My world-cup runneth over!

For the first time I understand why they call it football-fever.

During the recent holiday season we allowed ourselves to be overcome by the World-cup-buzz. We watched most of the games at home on TV, except on two occasions:

Italy vs Parguay: Austen & I, went to see the game together with an old friend from University. It was cold & rainy, but what a thrilling experience!

Then someone blessed us with two tickets for the semi-final:
Holland v Uruguay (see photo). Overnight Marina & I rediscovered our Dutch roots, as we borrowed orange clothing from everywhere & dressed up 4 the occasion. Fun, fun, fun! We sang 'Hup Holland Hup' with the Dutch ... and with some earplugs we could tolerate and contribute with some vuvuzela noise :-)

Fan-walk/ public transport:

Logistically speaking it could be a monstrous problem, if the public transportation is too far from the stadium. In Cape Town, the central train-station is 2.6 km (1,6 miles) away. Fortunately, somebody here in the Cape came up with the brilliant idea of a 'fan-walk' - and it worked! News spread fast that the fan-walk was the thing to do - wether or not you had tickets to the game. Adults, elderly, children, babies in strollers... it seemed that on game days everyone in the entire Cape, plus the foreign spectators did the 'pilgrimage'. On the day of the semi-final, Marina rounded up 3 other families & we hopped on the train with our kids to enjoy the celebrations. Cape Town has managed to convert a potential logistical nightmare into a festive carnival experience.

Before the World Cup, many people expected the World cup to be the biggest failure ever. Now, most of them are quiet, waiting for the next big thing to be pessimistic about, but for now the score is:

South Africa 1, Pessimists 0

Our students are back on campus. We are ready for some 'more-exciting-than-the-world-cup-action'! Let Thy Kingdom come @UWC & beyond!