USA tie Slovenia 3-2....

Today was the day of the game that for the last few days I was most looking forward to and most dreading... USA-Slovenia. On paper, it should be an "easier" game, but the USA has never done well against European teams, and European qualification for the World Cup is the hardest to get through!

The plan for the day was to meet up at a place called Radium Beer Hall with a lot of other Americans to have a few beers and get ready for the game. I ended up finding the place alright (thank you, GPS) and when I got there around 11am, the place was already starting to fill up. The game was still 5 hours away. While here I did meet up with Marcel again, as well as my English friend Rick, who now lives in Zimbabwe! The world cup brings people together, eh?

Radium had two levels, one that was mainly seating, and one where the bar was. I took these before the place was at its fullest, as the crowd was later spilling onto the sidewalk.

Since it was lunchtime, I got myself a menu and looked for something tasty. I had read online that this place had a great peri-peri sauce, so I ordered the peri-peri chicken. I figured I was going to get a nice chicken breast and some fries to go with it, but I was in for a bit of a surprise.

The chicken was actually a whole chicken, and as you can see, it was basically cut down the middle and put on the grill. I wasn't able to finish it all without help, but it was pretty damn tasty.

After a few hours of socializing and singing, it was time to head over the the stadium, which was a couple miles away. There was a bus load of American fans in front of me, all of them with their flags out the window. The people on the street were smiling and waving back. As far as I know, no one has had any bad encounters with locals on this trip, which is great considering how dangerous South Africa is. I think the worst so far was a shakedown from the police on a traffic stop.

Finally I got parked and made my way to the stadium. This is the same one that I previously saw North Korea - Brazil, but now it is in the day instead of at night! I must say that this is one of my favorite stadiums that I have been to. It isn't as nice a Soccer City, but I do love a stadium with history.

The game, as you probably know, didn't go the best - but it wasn't the worst. We fell behind 2-0 in the first half. In the 2nd half, we brought it back to 2-2 and then had what should have been in winning goal called back for reasons unknown. No one who has looked at the footage can tell.

The game ended and we were walking back to the car park so we could head back home. Now, this stadium is in a terrible neighbor hood, and the only reason we weren't fearing for our life is that there was a large crowd and police there. We did run into a lost girl who was separated from the area she needed to go to so that should could get back to her hotel.

Rick and I (especially Rick) are nice people and we stopped to help this girl, who is an American named Tina. She was a real sweetheart and with the help of some other South Africans, we found a way to get her back. Because we didn't want to leave her to fend for herself, Rick drove out of his way from where he was going to take her to her company's hotel. What a swell guy! Rick, of course, is the guy in the Arsenal shirt and the girl is Tina.

It took forever to get out of the car park, but we did finally get out and went our separate ways. When I got back to where I was staying I did get a fantastic note from Karen, the wonderful lady who with her husband, are putting me up while I'm here. This really summed it up for me:

Tomorrow should be another exciting day. I'm getting up in about 7 hours to go pick up Marcel and then him and I will be heading over to Sun City before attending Australia-Ghana. This game has major significance for both teams as Germany shockingly lost to Serbia today. I'm really looking forward to it!

until tomorrow!