Helloo Meloo

Meet Melody my big sister. She's been serving at the Baha'i World Centre in Haifa, Israel which I mentioned in a previous post. She's been there since February 2008 and I haven't seen her since she came to visit us in Sydney over a year ago. Somehow I managed to talk her into coming to the World Cup with me and so she came for an adventurous 2 weeks.

Our adventure included 4 world cup matches together and here are some stories of stuff that happened.

Netherlands vs Denmark at Soccer City

So Melody's flight was delayed by a day so I went to this game with Fatimah. As this was one of the first games at Soccer City organisation was still a little all over the place, wait did I say a little IT WAS TERRIBLE!!!!! We we're stuck in traffic for 2.5 hours. And to make things even worse one of the police officers helping direct cars told us to go the wrong way, so we waiting in a queue of cars for an hour only to realise we had come the wrong way and we needed to turn back. Then when we finally got to some parking it took like 15minutes to walk to the stadium making me miss the first 25min of my game.

Never before have I been so frustrated, so utterly frustrated at this country. When we got into the stadium there were still tonnes of empty seats belonging to other frustrated ticket holders who were still trying to get into the stadium. Later we found out that people were stranded waiting for buses to take them to the game. Thankfully the South Africans are fast learners and it only took a few games before they pretty much perfected the system.

Ok so my first World Cup game, it was everything it should have been. Denmark scores an own goal and the Netherlands finish it off with one of their own. I had Category 1 seats right near the field with a central view. The stadium was a sea of orange and some of the Dutch costumes were really amazing.

On the outside Soccer City is cool but not that great but the inside is a whole other story. It is one helluva beautiful stadium. Sometimes I would forget to watch the game because I was so captivated by my surroundings.

So that was my first game, Melody arrived in time for the next game which was Argentina vs Korea also at Soccer City. We went in with a bunch of local Baha'is which was nice because you can't get around anywhere here without a car and we did not have a car. Thanks to the Europeans Johanessburg got really cold all of a sudden so even though this was a 1.30pm game it was freezing. Like OMG I can't feel my parts freezing. It was like Paris in Winter cold because I've been to Paris in Winter and at this game I was having strong memories of that trip. There was this lone American sitting next to us so we made friends with him.

The final score 4-1 to Argentina, at the time it was the highest number of goals scored in a game.

NEXT ....................................................................................................................................

AAAAAAUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAA

oooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

It's a song if you didn't know

Ok so by this stage we have a vehicle of transportation, a Toyata Avencis which we hired. We were going to utilise this vehicle to help us attain our predestined destination.

We were going to Rustenburg, about 2 hours north westish of J'burg. That was where Australia would be meeting Ghana and after our 'upset' and by upset I mean total annihilation by Germany we need to win.

Some dudes had come from Melbourne and Melody served with one of them in Haifa so we all met up and drove together. Our posse consisted of

CAR 1: Hendrick (driver) Nima and Sina

CAR 2: Me (driver) Melody and Hendricks girlfriend sorry I forgot her name

and we were off.. on the road again, I can't wait to be on the road again

Nima and Sina brought these solo lucky undies which us 4 Aussies put on and off we went. OMG Rustenburg is a whole, the stadium is in the middle of no where and its not even that nice. The Aussies really came out in force, Green and Gold everywhere. We dominated that stadium, it was like Australia day. You wouldn't know you were overseas, that's how many Australians there were.

Another game where the ref might as well have been wearing a Ghana jearsey, that's how bias it was and the crowd wasn't happy. Some of the Aus fans started throwing their plastic beer bottles onto the field. The guy next to me looked Greek or something, not even wearing any Aus colours, throws his bottle onto the field, nice old man infront of us tells him not to and this Greek guy tries to fight him. I mean really, are you soo pathetic that you would try to fight an old man who is supporting the same team as you just because he told you not to have a tanty and throw bottles. I told him off too but because I was a girl he didn't try and fight me.

Ok so Kewell gets sent off and Ghana score a penalty and its a draw. And that wasn't even the worst part.. it took an hour to get out of the stadium grounds, a whole hour like 60minutes. Then when we get back to our cars it takes another hour to get out of the parking. Thanks Rustenburg for the good times.

NEXT our first night game at soccer city and it's bummm bummm bummmmmmmmmmmmmmm BRASIL vs COTE'DVOIRE or whatever.. Ivory Coast. Now we really get to see the stadium shine, it is beautiful at night.

The game is great mostly because there's these 2 Brazilian guys sitting in front of us who keep standing up and flipping off the ref while yelling in Portuguese. Brilliant entertainers.

Being at a Brasil game is pretty cool, Kaka gets sent off and we see the fight he started.

Then it's time for Melody's last game; Australia vs Serbia all the way in Nelspruit. Thats like 4.5 hours drive away from J'burg and guess who's driving.. ME!! There and back again a drivers tale by Martha Gouniai.

So we drive there with Nima and Sina and 3 other peeps. We get to Greenway Woods which is going to be our home for the night and then we're sorry we don't have your booking. 1 hour of yelling and negotiating and paying a bribe and we have a room. Then we got to the stadium, now this is a nice stadium. Very pretty and it's filled with Aussies. Fifa manage to sit me and Melody amongst the only 10 Serbians in the place so we get up to try and find new seats as do Nima and Sina. We find some nice seats in Cat 1, great view. The game is brilliant.. there's nothing better than watching your team beat Serbia especially when the Serbs have already tried to fight you. We didn't make it out of the group but we beat Serbia so I was happy.

The next day we drive to Kruger which I don't recommend to anyone because it's gay. We saw some animals but no where near as many as I saw at Pilansburg.

