Tuesday 2 March 2010

National fly your flag day

Today is National Fly your flag day. The kids are painting flags at school, blowing Vuvuzelas (a huge horn) and wearing Bafana Bafana (our soccer team) shirts. What am I doing? Blogging of course. But actually , it is all about this:

100 days from today will be the kick - off for the 2010 Fifa Soccer World cup.

I am not a soccer fan, and I am not really positive about all this as the disruption to our lives seem more than the positive about making money out of this, but exciting it certainly is. I am dreading the higher restaurant prices, the traffic chaos bound to follow and the extreme flight prices is ridiculous. We just paid a fortune to go to Port Elizabeth in April - not even a world cup month! And Bafana Bafana will probably loose every single match .But enough with the negative, lets get behind our country. Apparently it is in terms of spectators, the biggest sporting event in the world (yes, bigger than the Olympics).

What I do find interesting are the construction that took place. Many beautiful stadiums were build (my favorite being the Nelson Mandela one in Port Elizabeth) and this: the big ball above is towering above our city, hosts to Germany and Argentina amongst others. It is fixed to a telele communication tower and is  the biggest soccer ball in the world (and so registered with the Guiness book of records) It weighs 50 tons and is 24 meters (26 yards) in diameter. It is close to our office, and we can see it towering above the city. A reminder that something big is happening. All eyes on South Africa! May we rise to the occasion.

6 comments:

  1. The stadiums are amazing you're right. I don't even have a soccer shirt to wear, I suppose I should make an effort and at least get them for the kids

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  2. Huh...I had no idea...my kids are celebrating Dr. Seuss this week:-)

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  3. Yup the stadium in PE is beautiful...I just don't think the city is going to be able to afford it's upkeep and that is sad.

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  4. I had no idea either.

    Love how lush your stadium looks. So pretty :)

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  5. Hmm not much of a soccer fan myself but have to agree the stadiums are really looking fab.

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  6. Logan and I drove past that tower the other day!

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