South Afrika... Round 2!

Today was our first day in South Afrika... Before we even landed, all the stewardesses had Bafana Bafana jersey's on (South Afrikan Jersey's) and the plane was filled with people who had tickets to see the world cup! After we got through customs, it was an obvious and exciting feeling in the airport as the vuvuzelas were going and jerseys from every country were being represented. I came to South Afrika with my sister, cammi, as well as my friend Dan. Dan and I immediately went to work taking pictures with different groups of people from different countries. Chants and songs and banter on who's country was better, this was going to be a crazy time.

The culture is very different than the US's culture. As soon as we got off the plane, we heard the South Afrikan accent, all the businesses were different, the food, and the currency. Everything is totally new and exciting. I had actually lived in South Afrika for 11 months before this, but to the first time visitor, it would be a bit of a shock. In South Afrika, the food serving sizes are much smaller compared to the US. The coke is much sweeter and much less carbonated. The cars are smaller and easier on the gas. All the mileage is actually in kilometers and the gallons are in liters. Milk is sold in a orange plastic. The trunk of a car is called the boot. Houses are called flatts. Stop lights are called Robots. The pizza is terrible. HD TV just got here. The differences in speech came crashing back as as well. I heard a lot of the lingo I had learned previously. For example, when you ask "Whats up?" is actually "Howzit?" and to respond (if you are white) you say lakker or (if you are black) you would say "sharp sharp" (but it sounds like shop shop). It is balls cold and there are no heaters! The internet is bought through airtime and is very limited.

We got picked up by a couple of my friends who are brothers, Marco and Dino. Dino actually plays professionally with a PSL team (MLS) called the Platinum Stars. One cool thing that he recently got to do was play against the English National Team. He stopped one of Rooney's shots! (But also got scored on by Rooney off a sick volley and by a breakaway to Joe Cole!) We had lunch and were exhausted from the flight so we went back and just caught up and watched some footie... It is awesome being back! more to come soon... and hopefully some more thought from Dan and Cammi...