Archive for June, 2010

We were lucky enough to get last minute tickets to this game in Rustenburg with USA taking on Ghana. We had seen Ghana play twice already and USA once, knowing both teams would provide an excellent match.  We were not disappointed.

Security was the tightest we had seen and we found out later former President Clinton and other stars were there. I am sure adding to the complexity.  We made it in just in time for the flags coming out and the anthems to be played after Carl’s skillful driving from Durban.  It was a long drive as we fought traffic out of Durban and then the last few kilometers.

The game itself was well played as everyone knows by now.  It was the fans that made it for us.  There ups and downs emotionally were apparent in sound and facial expressions.  Carl captured many fans around us at times of cheer and the same fans at times of frustration.  The entire collection is in the picture pool on Flickr.

www.flickr.com More in VVorldCup 2010 pool

The atmosphere after the game was a mixture of cheering for Ghana from both US fans and anyone in South Africa and appreciation to the US team from both US fans and anyone in South Africa.

We have more action and fan shots from the game in the pool and coming in another posting.

After some pictures and our written review of the World Cup 2010 game between Brazil and Portugal in Durban, we wanted to make sure the videos were posted as normal.  We had a delay as we immediately drove to Rustenburg for USA v Ghana and couldn’t find the required Internet bandwidth until now.

Intro Part 1 with Chris

Intro Part 2 with Carl (See Flyboytyler Flickr feed for references made, mainly this photo)

Outro with Andy

Captain America caught talking time off for a pee at halftime during the USA Ghana match.

We had the great pleasure of visiting Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban one more time.  Unfortunately, it was a waste of 96 minutes of our life watching Brazil and Portugal play. They were evenly matched and were not trying to get anyone hurt before they moved on to the final 16.

The rest of the time there was an incredible experience with over 61k in attendance.  The crowds were well split between the two teams showing excellent support for both.  At the end of the game we even saw fans changing shirts and jerseys from both sides.  A true showing of community.  This was the loudest game we have been to so far at any stadium.

Security was at it’s maximum with helicopter gun ships, crowd control SWAT teams in full gear and more officers than we have seen.  Yet there was not a single issue we saw until the large boo at the end from the disappointed fans.

We have a large amount of pictures uploaded to the Flickr group for this event.  Please head over to the Flickr VVorldcup photo group.

The stadium into videos will be up shortly (as uploading speed allows) for your review.  You can always check TheVVorldCip YouTube channel direct at any time.

Famous in Durban is the Bunny Chow – it’s a half loaf of bread hollowed out and filled with curried something (in our case lamb meatballs or chicken). It is also a requirement to make bunny ears when eating…. here we see our valiant adventurers chowing down….

This time Carl does our stadium intro as we get to see an awesome game with Japan winning.  The stadium itself was not as full as one would have hoped with the placement of a team in a bracket on the line.

But the Japan fans came out in full force.  Carl managed to capture some incredible game pictures as well as fan pictures.  The full set can be found in the VVorldCup photo pool on Flickr. Here are some of our favorites:

The drive itself was the same as last time, but lighter in traffic.  The smoke, however, was constant and almost burning to your throat at some points. They have begun making fire breaks in the land due to the dry winter. Fire breaks can be a wide swatch of land or all of the sides of the road for miles. we were able to see an entire mountain side on fire at one point during the drive making the road an entire fog. Now we get 5 hours of sleep and drive the opposite way to watch Brazil down in Durban play. But, we enjoy it so much.