Netherlands Vs Japan – World Cup 2010

After not managing to procure any tickets for myself, I was beaming from ear to ear after my mom phoned me during my Saturday morning trip to the farmers market. I gulped down my falafel and headed home to get ready for the event. This involved digging through my cupboard for a very mank smelling orange shirt. A few squirts of deodorant later and Sharon and I were on our way to pick up my mom and sister.

A HUGE thank you to the Beaumonts who were kind enough to donate us the tickets.

World Cup Day started with a trip to the teddy bear shop…yes, you heard me. Apparently since we were in the area we had to stop off to pick up some bear patterns. I however spent the time bonding with the giant world cup bear on the doorstep.

From there we headed for Suncoast which I decided would be the best place to park. Due to some irritating road closures this was far more complicated than expected, and we spent 45 minutes winding back and forth in heavy traffic. At this point, even though we had 2 hours to kick off and were 35 meters from the stadium, my mom broke into a panic swearing that we would never make it. We did!

After lightening my pockets thanks to the R50 parking we headed for the stadium where we collected out tickets. By the time we entered the ground my lungs were burning – yes, I’d done some premature vuvuzela blowing. We bought some R30 Budweisers and took our seats. They were fantastic (the seats that is), situated on the halfway line about 10 rows back. BRILLIANT!

The first half was amazing, and I have to say, soccer is far more impressive live than it is on TV. At half time the score was 0-0 and I headed for the beer queue – this was to be my downfall. While Sharon queued for the toilet a cute Netherlandese girl joined the queue next to me. We started chatting and there was a bit of accidental flirting. Unbeknownst to me, Sharon could see the whole thing from her queue. EPIC FAIL!

Sadly I was still in the queue when the second half started, and therefore missed the only goal of the match, which was scored roughly 5 minutes into the second half as I was getting served (by Sharon and the beer maids).

After the soccer we headed back to Suncoast where we decided to sit out the rush by doing some strategic gambling. Sharon was kind enough to win me back my parking money, but sadly she didn’t do well enough to win me back my beer money. My mom also ended up winning while Kerry wasn’t so lucky.

Then it was off home since Kerry was meeting some mates. Sharon, my mom and I headed for the Keg where we had a great meal while watching the 8pm game.