Happy Father's Day!!!

(PICTURE: My favorite picture of me and my Dad.)

Big Guy!!!!

Happy Father's Day! I'm having a great time in South Africa but every day I've wished that you could be here with me, especially when I was on safari. You're the greatest Dad in the world and not a day goes by that I don't realize that. I love you and miss you!!!

To all the other father's out there (i.e. my brother and the lion I saw on safari): Happy Father's Day to you too!


(PICTURE: My favorite photo of Zev and Lilah.)



(PICTURE: The King of Animals looking after his little cub.)

USA vs. Slovenia

(PICTURE: I took this off of ESPN.com. If you look at the top right of the American flag you can see Devin, Chris and Dave. I'm to the left of Devin, underneath the flag!)

(PICTURE: See, I'm under the flag!)

Wow! What a game last night. After playing horribly in the first half, the US managed to come back from two goals down to tie Slovenia. In fact, we scored a third goal that was controversially disallowed by the referee. When the ball went in on the third goal our half of the stadium erupted. I was in the middle of a group hug with Chris and a few strangers when someone said, "They called offsides!!!" This was literally the definition of a buzz kill. I've never been on such a euphoric high and brought back down so quickly. What made it worse was that I was absolutely drenched in beer that someone had spilled on a bunch of people in celebration.

That's my quick update on the game. Now, I'd like to directly address the guy who was sitting a row in front of me: Hey, Asshole! DO NOT THROW YOUR BEER BOTTLE INTO THE CROWD YOU FUCKING MORON. It's one thing to spray people with beer, it's another to launch a bottle into the air. Sure, the Bud bottles are plastic but that doesn't mean it can't hurt someone. It's people like you that can turn something fun into something scary. You could have hit a kid -- which there were plenty of -- or broken someone's nose/teeth/face with your stupidity.

If anyone at the World Cup is reading this, please continue to have fun but don't act like a total neanderthal.

Shosholoza

There are a few songs that are constantly played at the World Cup. There is the K'Naan theme song called "Waving Flag" and then there is the Shakira song which I think is called, "Check Out How Fast I Can Shake My Butt." However, there is another song that I'm not sure people are hearing on TV. It's a song that is constantly played at the stadiums called "Shosholoza." "Shosholoza" is a traditional South African folk song about a train that keeps going forward.

Here's the lyrics according to Wikipedia:

Shosholozah
Shosholozah
Ku lezontabah
Stimela siphum' eSouth Africa
Shosholozah
Shosholozah
Ku lezontabah
Stimela siphum' eSouth Africa
Wen' uyabalekah
Wen' uyabalekah
Ku lezontabah
Stimela siphum' eSouth Africa

A rough translation:

Go forward
Go forward
On those mountains
Train from South Africa.
Go forward
Go forward
You are running away
You are running away
On those mountains
Train from South Arica.

Identity Crisis: Am I Paraguayan?

(PICTURE: The flag of my beloved Paraguay.)

On Tuesday night, The guys and I went to the Italy vs. Paraguay game in Cape Town:


(PICTURE: Devin, Chris and Dave outside Cape Town stadium.)

Chris's father was born and raised in Sicily, making Chris the first generation American in his family. Chris was obviously rooting for Italy in the game. Despite Devin's 100% Italian last name, he's actually only 25% Italian. However, this was more than enough for him to passionately root for Italy.

Despite taking two years of Italian classes, I'm 0% Italian and actually hate the Italian football team more than any other team. If you watch football, you'll most likely agree that no team dives/act/complains more than the Italian squad.

On top of that, I had good reason to root for Paraguay in this game -- I'm part Paraguayan. Okay, that's not true. I have zero Pargauyan blood in my body. However, I do have family in Paraguay...at least I thought I did. When my family fled Europe, they went all around the world. You may recall that I once wrote on my blog that I'm named after my great grandmother Bella who actually fled to and lived in Shanghai for some time. Well, some of my other family went to South America.

