Advertisement
Published: June 28th 2010
Edit Blog Post
The three Elvii
I was told not to use "Elvises" even when they are overweight Getting around South Africa ain't easy. Especially going to a little town like Rustenburg that doesn't even have a direct route to Johannesburg.
Rustenburg shouldn't really exist as a town at all, except it's sitting on the biggest deposit of platinum on the planet. The other other things it has is the "Platinum Highway" linking it to Pretoria and the Royal Bafaking Stadium -- a name that lends itself to misuse.
After failing to hire a driver we had to resort to driving ourselves. Wayne kindly offered to do the driving but Tim and I vetoed that idea immediately -- Wayne's much better company drunk than sober.
I ended up driving by default, so the three of us collected our Elvis costumes and piled into the car for the 3 hour trip.
Wayne mentioned that he and Mark had ventured this route previously and had seen the now famous "Hijacking Hotspot" signs when passing them at 1:30 am. They didn't drop below 90kmh after that. Of course, in daylight we're a lot braver, and couldn't resist stopping for a photo. A passing police car honked at us there and we could see them pissing themselves laughing as
We couldn't possibly drive by this sign without stopping... except at night
While this sign was irresistible to us in broad daylight, Mark and Wayne stepped on the gas and didn't go below 90 at 2am they passed.
We stopped at an Irish bar in a small town to watch the Korea game. The place was packed and had to large screens and an excellent sound system. Perfect! We sat down to enjoy the game.
But this is small town South Africa. Nothing matters but Rugby. LOL So we were delegated to the veranda watching the game on a tiny TV. Well... i was... Tim and Wayne went to the disabled bathroom to dye Tim's hair black to become a real Elvis. Great work Tim!
By the time we got to the stadium, we barely had time to get changed into Elvis (Elvii, I'm told, is the plural) and head to the stands.
I don't mind being a celebrity for half an hour. But after that it wears pretty thin. I feel for the real celebrities -- or would if I didn't want to be one too!
As usual, we had pretty good tickets, but no where near as good as the scalped ones we're used to.
The game itself wasn't disappointing. I was afraid the referees might have gotten their acts together and made it a fair game... but
no such danger. The refs were clearly biased towards Ghana (as was everyone else in South Africa except for the Americans, one Canadian, and two Australian Elvii).
Ghana won in the end. I have a feeling it would have gone to extra time if there had been an unbiased ref (or un-bribed ref) but I don't think FIFA hires such people -- or such refs are attracted to FIFA.
Still, the US fans kept their heads high and seemed pretty well behaved despite their loss. Heck, they were well behaved even after the first (and greatest) major referee deliberate goal disallowance. I gotta commend FIFA on brining in these great refs to create a third force in the game. Did I mention they're corrupt?
Heading back home along the platinum highway I began to doze off. Dunno why -- I had only had two bottles of Budweiser which, as you know, is the equivalent of a quarter of a standard Australian drink.
After pulling over twice to get some zzs, Tim took over the wheel and drove the last two hours to the accompaniment of two snoring Elvii.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.202s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 19; qc: 108; dbt: 0.1289s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Rick Dysinger
non-member comment
No more a bloke...
Peter-You would make a great American, keep trying...