World Cup Adventures

We spent a lot of the last two days down at the V & A Waterfront in Cape Town where several “fan zones” have been set up for the World Cup. The waterfront area has lots of shops and restaurants, including two malls. (I figured out very quickly just how extensive malls are in South Africa.) The main screen for watching the World Cup is in an amphitheatre outside of one mall and there are other screens in large tents with seating in other parts of the waterfront. On Friday (June 2) we watched the Netherlands vs. Brazil and Uruguay vs. Ghana quarterfinal games in some of these areas. It’s incredible to see how excited and spirited everyone gets during these games. People from all over the world cram into the fan zones, getting there hours early to get a good seat. (We weren’t quite so lucky and found ourselves crowded onto a balcony above.) Others crowd around any TV set they can find in the malls nearby. Everyone dresses up in jerseys, scarves, and face paint in the flag colors and designs of the team they’re supporting, waving flags and blowing vuvuzelas (the long plastic trumpet-like noisemakers that you hear all through the games.) The excitement and energy is everywhere. It’s like game day on MSU’s campus but so much bigger and grander because the whole world is part of it.

Waterfront amphitheatre

On Saturday (June 3), the next quarterfinal game (Argentina vs. Germany) was in Cape Town’s stadium, which meant there were many more people in the city, all trying to crowd into the waterfront. We got down there much later than we did the day before and by the time we reached the entrance to the waterfront the police had blocked off the bridges because there were so many people there already. We ended up wandering around for a while and by that time enough people had left so eventually were able to get through on another bridge. After all of this, we didn’t really get to watch much of the game since the big screen areas were full and huge crowds had even gathered around any TV they could find in the mall stores and restaurants. It was chaotic and very tiring to fight through all those crowds, but experiencing that kind of excitement was really once in a lifetime.

Apart from the waterfront, in the center of Cape Town, a huge flea market was set up with countless stalls selling all sorts of World Cup merchandise and other items as well. Most of the stuff was knock-offs, but since it was cheap and still fairly good quality it was worth it to search for souvenirs there. There were scarves, t-shirts, jerseys, hats, and more all decorated with the names of different teams. There were also the famed vuvuzelas and more general items like jewelry, clothes, and purses. But my favorite part of the World Cup experience was walking down the Grand Parade street in Cape Town, a route that leads from the city center toward the waterfront. The street was packed to the gills with people headed toward the fan zones and it was hard to keep up with our group in the crowd, but it was thrilling just to walk through there with so many people from around the world. All around people were blowing their vuvuzelas and chanting for their favorite teams, and there were also performing groups off to the sides like traditional African dancers and a barbershop quartet. Definitely a celebration for the whole city.

Vuvuzelas

Huge crowd in the fan walk