel because it is forbidden to speak loudly or take pictures once inside.  Our tour guide explained that one side of the walls was devoted to Moses' life, the other to Jesus'.  She explained the ceiling's depiction of creation as well as the giant wall depicting the forces of good and evil with Jesus and Mary as the central figures; all painted by Michelangelo.  From the pictures of the paintings we moved on to hallways of the museum in which we were left speechless by masterpiece sculptures, tapestries, maps and paintings.  One highlight was a design on the marble floor that included a blue stone which happens to be the most expensive stone behind only diamonds.  The ancient handmade maps have been studied for centuries and found to be nearly flawless in their representations of certain areas of Italy.  The tapestries depicted many scenes from history and the bible including the murder of Julius Ceaser by 23 people including his adopted son Brutus. 

 

Next was the Sistine Chapel itself.  Words cannot describe the utter beauty and brilliance that are the works of art on the walls of the Sistine Chapel.  We spent 15 minutes in near complete silence, some people couldn't help themselves and just had to talk and take photos, straining our necks upwards in an attempt to take in as much awesomeness as possible.  A week spent on  one's backside would not be able to do justice to the works.

 

After the Sistine Chapel we made our way out of the Vatican museum and into St. Peter's Basilica, this time for some better explanations of the items we saw during our first visit.  One startling fact that we were made aware of is that some 140+ of the 266 popes are entombed within the walls of St. Peter's.  Also, there are four women buried on the premises.  After leaving the basilica we saw were shown the areas where important events happen in the Vatican, including where the smoke comes out following a death of a pope, where a new pope introduces himself and where the current pope gives public addresses.  It would take a full month to actually see everything the Vatican has to offer and a lifetime to truly understand the importance and spirituality surrounding the area but we had just 3.5 hours.  The 6 of us were in awe for quite a while after leaving.

 

 

The next place we visited was another site recommended by our Palantine Hills tour guide, David; it was church full of designs made completely of human bones.  The vibe within the church was very eerie and spooky.  It makes me a bit uneasy now just to think about the bones from thousands of friars used to decorate the walls of a church.  Some of the friars were still fully intact skeletons dressed in brown robes with a white rope tied around their wastes.  The juxtaposition of seeing this immediately after the Vatican was not lost on any of us.

 

We arrived back at the hostel pretty early that night and decided to relax at the pool with everyone.  While by the pool we ended up meeting two lovely Australian girls who had just arrived from Florence.  We had planned on possibly going back to Rome for a night at the pubs but we got to talking with the girls and lost track of time.  In the end, Andrew and Teddy ran the 1.5 km to the nearest romanian grocery to pick up some beer for the evening and the 6 of us that had toured for the day + the 2 new ladies sat in one of the dorm rooms talking and having a great time.  We had dinner at the hostel restaurant and just hung out all night.  We actually met 2 australian guys as well that night, our posse had grown quite a bit in a 24 hour period.

 

Andrew had said he wanted to join me, Ted, for mass at St. Peter's the next morning but decided against it when the time came; instead, I went myself to town for mass.  Unfortunately, the pope was in Greece for the week and wasn't giving the mass but the traditional latin mass was still so moving.  The 15 minutes in the Sistine Chapel had easily been my favorite moment of the trip so far until I took holy communion in St. Peter's, which barring a true miracle will be nearly impossible to top.

 

The rest of the group had been sleeping and relaxing around the campsite until I returned after which everyone went to the pool, drank a few beers and continued to share their own unique stories.  That night everyone headed to Rome for some Chinese, which we had heard was incredible (yes we realized chinese in italy seemed a bit odd); it was alright but not as great as we had heard.  From their we attempted to continue our odd mix of nationalities by trying to find an Irish pub.  We ended up walking around Rome for 2+ hours in search of the pub, still having a blast, before finally finding it around 1am.  The pub was full of international travelers and it was actually karaoke night!  James, Ted and Callum sang "Only the Good Die Young" and joined another couple of guys on a shortened version of "American Pie".  It was probably a good thing that it was ridiculously loud because we probably weren't very good but we had a great time singing it.

