The 2010 FIFA World Cup fan walk.

I can say one thing for sure - nobody's lawn was mowed in Cape Town on Saturday!

How do I know this? Because everybody, yes EVERYBODY was in Town doing the fan walk.
Yesterday was the last daytime match on a Saturday at the Cape Town stadium. It was also a beautiful sunny day so it was the last opportunity for anybody and everybody to get into the swing of the world cup. And anybody and everybody did!

We caught a train from Plumstead station with Ouma and Oupa, a very full train, and arrived at a very busy and very noisy Cape Town station at about 11 o' clock.

My friend, Mandy and her 2 children Joel and Hannah and friends of theirs joined us at Rondebosch station. We almost had a pickpocket incident when Mandy's phone was taken out of her pocket but a fellow passenger saw what had happened and the guy very kindly gave it back before jumping off at the next station. A close call.

We started out on the 2,4km walk to the stadium but not before stopping for ice cream!

Niave stopped a girl on the station who happened to be carrying face paint and asked her to paint her face!! She wasn't a face painter, she was just an ordinary person doing the fan walk but she very kindly obliged!! Hence the flag.
We saw so many people that we knew, some that we haven't seen for ages. It was amazing that everybody was brought together by a soccer match!

It was very jovial with a very Cape Town flair. The sounds of bands and vuvuzela's filled the air.
It was slow going because there were so many people but there was also so much to see. Niave and Abigail were very impressed by the mounted policemen.(my camera was battling taking pictures into the sun)

We stopped for lunch at KFC who were super efficient, helpful and friendly. I anticipated a very long wait in a very long queue but although the queue was long, the wait wasn't! After refuelling and a little rest we went on our way.

Finally we made it to the stadium or as close as we could get without a ticket. It was chaos!! Organised chaos but chaos nonetheless.

We took some pictures and then the real fans started to arrive on mass:so we headed towards the shuttle to go back to town. The shuttle is part of the new and improved public transport system called the BRT - Bus Rapid Transport and it certainly is rapid. They have their own dedicated lane and most of the roads in the area were closed so where it had taken us 3 hours to get from Town to Green Point it took 3 minutes to get back!!

We had all stupidly assumed that the train going home would not be as full as the one we had come in on, but we were very much mistaken! 3 hours later the trains arriving in Cape Town were every bit as full, if not fuller than our one had been and the platform was packed to capacity with people waiting to board a Simon's Town bound train.

But we made it home safe and sound and very, very tired in time to watch the game on T.V. It was a really good game, Germany beat Argentina 4 - 0!! Exactly the result I was hoping for. (Later Spain also won their game against Paraguay so I was very happy about that!!)

So we can say "we did it, we were there!" The world cup is almost over and I must say it has been a lot less troublesome than I had expected. I was one of those people who was complaining a lot in the years and months preceding and I didn't want to be here for it, I would have been in England if I'd had a lot of money!! But now I can say that I'm glad I was here - I'd still really like to take the girls to England to see Bev and Dottie and do all the things you do in the UK, but this will never happen again so I'm glad I was here, hopefully Abigail and Niave are old enough to remember it, Abi definitely, Niave I'm not so sure but one thing I am pretty sure of, I didn't know the word "stadium" when I was 4!!