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...