 

Because the metro stops around midnight, we had to try and catch some buses around 4am when the pub closed.  The buses only run every hour at that time so we found a gelateria with hot paninis and sat down for fourth meal.  By the time we got back to Tiber the sun was up and it was nearly time for Ted, James and Andrew to head to the airport.  Goodbyes were emotional as we had actually become quite close to those we had traveled Rome with.  This was a great feeling because meeting and becoming friends with new people, is the paramount reason for this trip.

 

The next morning we boarded the trains and headed out for our flights to South Africa...World Cup here we come!!!

 

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On June 2 we made our way from Killarney to Dublin.  In Dublin we headed straight for the Guinness factory tour.  The self guided tour comprised of 6 floors of interactive exhibits culminating at Gravity Bar which has a 360 degree view of Dublin but also had a free pint waiting for those concluding the tour.  An interesting piece of trivia is that Arthur Guinness believed in his vision so much that when he first leased the land from the city, he signed a 9000 year lease.  We learned all about how Guinness first came about, how exactly it is made, how it is transported as well as the history of Guinness advertisements over the year (Guinness at one point had legitimate doctors prescibing Guinness as a sort of cure-all elixer, even prescribing it to pregnant women).

 

After the tour we wandered around the city for a while, stopping at Brazen Head, Dublin's oldest pub (established in 1198), for another pint and some traditional Irish pub fare.  As we left Brazen Head we were greeted by a handful of young Irish schoolboys who followed us for a bit asking questions about our travels.  The final question posed by the group of boys was a shock to all of us, "Is you all gay?"

 

James' cousin Chris put us up for the night and made us some great BBQ chicken, steaks and sausage.  After talking with him a bit about our next moves we decided it made much more economical sense to simply spend another night in Dublin and then hop a RyanAir flight directly to Rome.  We were able to sleep in a bit that night and continue our adjustment to the time difference.  After finally getting up and out into the city we wandered around a bit more, buying some Irish soccer, yes they too call it soccer, jerseys.  We bought some meat to cook for Chris and Harmon as a thanks for putting up with us for 2 nights.  We also continued our sporadic workouts with a run and workout on the beach, which was windy and chilly but still fun.

 

Our flight to Rome was scheduled to depart at 6:15am so we had to leave Chris' at 4:30am, a bit early.  The flight itself was an experience as RyanAir basically has general admission seating so the passengers line up very early at the gate in order to get first choice of the seats.  The landing was also fun as the pilot seemed to dive bomb straight to the runway and then slammed on the breaks.  It seemed that the pilot must be getting paid by how early the wheels touch down because they bragged about being 10 minutes early and that they have the most on time/early landings of all European airlines.  After deplaning we caught a bus and train to a hostel about 20 minutes outside of Rome called Tiber Hostel and Camping, we had looked it up the day before. On the way we met a couple guys also traveling about Europe for a bit, one was from England the other from Ireland.  The final train from Flaminio station out to Prima Porta was a bit dodgy in appearance but made it just fine. We were able to book a dorm for only 11 euro per person per night, a great deal.  Tiber even has a pool!  We, along with our two new companions, headed back to the city center after dropping our packs off in our room.  We walked to the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain and then St. Peter's Basilica.  Everyone agreed that St. Peter's was the most incredible building they had ever seen in person.  Not only was the main floor exquisite but we also were able to walk through the tombs of the Popes where many of the previous Popes are buried, including the most recently departed John Paul II.

 

We were going to tour a castle on our way back to the train station but the gods had a different plan for us as the sky opened up and rain poured down on us.  James guided us safely to a train station, but it turned out to be nearly a mile away so by the time we managed to step on the train there wasn't a dry spot on any of us.

