Paella, please

I am, truly, the luckiest girl in the world. My friend D's husband phoned me on Monday to tell me he had got me tickets to the match last night. At my favourite stadium, there near the sea, below the mountain. Between Spain and Portugal (the match, not the stadium obviously.) To say I was a little excited would be a gross underestimation. Very excited? Still doesn't do it. Absobloodylutely ecstatically over the moon? That's a bit more like it.

Honestly, had you told me two months ago that I would be a football fanatic, I would've fallen about laughing, but having it here, in our backyard and seeing the fans, playing host, watching how people are loving being here, well.. I'm hooked. For now. Fear not, this will not be turning into a sports blog.

So, last night, we bundled up warmly, packed blankets, scarves and beanies, and headed toward the gorgeous stadium. The weather had been ridiculously miserable all day with cold wind blowing pelting rain in sheets, it didn't bode well for a comfortable match-watching experience but, hell, what's a bit of rain when seeing pretty Portuguese boys play stunning football with even prettier Spanish boys?

We needn't have worried though, The City Beneath the Mountain had obviously whispered into The Weatherman"s ear and explained we have guests and need to be hospitable because between them they cleared the weather up and The City put on her Sunday Best. At one point in the second half, she sent up the almost-full moon above the curve of the stadium roof - an African sky to be proud of.

And can those boys (with their cute little tushies) play soccer? Wow. I was amazed. Mainly, though, I watched the people and felt the incredible feeling of, um, I think the only thing you can call it is Humanity. 64 000 people crammed together, yelling and screaming and blowing vuvuzelas and a conglomeration of passion and, above everything else, a plethora of smiles. From everybody, to everybody.

Again, I am so proud - I watched real Spaniards and real Portuguese fans mingle with South Africans. South Africans dressed in Spanish/Portuguese clothes, faces painted, they were as passionate as the people from Spain and Portugal. Yet another testament to how we're embracing this World Cup.

And now our hearts and souls are with Ghana on Friday - our very own African team! Shall I stop gushing now?

So proud

G and I went to one of The City Beneath the Mountain’s big tourist spots last night. It’s a shopping mall, but redeems itself by being strategically placed in the harbour, with wheeling sea gulls above, our beautiful sea beside, and our ever-present mountain, over there.

It’s a place I go to relatively often, mainly to do some shopping (of the boring shampoo and calcium pills variety) and to have a little dinner in a pretty spot by the sea. This time I was there to upgrade my phone, a task that, while I realise some people get all excited about, I don’t. A pimply youth getting excitable about the wonders of Phone A (“It can take pictures from two kilometres away!”) versus Phone B (“With a press of a button you can send your whereabouts to your three hundred closest friends!”) holds no attraction to me whatsoever. That’s another post though.

I expected it to be a bit fuller, what with us playing host to a couple thousands of foreign visitors for the World Cup. I misjudged the size of this thing. It was crammed full of tourists. Fabulously so. All dressed up in country colours, swarthed (is that the right word?) in their flags, vuvuzelas parping left, right, and centre. We chose to have dinner at one of my favourite spots – an ‘English-type’ pub, where we sat outside, next to a table of Poms. Note, this was post the England/Slovenia match.

They were all dressed in English soccer kits, faces painted, flags aflutter (one woman even had one of those alice bands with two tiny flags flapping about above her head.) They kept bursting into song and hugging. Then two Americans ambled in, one in a fabulous HUGE American-Indian headdress. They were met with cries of joy, and more hugging. It was great.

Then there was the large Argentinian man, with a group of lovely other Argentinian people. He was dressed in a (large) green and yellow top with “Boks” written across the front. Bless.

But my best? In the parking garage, I saw three good-looking Portoguese boys, with their Portugal tops on, ambling into the entrance, past one of the cleaning staff men who was wheeling a bin somewhere. He looked at them, smiled hugely, and said enthusiastically: “Obrigado!”, in his beautiful Xhosa accent.

The world is not wrong if they think us South Africans are hospitable, are they?

World Cup Opening and weekend fun

I have too many things to write about and I don’t know where to start. My mind is full of thoughts and confusions and big things and I’m feeling a little unsettled, but I think I’ll stick to telling you about my weekend, which was full-to-overflowing!

Friday. Well, if there’s one way to pull a country together into frenzied excitement that could electrify an entire nation for a month – throw a World Cup Soccer event. It was incredible. I headed into the city to watch the opening at G’s work, on a big screen. In my (very bright) yellow Bafana Bafana t-shirt. Yellow is not my colour, but supporting one’s team is far more important than any possible fashion faux pas.

Every car we passed and person we saw on our way in had some sort of South African garment on. And everybody was grinning at each other. At G’s work, where I have never been before, I was welcomed with a beer and we settled in to watch. I met her boss, his lovely boyfriend, some others. Ad people. I’d heard it before, but I’d never seen it. Ad people really do run on ego. That’s another story though, we were all there for The Big Opening and The Game, and it was fabulous.

We watched the first half, then clamboured into the car to head to the stadium for match 2, and the opening match in The City Beneath the Mountain. Our boys scored while we were stopped at a red robot, and the swell of pride, and roar of excitement on The Grand Parade nearly washed us out of the car.

And then… our stadium. Prepare yourselves, I’m going to gush. It is, honestly, beautiful. Slickly designed, spacious, and gorgeous. I don’t normally get gushy about buildings, but this one, well, she is pretty as a picture. I am smitten. Perhaps it was the other 64 099 people there, all grinning at each other, blowing vuvuzelas, and generally filling the place with an incredible vibe, but I think perhaps it is a beautiful design too.

