Gap Year Experiences

It's here..our world cup trip kicks off!

Thursday 10 June 2010

So we have arrived in the absolutely electric Johannesburg in time for Africa’s first ever World Cup. The atmosphere and excitement here is just unbelievable and is definitely setting the scene for an obscenely good few weeks of soccer.

We were quite lucky to be at the airport on Wednesday for the national Vuvuzela moment. At twelve o’clock everyone stopped what they were doing and went ballistic on their by blowing their Vuvuzela’s pretty much for the rest for the afternoon. Vuvuzela’s are the iconic South African trait for this world cup. It’s basically a long horn which makes an obscene amount of noise, if you watch any of the games you will know straight away what I am talking about.

Today was spent just soaking up the atmosphere. Johannesburg is packed with supporters from all over the world, everywhere you drive, walk or look there are flags flying, TV crews, team shirts and Vuvuzela’s blowing away. Our day started off on an amazingly exciting note as we all headed down to collect our tickets for the games. After that it really became real! We then headed to Nelson Mandela Square to collect the last minute essentials – hats, flags, shirts, soccer sunglasses and some extra Vuvuzela’s! Mark and Nick are adamant on trying to get in as many TV interviews as possible as this proved pretty successful in Nelson Mandela Square as they got filmed for a two on two game against a couple of crazy Mexican supporters. With a crowd around them cheering them on, they were pretty devastated when they lost – not a promising start for England. We then headed into the manic traffic around Sandton to make our way down towards Soccer City in Soweto. Pretty perfect time on our behalf as the Bafana Bafana bus drove right next to us and we got our first glimpse of the national players on their way to final training session. Luckily it wasn’t the England bus as I fear Nick might have exploded with excitement.

Soccer city is just unbelievable! There was still some last minute preparation going on and Bafana was having the last training session inside so we couldn’t get too close but we did manage a quick game of Hackey and caught the attention of another film crew. We wondered around the area and like to think we were pretty close to blagging our way to getting media passes, but to honest it was awesome just to check out the scene for what is going o be an incredible opening tomorrow.

So all in all was a pretty awesome build up day for us and we absolutely cannot wait for 2 o’clock Friday afternoon! Its going to be utter madness and I have a pretty good feeling deep down in my bones that SA are going to make the country proud in the opening game against Mexico! It’s then off to Rustenburg on Saturday for England’s first game against USA. What an amazing weekend ahead!

Hope wherever you are that you turn on your telly and see South Africa come to life!!!

Till next time,

Pip.

Pip and Doug preparing

Vuvuzela moment at the airport

Nick and Mark take on the Mexicans

Soccer City Joburg!