We said goodbye to Kara in Cape Town and then Michelle, Bryan, Todd and I took off to Joburg for our quarterfinal games. We stayed at Thulani Lodge in Melville, a "cosmopolitan" suburb. The Netherlands v. Brazil game was on so we went to a place called Liquid Blue to eat, watch the match and try to sell our extra tickets for Guana v. Uruguay (long story). There was a rowdy group of South Africans/Netherlands fans next to us that bought our tickets and offered us a ride. These guys were totally fun and a little nuts. Besides feeding us free beer, they apologized for everything: the cold weather, the US not advancing, I think even our crappy accommodations in Durban. Totally funny.
It would have been such a massive pain to get to Soccer City if we hadn't met them, not to mention a total bore. As we sat in the stadium traffic they got everyone around us to cheer and smile; walking in they hugged almost everyone we passed. We bought them some beer (only Bud, what?!) and headed to our separate seats.
The game was crazy fun, Soccer City holds something like 90,000 people and I would say 89,987 were cheering for Ghana. We were actually behind the goal for the shootout, too bad it didn't fall in Ghana's favor. "It wasn't for us" was how many people responded.
