Back to PE

The rest of time you're missing via flashback can be summed up as follows: we got back to Nairobi, I was still really sick, we got to go experience the Kenyan medical system, I got diagnosed with swine flu, we had a really interesting plane ride to Jburg via Ethiopia, and we saw an Argentina game and the US-Slovenia game, which were both INCREDIBLE. You'll have to get all those stories live.

This week we returned to PE by another 17 hour bus ride and are staying in our buddy Bright's hostel again. The weather has been phenomenal and we've been enjoying the coastal town. It's incredibly cheap -- food is cheap, taxis are cheap, so that's been a nice change from Joburg.

We hit the local casino, which was my first ever casino adventure. It was also incredibly cheap (roulette table minimum bets were like 60 cents, blackjack was like a dollar, beers were two dollars), so that was great. I didn't imagine that I was going to have such a good time, but it was actually really really fun. And for a couple of hours of entertainment, I think we were down a total of about $5 (hit a nice run on the blackjack tables). We got yelled at for taking pictures (oops? We didn't realize it was a real casino), but other than that, made it out unscathed.

We spent the next day walking around, admiring the beach. We ended up striking up conversation with a South African at a bar who was the driver for a bunch of UK sports reporters. He invited us along to hang out for the rest of the night, so we did, which was an absolute riot. Brian and I have a long running joke this trip of how exhausting it must be to talk with a British accent the entire time and I maybe shared that with the ol' blokes. I'm pretty sure they thought it was mostly funny and only a little insulting.

Yesterday we had tickets to the Brazil-Netherlands game that we tried in vain to sell (we weren't able to move our bus to get to Cape Town in time for the Argentina game today, but were hoping to make some money back to have to spend on semis tickets). Unfortunately, seeing two of the greatest soccer teams in the world wasn't that exciting for most residents of Port Elizabeth and we decided to go to the game ourselves instead of take the measly $10 we were offered for tickets ($200 a piece was face value -- some Mexican told us that if this game was played anywhere else in the world, even on the friendlies level, we'd be able to make $1000 a piece on those tickets. Not so in Africa...). It turned out to be a great decision because it was a really exciting game.

Last night we went to the Fan Fast to watch the Uruguay-Ghana game, Africa's last chance in this Cup. There were thousands of people there, all enthusiastically cheering for Ghana, so it was a pretty wild atmosphere. The game was absolutely INSANE -- if you didn't see it, you should probably catch the replay today. Where probably = definitely.

We're gonna head back to the Fan Fest this afternoon for the Argentina-Germany game (should be another good one), and then we get on the bus headed to Cape Town tonight, arriving tomorrow morning to savor a full day of celebrating American Independence. I'm just hoping we can find some firecrackers somewhere....