It's been a while....

Sorry about the gap between updates this time, this is literally the first time I've sat down in front of a computer for an extended time for about a week. 

Where were we last time?  Oh yeah, Port Elizabeth, just about to watch our second game at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.  This time it was Ivory Coast v. Portugal, and while the atmosphere was electric, the football wasn't fantastic.  When Ronaldo hit the post from about 35 yards right in front of us we were ready for a corker, but it did get exciting towards the end when the Ivorians were pushing for a winner.  The place would have erupted had they scored a goal, it was a crazy atmosphere.  There were a lot of portugese supporters there but virtually all the neutrals were on the side of the Ivorians, and we were led by this amazing 100 person band of Ivorians who were essentially banging two sticks together to create music and atmospher at the match.  They were in perfect synch for the whole time and played for the entire 90 minutes, which was impressive.  We arrived back at the hostel and had a pretty early flight to Durban, so we called it an early one, even though Adam did his best to disturb the extremely ill German who appeared in our room. 

Our flight to Durban was perfect and we arrived at Banana's, one of our old haunts, around 11 am.  There we had a quick nap before taking a cab down to the casino with one of our new friends, Rob, from Manchester.  There we met up with his other mate, Rob, from Liverpool, and they're probably two of the craziest people we've ever met.  They made sure we got the drinks in before the Spain v. Switzerland game, and we walked over to the stadium around 3.  Spain are the better side but they were far too patient against the Swiss and lacked a cutting edge, and the Swiss got lucky and punished them on the counterattack for a 1-0 win.  The rest of that night is a bit of a blur but we went back to the hostel and Manc Rob ran the bar for a time while Paul had fun with the bartender. 

The next day we headed down to the beachfront when we woke up and had a few overs of beach cricket to get us warmed up for the day.  There were multiple children playing and Adam was quite chuffed when he removed a 12 year old for a duck.  Typical Australian.  My stunning average of 1 was only bettered by Paul's unbeaten knock of about 50, also against some children.  After meeting up with the Robs again we watched a few more games, and ended up in the casino later that night.  I lost 200 Rand, at which point I stopped, but Paul was 800 up at the Blackjack tables before blowing it all.  The Robs lost their share as well, and Adam was the only winner, putting 100 on Black at the roulette table (the best odds in the casino, according to Rob), and walking away having doubled his money.  Paul performed the great Dolphin Cup ritual when we got back to the hostel (more on the Dolphin Cup later) and Rob decided it would be a great time for a dip in the hotel's outdoor poor (it was about 40 degrees fahrenheit).

After we got up the next day, I was able to get in touch with my stepbrother, Drew, and after a few more overs of beach cricket, we met up with him and his four friends at the Durban fan's park, which is located directly on the beach.  There we watched a crap USA performance in the first half, going down two goals, but we were robbed of a result late in the match when the referee blew for a foul during our winning goal.  The place went mental when we scored, but it was not to be, and we got the 2-2 draw.  It looks like we may be in position to win the group after England's draw with Algeria and their troubles, so we'll have to see.  After that we chilled for a while at Drew's hostel (so much nicer than Banana's) and went back to watch the previously mentioned England game, which was terrible. 

After that we went our respective ways(see you in July guys), and had another pretty big night back at the hostel.  We were meant to pick up the car at 0730 and the Robs had a flight around 9, but nobody bothered to set an alarm so we didn't wake up until around 8:30.  The Robs were freaking out and we woke up to a chorus of "If we leave now we can make it there in 50 minutes" versus "It can't be done," and the Robs dutifully went back to bed.  We hauled ourselved out of bed and got the car by 11:30, driving what would eventually turn into about 8 hours to Bloemfontein.

Our bus for Rustenburg just got moved up to leave in about ten minutes, but more on our travels in Bloemfontein with the awesome guys at the University of the Free State tomorrow.  We're also having camera troubles, with Paul's getting filled with wine on our opening weekend, mine unable to take a picture that's not completely blurry, and Adam forgetting his camera cable entirely.  But we are taking plenty of pictures, trust us, and next week when we're in Grahamstown we may try to find a cable so we can upload some of what we've taken.