So the food stands were a bit unorganised, and the hotdog rolls came in a choice of ‘frozen’ or ‘cold’, it was their first time, teething troubles are to be expected, even cold hot dogs didn’t detract from the grinning and the frenzied vuvuzela-blowing. Then there they were, the Urugauains, and the French, on the gorgeous green field, singing their anthems and opening the World Cup for us, here. The crowd went wild.

My best part (remember I’m not the hugest sports fan): Thierry Henry spent a good half an hour in the second half warming up, 100 metres from me. Yes, that’s right, one hundred metres. The cameras don’t lie, the man has one hell of a cute tushie.

The rest of my weekend will have to be another post, I must do some Real Work. It involved getting out of the city, to some open blue sky and a pretty little town where we drank with the locals, watched more sport (okay, I admit, I read my book, but I was still there) and made friends with a guy called Koos.

Tonight I’ll be popping over to my new crush, Green Point Stadium, to watch the pretty Italian boys come up against the Paraguains.

I’m a lucky, lucky Shiny, aren’t I?

An old friend

I had dinner last night with an old varsity friend I haven’t seen for years. I am always amazed at how nice it is to do that, forgetting in the wide spaces of time between meetings, how well we get on. Years of, well, just getting on with motions of life melt away in moments, and we are suddenly back, sharing secrets, talking as if we saw each other yesterday.

We went to a restaurant in my hood – a small, cosy place with terrible acoustics so that, as soon as there is more than one table, you have to shout. The food is good, though, and the shouting is friendly. We discovered that, strangely, our lives are running in parallel, with some weird coincidental similarities. It’s nice to know it’s not just me.

And then, the thing on the tip of everyone’s tongues, flying from their cars, hooting from their vuvuzelas – it’s one more sleep until the opening match. Just one. Yesterday, at 12 noon, the entire country erupted in a cacophony of vuvuzela blowing and cars hooting, in support of our boys, Bafana Bafana. My heart swelled, and my eyes welled. I love it. The spirit is palpable and it’s just that that makes me overflow with pride for being a citizen of this country on the tip of Africa. We love a celebration, and, boy, are we going to celebrate!

Can you feel it too?

World Cup Fever

I woke to the mating call of a vuvuzela this morning, and smiled. For those of you who don’t know what a vuvuzela is, go here. The first match of the World Cup that you watch, you’ll know what it sounds like. Loudly festive.

We went to do a little shopping last night, down there, by the sea, near the stadium. I felt like I was in an advert for United Colours of Benneton. Remember them? Stereotypical models from different countries, dressed in bright colours. The (soccer-playing) nations of the world have descended on us, it’s fabulous. And loudly festive.

We ate some lovely dinner and then went for a night cap in the very smart hotel bar at the end, hoping, perhaps, that there might be a soccer team staying there, so we could be groupies (far be it for us to be picky, any team would’ve done.) But none were to be seen. We made friends with the barman instead, who informed us that all the teams are staying out of town. Probably to get away from groupies like us. Wise move really.

Anyway, our plan of action is in place, we will be there, at the stadium, for The City Beneath the Mountain’s first match on Friday, woohoo! We just need to decide who to support – France or Uruguay?

The spirit is here

It's virtually audible or feelable or something, an electrical undercurrent flowing through the city, like a schoolchild anticipating the holidays. It is everywhere - on TV the tear-jerker (I know, I know... I'm a cry baby), patriotism-inducing ads, flags flap in the (rather polar at the moment, despite a beautiful huge blue sky) air from every lamp post, cars are adorned with flags and ears (nifty SA flag bonnets you tie onto your side view mirrors.) All over the place there is a frenzy of it. World Cup spirit. It's contagious, and delicious.

Despite our national team being, well, not on the top of the list at the bookies, the spirit is palpable, we love our boys, despite their rather dismal performances of late, because they're OUR boys, and if there's one thing this country is good at, it's mustering up spirit. We're a nation that loves singing and dancing and occassion and we are gasvry (an Afrikaans word that just doesn't have a good English translation, it basically means we are welcoming, we like visitors, we want to make them love it here.)

I'm not a huge soccer fan, but this seemed too big to miss, so it was with great excitement that I went down to the FIFA ticketing office to pick up my tickets on Friday (lucky Shiny is going to three matches.) There was a long queue, the 'system had gone down', a queue awash with bright yellow football t-shirts, of old and young, every colour of our nation, all smiling and talking to each other. That spirit hovering and singing and dancing amongst them.

It's just, well, fabulous really. How can anybody not get sucked into it?

Friday night exuberance

On Friday night the City Beneath the Mountain put on her best dress, donned her false eyelashes (and flapped them, beautifully) and placed her red, sequinned dancing shoes on her delicate feet. And then she danced, and danced to an African beat (which, I fear is beyond me to explain, it's a beat that fills you) with the superstars she'd invited at the smart place down by the foreshore, and with the rest of us in not-so-smart Long Street. And, apparently, around the world millions watched us. And, I'm sure, were impressed.

You see, it was the World Cup Soccer draw, something I was completely unaware of until this week when the hype began - jets flew over in pretty patterns, practicing, and there were whispers of 'famous' people arriving - our Charlise, with her American accent and The Beckhams, with their designer hairstyles. We don't really do paparazzi down here on the tip of Africa, although I'm noticing a disturbing tendency toward it.

That aside, the spirit in the city bowl was palpable, and nothing gets me all aflutter more than a whole, heaving bunch of people waving South African flags, sharing tables in the street, drinking ice cold beer, cheering on our team - even though we know they're not really in the running to win, they're still our boys - you know, it's the exuberance of it all.

For how can anyone stand amidst exuberance like that and not be filled with pride?