The Longest Day Ever
Saturday was our first match, and the one we were most invested in. USA v Ghana. Since it was everyone's first day we tried to start a little bit later. We collected everyone from their hostel in the morning and I had the day all planned out. We went to the Sterkfontein caves at the Cradle of Humankind (world heritage s
ite!) and the Maropeng. Sterkfontein is a large limestone cave where they have been excavating the oldest skeletons ever found (hence the name). Wits University professors are responsible for most of the discoveries. We had a good but not very informative tour through the caves. My favorite part was just navigating through some of the narrower passages and seeing the underground lake. It's definitely no Luray Caverns. From there we headed to the Maropeng Visitor's center which is probably the most unfocused museum I have ever been to.
The museum is based on the idea of the area being where the first humans lived. They have some guiding posters at the beginning when you walk in, but beyond that, they loosely interpret the focus of the museum to include environmentalism, religious studies, biology, human development, history, and psychology. The first thing you do in the museum is take a boat ride through what we think was the early ages of our planet. We are not sure because there was nothing explaining the boat ride before, after or during it. We are pretty sure we saw techtonic plates moving at one point, but other than that we had some fake snow, a recording of wind blowing, and some scenes of volcanoes that we floated past. I thought this boat ride was completely incredible because it was silly, had no point, and made no real sense in the context of the museum. After I got over my initial confusion, it became hilarious.
The rest of the museum was also hilarious. At one there is a table where you can place a phone call to different ice age animals. I called the Wooly Mammoth who had a ridiculous German accent and who told me about his tusks and fur and what he liked to eat. I wanted to call the dodo bird too but I was laughing too hard to dial. The Maropeng visitor's center is the best and worst museum ever, except for maybe the SAB World of Beer tour, which I'll get to. After the Maropeng, it was on to the match. The long anticipated, highly emotional matchup between the US and Ghana and my first World Cup game.
It was in Rustenburg, which is in the middle of nowhere. I did kind of like it for that, but after the match, I hated it for that. For those of you who saw the game, we had INCREDIBLE seats three rows up from the pitch in the bottom left corner of the field. The stadium was really tiny too, only 46,000 at capacity. A sharp contrast to the stadium we were at the next night. We were so close to the action, we saw players faces, the corner kicks for the US in the second half took place not 100 feet from us. It was a strange first World Cup match to go to though. In such a small stadium in such a remote location, it's hard to really grasp the size of the ripple effect this match had. When in Jo'burg or watching on television, it's easy to see how the world's eyes are focused on this one little soccer field. But actually being at this tiny stadium, with th
e stars above us in the pitch-dark night, it was hard to grasp it because it felt so intimate. I was also so wrapped up in the outcome, I barely noted the atmosphere. Save for two hateful English guys behind us who thought their two-man chanting team would single-handedly destroy American morale. If I hadn't already been rooting for Germany against them, I would have started after that experience. In spite of all that, it was still incredible to be there and to cheer for the US and to take part in the world's biggest sporting event for the first time, but it was also terrible that we lost. We met a lot of American fans at the game and it was sad when we all left. The drive home took 4 hours and I didn't get to bed until close to 5am. It was a rough night. But worth it. Totally worth it.
ite!) and the Maropeng. Sterkfontein is a large limestone cave where they have been excavating the oldest skeletons ever found (hence the name). Wits University professors are responsible for most of the discoveries. We had a good but not very informative tour through the caves. My favorite part was just navigating through some of the narrower passages and seeing the underground lake. It's definitely no Luray Caverns. From there we headed to the Maropeng Visitor's center which is probably the most unfocused museum I have ever been to.The museum is based on the idea of the area being where the first humans lived. They have some guiding posters at the beginning when you walk in, but beyond that, they loosely interpret the focus of the museum to include environmentalism, religious studies, biology, human development, history, and psychology. The first thing you do in the museum is take a boat ride through what we think was the early ages of our planet. We are not sure because there was nothing explaining the boat ride before, after or during it. We are pretty sure we saw techtonic plates moving at one point, but other than that we had some fake snow, a recording of wind blowing, and some scenes of volcanoes that we floated past. I thought this boat ride was completely incredible because it was silly, had no point, and made no real sense in the context of the museum. After I got over my initial confusion, it became hilarious.
The rest of the museum was also hilarious. At one there is a table where you can place a phone call to different ice age animals. I called the Wooly Mammoth who had a ridiculous German accent and who told me about his tusks and fur and what he liked to eat. I wanted to call the dodo bird too but I was laughing too hard to dial. The Maropeng visitor's center is the best and worst museum ever, except for maybe the SAB World of Beer tour, which I'll get to. After the Maropeng, it was on to the match. The long anticipated, highly emotional matchup between the US and Ghana and my first World Cup game.
It was in Rustenburg, which is in the middle of nowhere. I did kind of like it for that, but after the match, I hated it for that. For those of you who saw the game, we had INCREDIBLE seats three rows up from the pitch in the bottom left corner of the field. The stadium was really tiny too, only 46,000 at capacity. A sharp contrast to the stadium we were at the next night. We were so close to the action, we saw players faces, the corner kicks for the US in the second half took place not 100 feet from us. It was a strange first World Cup match to go to though. In such a small stadium in such a remote location, it's hard to really grasp the size of the ripple effect this match had. When in Jo'burg or watching on television, it's easy to see how the world's eyes are focused on this one little soccer field. But actually being at this tiny stadium, with th
e stars above us in the pitch-dark night, it was hard to grasp it because it felt so intimate. I was also so wrapped up in the outcome, I barely noted the atmosphere. Save for two hateful English guys behind us who thought their two-man chanting team would single-handedly destroy American morale. If I hadn't already been rooting for Germany against them, I would have started after that experience. In spite of all that, it was still incredible to be there and to cheer for the US and to take part in the world's biggest sporting event for the first time, but it was also terrible that we lost. We met a lot of American fans at the game and it was sad when we all left. The drive home took 4 hours and I didn't get to bed until close to 5am. It was a rough night. But worth it. Totally worth it.
Comments