I told the guys that I had family in Paraguay and they thought it was pretty funny. It was even funnier when a group of Paraguayan people saw me the day of the game and singled me out with a wave and a smile. They could sense pseudo Paraguayan blood. That afternoon I wrote an email to my sister and my cousin Greg asking where in Paraguay our family lived. My sister wrote back first and said something like, "Uh, I think our family lives in Uruguay." Paraguay, Uraguay...simple mistake right?

My cousin Greg -- the king of the August family genealogy -- wrote me back later and confirmed my ignorance. However, he did say that "we may have some family in Paraguay." That means there's still a chance I'm sort of part Paraguayan!!!!

Anyway, Paraguay tied Italy 1-1.

Laundry

(PICTURE: See anything strange in this picture?)

I'm usually quite a good packer but on this trip I made a big mistake -- I didn't pack enough undies or socks. The other day, I decided to use one of the skills I've learned in Vietnam -- hand washing clothes. I took a pair of boxers and two of my favorite socks and scrubbed and washed them in my hotel sink. After ringing out the now-wonderfully smelling clothes, I hung them on our hotel balcony to dry. The clothes were still damp later in the day so I decided to keep them outside over night. It was a bad move.

Cape Town apparently has hurricane-like winds. When I awoke in the morning, I could hear the wind swirling outside. I got out of bed and went to the porch and discovered that my undies and one sock were gone. This didn't really make sense because the balcony was surrounded by a three foot high wall of glass. Using my best detective skills, I looked over the balcony's edge and saw my boxers sunk at the bottom of a small algae pool on top of a covered electrical unit:


(PICTURE: One of my favorite boxers.)

I decided to give up on the boxers but wanted to rescue my lone lost sock. Dave and I went to the ground floor and looked everywhere for the sock. Alas, we came up empty handed. The sock blew away to, I can only assume, Antarctica.

A Bus Odyssey II

Upon arriving at the Cape Town airport, our scheduled ride was not there. This was par for the course with our travel company. We called the office and they told us someone was on their way.

After about twenty minutes our ride showed up. Check it out:

Yes, we had a whole coach bus for just four of us. Good planning! At least this bus driver knew where our hotel was.

A Bus Odyssey

(PICTURE: The four of us at the USA vs. England game.)

Getting to the USA game the other night was quite an ordeal. The travel company we're using is -- what's the nicest word -- moronic. They basically have no clue about logistics and seemingly are flying by the seat of their pants despite having basically four years to plan this trip. Let me sum up our misadventure:

Wrong Move #1: We were told we would leave at noon for the game. The bus didn't show up until 12:45.

Wrong Move #2: About ninety people got on the bus. We were then told we'd be picking up a few more people at another hotel. That other hotel was in the wrong direction of the game. We ended up picking up about 7 people. So 90 of us went the wrong direction to pick up 7.

Wrong Move #3: We waited about 45 minutes in a parking lot to pick up the other 7 people.

Wrong Move #4: Despite being just about 10 minutes from a mall near the stadium (we were scheduled to stop there to get something to eat), the bus pulled over on a random street so a few people could pee at a fast food restaurant.

Wrong Move #5: After waiting fifteen minutes for some people to pee, the bus then stopped at a weigh station because the bus driver thought more people wanted to pee. This stop ended up turning into a thirty minute stop.

Wrong Move #6: At this point our trip had taken about four + hours and many people were getting antsy. We took a "vote" and decided to skip the mall and go right to the stadium. We got to the stadium and found out that our Tour Leader forgot to get the special parking permit. We had to wait about another hour for someone to bring us the permit.

We eventually parked and went into the stadium. It took us six hours from door to door for a trip which was scheduled to take 2.5 hours. Luckily we were still two hours early for the game. The only thing the tour company did right was having us leaving 8.5 hours early for the game.

And that was just getting to the stadium....

(PICTURE: The bus from hell.)

On the way home we waited about an hour and fifteen minutes in the parking lot for a couple people who didn't show up. Literally we were the last bus there. Even security was leaving the stadium. It eventually took us four hours to get home because the bus driver went to the wrong hotel and ended up getting lost. The guys and I ended up having about an hour to pack our stuff and catch a ride to the airport to fly to Cape Town.

All of that would have been worth it had the USA won...but as you all know by now, we tied England 1-1.