Then Melody goes home and that's the end of that chapter...

Good Game!

In my time here I've visited 2 national parks (Safari thingys) one called Pilansburg Game Reserve in Rustenburg and the other is Kruger National Park in Nelspruit.

So this whole game reserve thing was a new thing for me.. the whole idea of game "that's good game" was something I also had to learn. Oh no you don't call animals here animals you call them game. Me and Melody now call everything game, cows on the side of the road "Good game there" a bird in a tree "Did you see that game?" watching the Parliamentary sessions "Great game!!"

Game is supposed to be reserved for wild animals but who said we can't bend the rules.

So game time. Here is the post that I originally wrote for my trip to Pilansburg.

Opportunity

If you allow life to flow on you will realise that nothing is circumstancial. We are always offered opporunities and it is only a matter of us being flexible enough to take advantage of every situation. Pablo, a dedicated Socceroos supporter from Sydney, invited me to go to Pilansburg with him, which is a nature reserve, so off we go on a 2 hourdrive to Pilansburg. On the way we see a coach being escorted by police.. it has to be a football team. We decide to follow it, when we lose the coach we pull into a service station so Pablo can buy a drink. I decide to use this opportunity to get money out of the atm so Pablo waits for me to get my money before going in the servo to get drinks.. as he stands at the counter a man approaches him, that man has extra tickets to the England friendly that afternoon against local Rustenburg team The Platinum Stars. NEW PLAN!! we are going to the game.

Now think, if we hadn't detoured to follow the bus, if we hadn't pulled into the service station, if I hadn't got money out first would we have met the man who gave us the tickets?

The game starts at 4pm, we head off to see England.

The atmosphere at the stadium is amazing. The locals have come out in force to support their team and they are really cheering. They have this dance and chant which starts in groups around the stadium, It is really amazing to watch. The Platinum Stars play a brilliant game although they go down 3-0. They were definately equal to England in many aspects.

After the game it's back to the original plan to get to Pilansburg. We initially had intended to do an eaerly morning tour the next day but since the rego booth is closed we leave it for the next day and decide to do a day drive on our own.

Opportunity again... We go into the park the next day at about 11am, we see so many animals.

After about 4 hours of driving we decide to pick a route to head home, as we take that route we see a few cars parked further down, usually this means there's something good to see so we pull up to them and ask what they are waiting for, the guide brushes us off and tells us to continue further down to see some elephants on the road.. Now we've seen so many elephants and the way is opposite to the route we wanted to take but we go with the flow and take it any way.

... RHINOS!!!! our first Rhinos of the day and they are right next to the road. Both me and Pablo are so glad we took the other path because we got to see these 2 amazing creatures. We continue on the road and see a safari car full of guys with blue shirts approaching. I think its park staff or something. We stop the car and tell them that there are 2 Rhinos just further down, they say thanks and we drive away from each other. Then Pablo stops the car, I look at him, he looks at me, the moment of realisation... THAT WAS A CAR FULL OF ENGLISH PLAYERS!!!

Are we groupies? What should we do?

My response "Pablo turn around, turn around!!!"

We turn around and pull up next to their car.. "Oh hai.. we just realised who you guys were, we watched you play yesterday, good luck in the tournament..."

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Next plan is to try and get photos.. their car goes ahead of us and I get some back of the head shots until

...

2 more cars full of England players turn up, we talk to another group. Pablo says good luck, I say unless you come across Asutralia then bad luck.. they laugh.

Did you read that??? They laughed at something I said.

All our cars were sitting bumper to bumper as we had stopped to watch some elephants.. I was surprised that all the boys were using their phones to take pictures instead of having actual cameras.

Pablo and I tried to figure out if there was a sign in us meeting England twice and we decided that it mean Aus will play England in the round of 16 which could happen if England tops their group and Aus comes 2nd...

THE NEXT DAY

We decide to do an early morning drive so we were out by 6.30am. There's an area on the map called Hippo loop but we've tried it twice and not seen anything, we decide to try some other areas. It's amazing the way things work out, Pablo suggests a route I would either accept it or find an alternate and vice versa. We end up at Makorwane Dam looking at something like 7 live hippos and 1 dead one.. That made the morning complete for me. Photos tell all.

Sorry guys

This country is a little behind in terms of internet access so it's been hard to get online.

Melody is here which is nice, we have been to 3 games together and I went to one other game before she came.
So far I've seen:

Netherlands vs Denmark
Argentina vs Korea
Aus vs Ghana
Brazil vs Ivory Coast

It's been great so far, we are staying with Sadaf who is an amazing host and buys lots of vegetarian food for melody.

Johanessburg has been colder than usual but it is starting to heat up again.

In terms of my service I have met with the ABM and we are pretty sure I'll be placed in the Eastern Cape so on a map you'll be looking at places like Port Elizabeth and stuff.

I will have my own internet soon and will catch up on all my blog posts from the last 2 weeks.

Next World Cup match is Aus vs Serbia.. hopefully we win :)

Socceroos

So as you know I'm here for service but I'm also here for the world cup so here are some shots of the Aus vs USA game and the Socceroos open training session. The first photo is of Fatimah, Pablo and me with our scarfs. The second shot is of Fatimah, her daughter Zahira and her husband Mohammad and the last shot is of our boys.

The open training session.. First off we have me taking a photo with the team, then the boys doing what was a pansy training session, then me and Ray Martin, H-dawgs Kewell and us Aus supporters behind the aussie bus filled with our boys.









I got signatures from Lucas Neil, Mark Schwazer and Harry Kewel and Lucas talked to me because he borrowed my texta.