 

The hostel was having a Toga party that night, with togas provided.  We had a great meal at the hostel's restaurant and then joined the party which had just begun.  We met a lot of international travels and had a great time, one highlight was a gigantic punch bowl of fresh sangria that they put 20 foot long straws in to and gave to those dawning the togas.

 

That brings us to this morning and what is already a beautiful sunny day.  We are headed back to Rome today with the Sistine Chapel and the Colosseum on our list of sights to visit.

 

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First Stop=Killarney! 

 

We have made it safely to Europe!  We flew in to Dublin this morning and hoped trains/buses to Killarney, Ireland where we met up with James' relatives.  We spent the rest of the day golfing on the Beaufort Golf Course, absolutely beautiful.  It was a bit wet and chilly but we managed to get a full 18 holes in with a tiny break for a homecooked meal of shepard's pie and garlic bread, delicious!  Ted was the big winner on the day firing a 106 but there were impressive shots made by all.  The course provided amazing views of Ireland's highest peak, Carrauntoohil.  Tomorrow we will head to Dublin for the day and tour the city; the major attraction on the schedule is a Guiness brewery tour.  Pictures and more news to follow in the coming days.

 

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The three adventurers have obtained tickets to the first ever FIFA World Cup Kick-Off Concert.  The line-up contains an eclectic mix of world-wide music sensations such as Shakira and Black-Eyes Peas and other local flavor such as the Mzansi Youth Choir and Tinariwen.  Read all about the concert and the line-up HERE!  The concert promises to be a once-in-a-lifetime event, taking place the day before the first match.  There will be billions watching live around the globe but Ted, Andrew and James will be there live!

 

Two of the concert performers have incredible songs that they have released for the World Cup.  See Shakira's 'Waka-Waka' HERE, the "official" 2010 anthem, and K'Naan's 'Wavin' Flag' HERE, the song many wish was the official anthem.  Andrew and Ted like both songs but definitely prefer K'Naan's, not sure about James' preferences at this point.

 

Just yesterday the boys booked official transportation from their base camp in Johannesburg to the US vs England game on June 12 in Rustenburg.  The trip is over 2 hours in duration but the guys will be spending it on buses organized by a former Northwestern soccer player and die-hard USA fan.  The buses will be full of other USA fans so it should be a fun and rowdy ride at least for Teddy and Andrew; James may have to hide his english mug so he doesn't get beat up too badly before the game.  You can see more details about the bus trip HERE!

 

Less than a month until the adventurers leave the country, they can hardly wait!!

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Andrew has officially solidified his plans for after the conclusion of his time in Europe.  Starting the first week of August, he will be returning the US and heading for Alaska!  He will be working on St. Paul Island in conjunction with University of Alaska Anchorage, the National Marine Mammal Laboratory, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  His project will be to help estimate the population growth of Northern fur seals using a capture and mark method for counting seal pups. Andrew can't wait as it's a great opportunity for him to further develop his knowledge  in animal behavior and wildlife studies as well as his field skills.

 

Unfortunately for Ted, this means that he will be all alone in Europe for a month, as James leaves for his new job and Andrew for his research.  Ted is a bit saddened that his best friends will be leaving earlier than expected but he plans to continue the adventure solo for the last few weeks.  His plan for his alone time corresponds, in part, to his new found life-style of CrossFit.  He will be traveling from city to city, country to country continuing to take in the sites and culture but he will also be dropping in to local boxes (the CrossFit term for a gym) to meet the local athletes and share in a workout.  Teddy is excited to meet others from around the world that share a passion for fitness and community but, again, disappointed his friends will not be there.

 

As the trip draws ever closer, the three adventurers continue to come up with other ways in which to keep friends, family and strangers up to date on their travels and experiences as they leave the country.  This quest has yielded a new twitter account with the screen name toSAandBeyond (be sure to bookmark the page www.twitter.com/toSAandBeyond).  It will be easier to use twitter to post quick trip updates for times between full site updates!

 

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