Cape of Good Hope, and 2-1.

Tuesday

Early in the morning we left for the Cape of Good Hope. On our way we passed by Boulder Beach and watched penguins chill out on the beach, and take a dive into the Indian Ocean when they want to. Around noon we arrived at the Cape of Good Hope; which is not (as commonly thought) the most southern tip of Africa (the southernmost point is Cape Agulhas) nor is it the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The Cape of Good Hope, however, marks the psychologically important point where by boat one begins to travel more eastward than southward. We did an hour hike and sat on a large rock hundreds of meter high and sat down. It was great!

Penguins...

on the beach.

And a submarine in the back (we were close to Simon's Town - a naval base).

Lots of baboons.

And amazing...

amazing views.

At 4pm the United States had to play Algeria; a match we wanted to see for two reasons: 1. Roy’s fiancée is Algerian, 2. Fang and Evans are in Cape Town and asked to watch the match together. I know Fang and Evans from Columbia where both just finished their PhD in economics. After the US winning 1-0 after scoring in the first minute of the extra time, we had dinner at Spur and went to bed early for the day to come.

Friday
It was going to be one of those Dutch days again. After dressing up in orange and taking public transport into town, Roy and I arrived at the Fifa Fan Fest around 11am; beer was already flowing and bad Dutch music was already playing. Because the match would only start at 830pm Roy and I sat down in a corner with a few beers and read a book. By the time it was clear Italy was kicked out of the World Cup (say around 5pm), the number of Dutch had gone up to over 18,000 people! Yet again a sea of orange. At 6pm we walked in parade to the Stadium where we won with 2-1 from Cameroon. Late in the evening all streets were filled with orange (and a little yellow, green and red from Cameroon). The atmosphere was - yet again - so amazing!

Sea of orange.

Roy, me, Fang.

Many Dutch...

clogging up the streets.

Beautiful stadium.

And towards the 2-1.

Random:

• Completely forgot to tell this. During our drive from Durban to Plettenberg we got a speeding ticket. Around East London somebody jumped in front of our car and directed that we had to go to the left; something we didn’t as we thought the guy was nuts. That guy happened to be a police officer who then chased us with blue lights on the high way, giving us a speeding ticket (we drove 140 instead of 120). It was a very friendly cop though.
• In addition to Fang and Evans, I also met Joost in South Africa (in Durban actually a few days ago). I know Joost from my time in Tilburg University. I saw him uploading pictures of the World Cup on Facebook, I sent him an email and a few days later we met up. It is such a small world.