Saturday (6/12) - World Cup 2010

Saturday started out with us meeting the American Outlaws in the hotel lobby at 10 am. Some guys had just arrived and had to go get their tickets so we didn't leave on time. It was probably 11 or 11:30 before we left. Once we got on the road we headed towards Shobeen Sun City for our pre game "tailgate". We had one stop and made it to the tailgate bar/restaurant at about 1:30. There were some England fans there having some pre game beers as well. I believe they were staying at the hotel there at the casino in Sun City. We stayed there until 4:30...while there I had some Peroni (happy Zygo?) and some Black Labels...along with my Bunny Chow. Bunny Chow was basically a half loaf of bread, hollowed out and filled with beef stew. It was good....but nothing exceptional in my opinion. Before we left for the stadium, a NBC news crew showed up. Believe they were doing a live shot from there. So if you were watching the Today Show on Saturday morning and saw a report from South Africa...I was in the background there.

We got back on the bus and headed to the stadium. Our travel guys had heard that the 30 minute trip to the stadium could take us up to 2 1/2 hours as there was only one road in and one road out to the stadium in Rustenberg. We did get there pretty quickly. Since there was no beer and not much to do in the parking lot, Kevin and I headed in early to get our seats. We were in there very early. So we moved from our assigned seats down to the first row for pre game festivities. We figured we'd stay there until whoever had the seats we were in showed up.

We spent a good 2 1/2 hours in the stadium before the teams even took the field to warm up....and there weren't a lot of people in there...but there were a lot of England flag being hung up around the stadium. I think the flags they put up along just gave them a huge presence. The game finally started and England came out with a quick first goal. The US crowd stayed with the team and never gave up. We tied the game up before the end of the first half. Tim Howard was by far the man of the match for me and showed why so many US goalies are making an impact in the EPL.

After the game we headed back to the bus and departed an hour after the end of the game...but didn't end up back to the hotel until 2:30 am.....3 hours AFTER we left the stadium. Our driver took no less than 3 wrong turns. It was a long day and I should have gone to sleep....but we stayed up making fun of the driver and cracking jokes.

Today was a down day. We went to the mall and then a bar to watch the Algeria vs. Slovenia. Now back in the hotel watching the rest of the games so I can catch you guys up.

Attaching a link to pics from the last few days. These are coming from 3 different cameras. I tried to put them into chronological order as best I could....but can't make any guarantees.

Again....Sorry for any typos/grammar errors. Trying to get as much as I can here as quickly as I can.

Pics here!