We cross into South Africa today and there's a lot of security but everyone is super friendly and in a excellent mood even if the weather is a little nippy. The roads are excellent and we cruise into Polokwane. There's traffic with French and Mexican fans all over. Polokwane is a small town but very lively.
We miss watching both early games although we were able to catch some of the matches on the radio, but we're going to watch our first game live today. We get our tickets, buy gloves, and look for vuvuzelas. We get to our room and get ready for the big night.
And what a night it is!!!! Good lord, if you love the beautiful game, you must make it to a World Cup game some time in your life. We weren't quite prepared for such a beautiful thing. We had some anxiety getting to the stadium and trying not to lose each other in the crowded mania. But, once we settled into our seats, you couldn't knock the smiles from our faces. The stadium is beautiful and the crowd was in a such a party mode with both French and Mexican fans mingling freely. Not to mention the South Africans in attendance that we recruited to join the Mexican support. Man, there's really nothing like being at the stadium and looking around to see the rainbow of people. The songs, the dancing, the being happy are all completely too difficult to describe, I hope the videos upload so you can see for yourselves. The Mexicans outnumbered the French, we heard a statistic that we populated the 35,000 crowd with 30,000 Mexico supporters. The incredible party mood in the stadium only got better as the game went on.
If you hadn't figured it out already, Mexicans know how to party- but the celebration after the goals was purely Mexican-style. When we scored beer went flying everywhere, we were seriously showered by beer and song and cheers of "ME-Xi-CO! ME-Xi-CO! ME-Xi-CO!" It was sooooo fun. At times I would forget that we were in South Africa with so many Mexicans around, but then I'd look around and see the South Africans joining in the chants, or.... completely disturbed by being showered with beer and choosing to leave. Not everyone can handle Mexicans. After the game the party continues with lots of dancing and chanting. The French supporters were pissed off with the poor play of their team, but were cordial enough to talk about it.
After such an amazing night, we have decided to make a real effort to get tickets to more games, we're addicted. We'll keep you posted. Signing off after a beautiful night.
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