AAAH WORLD CUP

The past two days in Amsterdam, the city was festooned in orange for “De Oranje”. Usually, bright colors help one distinguish the shady from the safe areas of a city; it was impossible to tell there, because everywhere was orange. It has been nice to blog about my personal growth and the lessons I have learned over the past couple of weeks, but it is impossible to avoid the World Cup and football now.

Fast forward. I’m on a wonderful mechanism; my train docked in some sort of crazy garage in Denmark. We had to walk up a flight of stairs. It was like a shopping mall, or an airport terminal. But, alas, to my complete confusion, we were still moving. This, my friends, was the legendary “train goes onto a ferry” journey. I was so happy. I sat on the sun deck for a good 20 minutes holding myself back so as to not get tossed overboard amongst gale-force winds and incredible ocean spray amongst the warm sun. More importantly, on this ferry with its shops I saw a newspaper. It read, in big white letters, 1-1. This is the AMAZING start of the World Cup for South Africa. I was so proud; it’s always a shame when countries that host huge tournaments do not get to share the competitive pride with the monster footballing countries; this, at least for the slightest moment, is so refreshing. Up to date, no European nations have played. UNFORTANATELY, TO THE HIGHEST DEGREE, I will be missing the England vs. USA game, the most anticipated match for America, by being in transit to Basel overnight. I pray that Deutsches Bahn trains acquire internet capabilities within the next 2 hours.

In any case, the hype is huge. I now have two football special magazines: one in German, one in Dutch. Both incredibly hard to comprehend, both with their obvious statements. What I did see quite often was the prediction that European teams were to fare amazingly well, in that the only teams not from the continent in the final eight were Argentina and Brazil. The hopes are extremely high here. However, I feel it is too early to be disappointed that no one is blabbering sentence by sentence about the World Cup 24/7. There’s still time.