I am writing this in the King Shaka International Airport in Durban where I am about to trade the sea breezes and fine sandy beaches for Nelspruit, the gateway to Kruger Park, where I will attend the Cote d’Ivoire-North Korea game in hopes of seeing Didier Drogba and company bury the North Koreans in goals. […]
Landon Donovan’s extra time goal drove the United States into the next round in the most dramatic way possible. At the Fanzone in Durban the response among the Americans and their other supporters (the locals seemed fairly split between the US and Algeria — not surprising, all things considered) exploded with joy and the sort […]
Timing is everything in the World Cup. Try, if you can, to think back two weeks. If you had an only partially clear crystal ball and you had been told that South Africa would draw Mexico and defeat France you’d have believed that South Africa would rejoice. And that is exactly what happened. Yet as […]
So I have made my way to Durban, on KwaZulu-Natal’s Indian Ocean Coast and South Africa’s favorite summer holiday getaway. Just a few hours in and I already feel rejuvenated. For a host of reasons — weather, the isolation of my B+B, an inability or unwillingness to adjust to a normal sleep schedule, typical mid-trip […]
This was the least eventful day of the trip so far. I bundled up next to a space heater and under a heavy blanket to stave off the bitter highveld chill and watched World Cup games followed by the final day of a US Open that no one seemed to want to win. I did, […]
If last night in Melville represented what seemed to be an American annexation, Saturday night revealed the Africans taking back their rightful territory. Oh, sure, there was still a disproportionate number of tourists, but on a night when Cameroon played (and lost a game it had dominated) the vibe was rather different in those rollicking […]
I’ve been at a B&B in Joburg that did not have internet access, so forgive the retrospective posting: I stayed up all night to watch the Celtics fall ignominiously to the Lakers, and went straight to the airport. My planned car hire showed up 75 minutes late to Lanseria airport (which purports to be a […]
Cape Town has proven to be an interesting case study for the success of the World Cup in South Africa. Cape Town is, after all, the postcard image that South Africa sells to the world, a beautiful tableau wedged between Table Mountain and the sea. Cape Town and the Western Cape is a much easier […]
In note form because, well, I wrote it in note form: Out in Cape Town. Went to a place called “Mexican Shabeen Bar.” Big crowd, seems engaged. Huge Bafana fans. Drinking. Uruguay scores. Ugh. But Wow!: That was a blast. We keep holding them in the midfield. We keep getting called for fouls. Continue to […]
No folderol. No big celebrations. No nationalism. This is the South Africa I know. As many of you are aware, my biggest worry about this trip has always been being treated like a tourist, and thus being condescended to like a tourist. But today I just was able to hang out at my friend’s house […]
Today is a travel day. I am moving from the northern suburb of Sandton (my hosts at my B+B were fantastic — they even gave me a bottle of wine last night and we watched Germany’s blistering of Australia in their living room) to glorious Cape Town, where I will be staying with my good […]
Ghana 1-0 Serbia Now THAT’s what a World Cup game should be like. I got three hours of sleep after the US-England Rustenburg debacle, and I was up and on my way just a little more than five hours after arriving back to my guest house. But after a few issues with the company arranging […]
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