Of vuvuzelas and V8s

What an awesome weekend!

Friday's opening soccer match of the World Cup between South Africa and Mexico had us all on the edge of our seats. The 1-1 draw was probably the best result for TSC and I, seeing we had two Mexicans staying with us ;-) At least relations were still friendly. I'd have loved our Bafana to win though, obviously.

Saturday turned out to be far more exciting than expected - we headed to the FIFA ticketing centre to see if we could still get tickets for any of the games, now that we have a better idea of what our guests are up to and when we will be free.

We managed to get Premier Tickets for the Nigeria / Argentina game at Ellis Park that afternoon. They cost a fortune, but we figured it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience, so we took the plunge and let our poor credit card take a beating.

In the afternoon, we travelled with our two Mexicans to the stadium, us wearing our SA kit (TSC insisted on wearing his Springbok jersey in support of the Boks, but he did let me paint our flag on his cheek) and them wearing their Mexican wrestling masks. While we drove we listened to the Afrikaans radio commentary of the Boks thrashing the French rugby team. The commentator was getting very excited when Gurtho Steenkamp charged down the field to score a try. The Mexicans obviously had no idea what was potting and asked us if Gurtho Steenkamp was some sort of rude phrase. We said yes, in a manner of speaking. If you're French, it is ;-)

It took us ages to get to the Park and Walk facilities at Athlone Boys' School. We walked almost 2km to the stadium, which I thought was great fun - families came out into the street to blow vuvuzelas and cheer on the groups walking to Ellis Park and enterprising locals tried to sell flags, vuvuzelas and other paraphernalia.

At the stadium, I stopped to paint South African flags on the cheeks of some Japanese visitors before we made our way to our box / suite. When we got there we discovered that we had no seats. Either FIFA oversold the seats available, or people had climbed into our box from the one adjacent, but there was nowhere for us to sit.

We were furious, having paid a huge sum for the tickets. Thankfully, there were two seats available in the box next to ours, which was filled with Nigerian fans. A kind Nigerian gentleman named Andrew let us sit next to him. When he invited us into their box at half-time for a drink and snacks, we realised (on seeing the bodyguards) that we were in the Nigerian presidential box!

Thank you, Andrew, whomever you may be. You saved our game.

It was another nail-biting game. We blew our vuvuzela until we were light-headed and cheered Nigeria on. Unfortunately, the hooligans from Argentina tried to hang one of their banners in front of our seats, but the police came along and took it down, putting an end to the fight (which was about to get physical) between the Nigerians and the Argentinians.

The game, as I'm sure most of you know, ended 1-0 to the Argentinian side.

We said goodbye to the Nigerians we'd met, after stopping to help them take photos of the group, met up with the Mexicans, walked back to the school, sat for 30min trying to get out of the parking field and headed to Nandos for supper.

Apparently our cricket team also performed well against the Windies, but aside from watching the game live, my favourite part of the weekend was last night's Grand Prix, which was epic. Not a single boring lap and my boys from McLaren came in first and second (and in the order I prefer). We watched with our Italian neighbours at our place, having taken the Mexicans to the airport for their two-day Cape Town joint.

What a cool weekend. Hope yours was good too!

Notes on the weekend

• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was pretty good. Not fantastic, but not awful. There are those who say it's too long, and I do agree that it could easily have been a bit shorter. For those who criticise the believability of it all... I ask you: why did you go and see a movie about robot aliens from outer space in the first place? I went to see this film because I think Michael Bay does fantastic action sequences, even if plot is not his strong point. I also have enormous respect for actors that can be convincing when they're doing scenes with robots that aren't actually there at all (I mean, looking like you're actually scared of something that's supposedly chasing you but doesn't even exist outside of a PC monitor is pretty impressive). The CGI is also some of the best around, so I can forgive the movie for most of its faults (too long, a bit all over the show, a few plot holes and Megan Fox may be gorgeous but is also really annoying when she opens her mouth).


• The Irene Village Market is one of my favourite places to shop. For me, it's worth the trek through to Pretoria. I picked up some canvases at ridiculously low prices, a gorgeous rusted cup-and-saucer pot for my mini rose plant and loads of really yummy deli stuff (including the best hot chocolate powder ever, some Rose Cream Turkish Delight for my MIL, cabanossi for TSC (can't stand the stuff myself) and proper koffie koekies. Even TSC had a good time, and he hates markets.


• Our guest room is nearly finished. We have fixed and painted the walls and ceilings, repaired the crumbling windowsills, stripped the windowpanes and repainted those too, replaced the revolting light fixture and the ugly plastic cupboard handles, washed the carpet (which was NOT fun) and given it a complete clean. We're now busy moving the furniture back in, hanging the curtains and positioning the "artworks" I've created for the walls. I'm hoping to finish up this evening and take some pics to post here.


• Yesterday's Formula One Grand Prix was one of the more exciting races of the season. Mark Webber won his first race in his eight years of driving. I'm very glad for him, especially seeing he spent the winter recovering from a broken leg. I think it's also great fun that the competition between Webber and teammate Vettel is heating up and that Button is getting challenged by a host of drivers. The drivers of the McLaren team (which I have supported for the past nine years) had a mixed day. Kovalainen finished in the last points-paying position, which was pretty good, seeing he didn't have the benefit of all the new parts Lewis Hamilton had on his car for the race. Hamilton had a miserable time with a puncture at the first corner which sent him right to the back of the pack. Both drivers seem to be more competitive though, and are using their KERS-equipped cars (kinetic energy recovery system) nicely.


• Our church has started a new series called "Supernatural", which looks like it will be interesting. Last night's sermon was on Lucifer. Fascinating stuff! Can't wait for next week's on Angels and Demons (the beings, not the movie).


• TSC went back to varsity today. Shame, he was not keen, poor man. He was up and out of the house at 6am to miss the traffic. I admire him - I am not a morning person at the best of times, and getting up in dark in the freezing winter mornings is pure torture to me. I'm lucky in that I live 15 minutes away from the office, so I only have to leave the house just after 8am. In summer I do my exercise in the mornings, but in winter I do it after work so that I can postpone the crawling / falling out of bed until 7.20 am. This is me, every day: