USA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Before we get to anything else, gotta say GO USA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We pulled it out at the last second, won the group, finished ahead of England and avoided a tie with the Germans.  But most importantly, we will be at the USA-Ghana game on Saturday.  Pretty amazing stuff, its gonna be mental on Saturday, I fully expect a ton of Americans to be there, gonna be a great atmosphere.

So we traveled up from Durban to Bloemfontein a few days ago, and that was an adventure in and of itself, considering that I was the primary driver and I hadn't driven a stick shift for four years and had never driven on the left side of the road.  I thought Adam and Paul were going to have heart attacks as we pulled out of the rental car place and then got lost, but we eventually righted ourselves and our mighty chariot, the Chevrolet Spark.  Traffic on the highways in South Africa is a bit hectic anyway but going uphill while watching the spark slowly lose speed despite the fact that the pedal was on the floor was frightening.  The trip took longer than expected, and we ended up making quite a sketchy stop in Senekal, where Adam and Paul were eyed up by some suspicious characters while attempting to use a payphone.  We legged it out of Senekal and ended up at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein.

We stayed in J.B.M. Herzog house at the university and were there with around 10 other students who were staying in that residence during the mid-year break.  They treated us to a great time and cooked us a Braai, and despite the best efforts of a hand grenade, we survived the night.  The next day we drove down to the Free State Stadium for Paraguay-Slovakia, which was actually quite a treat.  We parked within 5 blocks of the stadium and walked to the stadium for the game.  Paraguay look a really good side and we expect them to go far in this tournament.  They're probably the best team we've seen in live action so far, totally solid at the back with a mean streak going forward, they took the game 2-0.

We had a bit of a quiet night on Sunday, with a visit to Spur on the agenda (they don't do Tequila Thursday anywhere outside of Grahamstown).  The next day was our drive up to JoBurg, which was pretty nice...until we got to JoBurg.  African traffic is a bit dodgy by any other standards, but when you get into urban Joburg, everything goes out the window.  It's almost as if everyone is late for some extremely important event and at the same time has no regard for traffic laws.  Luckily our hired car made it to the drop off point without a scratch, and we made it to Brown Sugar backpackers, which is a pretty legit place.  It's entirely self-contained, even sporting its own ATM, something I've never seen before, and they serve amazing dinners. 

Yesterday we watched the USA game, which was an amazing affair, and everyone went mental when we pulled it out at the last second.  From there Adam and I made the trek to Soccer City, and by the time we got back we had taken 1 shuttle, 1 taxi, and 2 bus rides.  Going to Soccer City is a lot like going to Rustenburg: you have to plan the whole day around it.  Australia and Serbia were playing at the same time so we needed a Ghana win and an Australian win to guarantee a USA-Australia matchup, a game we knew we would have tickets for.  Ghana pressed for a goal but once Oezil scored for Germany and the Ghanaians knew the score of the Serbia game they set up camp in front of goal and were happy to take the 1-0 loss.  The stadium itself was quite impressive, and a near-capacity crowd of 83,000 ensured a good atmosphere.  Ghana is now the only African team left in the tournament, so I fully expect a lot of avid supporters of Ghana and the USA in Rustenburg.

Today we're leaving Brown Sugars to go to the garden flat and we'll probably do some tourist type stuff tomorrow, which may include Bunjee jumping.  So we'll check back in after the USA-Ghana game.  Until then, go USA!!!