We’re up early and excited for the day ahead; the USA is playing Slovenia at Ellis Park in Johannesburg at 4 pm.
Shortly after breakfast, Curtis, Corey, and Jimmy begin their face painting; Jimmy also with the red, white, and blue hair spray. While they do that, Clint, Brett, and Ryan go to the mall - Clint’s memory card on his new camera had failed; fortunately he had dumped his first week’s photos onto one of our computers.
We meet down the street and begin the drive to Johannesburg. This time, I’m in the car with Curtis, Corey, and Jim – a car they have perfectly labeled “The Ant,” because it is so small.
We agree to follow the signs to the Park-n-Ride, a place where we can park our cars and take the free shuttles to the stadium. The highway ride is pleasant, but the smoke that is visible as we approach Johannesburg is amazing. The dry grass on the side of the highway is literally on fire – we see the flames, but can’t react fast enough with the cameras.
On one left turn, we find ourselves in a very different environment. We are in a place in Africa that I believe many of us expected to see much earlier. The street is a narrow lane, with cars parked on either side. It all looks kind of run-down. We, of course, come up to a red light.
Running through my head is how uncomfortable this is, mostly because it’s the unknown. So many locals had advised us against being in neighborhoods that look like this; so you can imagine what goes through your mind when you’re driving through it.
Our car laughs it off, kind of (we did roll up our windows), and we’re left wondering what the conversation must be like in the car in front. We laugh at this notion.
We are following the guys in front and we’re a bit surprised when they turn before we see the Park-n-Ride. But we agree that the signage here is not the most reliable, something I touched on before. At least it now appears that we are heading in the direction of the stadium.
A few blocks away, as traffic slows, we are approached by no less than 30 people trying to get us to park on the hills and open spaces they are creating on the side of the road. Our car knows that there’s no way the other guys will agree to this. It’s so unofficial looking; the ‘attendants’ are all wearing different colored ‘security’ vests that appear to be fake. I see a barefoot South African midget begging for money in between cars. Is it wrong that I took a photo?
We make a u-turn and find our way back to the Park-n-Ride. Of course when we get there, we’re told we needed to have a ticket to park. That was never relayed to us via any of the official FIFA guides, websites, or media.
We drive away, now our car has taken the lead. We find a Park-n-Walk, and the attendant allows us to buy a ticket from him. Done, though we wonder why we couldn’t do this at the Park-n-Ride. We park, open up a couple of now warmer beers, and begin the walk to the stadium.
It was one of the cooler strolls I’ve taken: through a neighborhood street in Johannesburg, South Africa, where minutes ago we felt – more or less - afraid. Now, we see houses without the electric wire fences selling food from their front yards. Corey and I even stop to buy a ‘hot dog’ from the house vendor.
We find a woman with child holding a hand-written sign asking us to go to their school – that they’ve turned into a bar. We oblige, excited to be contributing to their cause.
We walk a little further, and a large group of little kids see us approaching and they begin cheering “USA, USA, USA.” We stop for photos. How wrong we were about the street! These people were great!
We’re now a little touched as we stop before the main gate to the stadium. We had two extra tickets to sell (from a friend of a colleague in Denver that couldn't go), and it seems like everyone is selling tickets, with few buying. Jimmy and I make make an effort and right away we sell one. Then we see an American selling tickets being approached by a cop. It was a quick decision for us to forget selling our remaining ticket, but we couldn’t even find someone to give the ticket to.
We had seen a couple of little kids hanging around a fence near the stadium. We want to get them in the game, but now we only have one ticket. We see another American trying to sell one ticket, so we ask if he’d be willing to give it away so we can get the two kids into the game. He won’t, and instead he appeared to eat the ticket as we saw him get in the line to enter the stadium. Jerk.
A minute later, one of the two little kids runs by us – with a ticket in hand. I don’t know how he got it, but it allowed us to approach his friend / brother, and ask if he’d also like to go in. We get the emphatic “YES” so we give him our extra ticket. We ask if they are excited, and they can only answer “too much,” still with a huge smile on their faces. This made our day. I hope one of these kids one day plays in the World Cup and remembers the seven Americans that helped them get into this game.
Once inside, we of course run into other familiar faces. Our tickets were once again all over the stadium, but we all walk in together and take up a couple rows in the lower level, among the large group of American fans.
The buzzing vuvuzelas don’t allow us to hear other fans that are only 15 feet away, so we walk down a few rows and tell that group to turn around so we can at least read their lips and try to continue what they start, and vice versa.
There are plenty of website recapping the game. We remained confident even when the US was down by two, and nearly lost our heads when the US appeared to take the lead with only minutes to go. None of us knew what was called, and we’ve all seen the replays since. What a horrible call. We know now that a win in game three will get us through, so our hopes are high.
We posed for many photos – with other Americans, with Slovenians, and with many African fans. Our return to the car allowed us to stop back at the school. We had just watched a great game with friends in the real Africa. And we believe we made two little kid’s day. And it was a great experience.
