A Weekend Full of Excitement...

Hello, hello! I am hoping that this will finally be the post that gets me back on track after these hectic few weeks. My apologies to all of you, who I know have been struggling tremendously without my daily updates...yeah right. Just when I thought that I was back in Cape Town and getting settled, once again, with my daily routine, I experienced an interesting turn of events this weekend. Friday night was our final pre-season match before our university league kicks off this Wednesday. We set up a game against a tough semi-professional team that we hoped would prepare us for the league kick-off.

When our coach first described our opponents as tough, I assumed that he meant that they fought hard and would be difficult to beat. Little did I know that we would be facing a group of angry, classless South Africans who would not let us go 90 minutes without putting up a fight...a real fight. Throughout the game I was getting hacked at the ankles, pulled by the shirt, and taken out from behind. All of this became quite frustrating, but was also something that I have become accustomed to here in South Africa. I managed to earn a penalty kick, as well as countless free kicks for their misbehavior, but nothing could have enabled me to predict what happened before the final whistle blew.

After I had had about enough of the dirty fouls, I gave one girl a slight nudge when she came to tackle the ball away from me. By saying slight, I may not be doing my opponent justice, but it did not even earn a foul so it could not have been that bad. I then went on to pass the ball to one of my teammates and finished my part in the play. Before I knew it the girl was sprinting at me from about 20 yards away. Just as I was turning around, she clocked me right in the side of the face and I went straight to the ground. Despite the pain, I was not on the ground for long because of the fury that built up inside of me from being hit. Who does that? After over 16 years of playing soccer, I have never actually been punched, especially in the face. Of course I was never going to retaliate physically, but I’m a little embarrassed to say that I did get in her face to scare her with a couple of choice words. All the while I tried to keep my head on straight because as cool as I think it would have been to throw my first ever punch (except to maybe my brother when we were little, sorry Kev), I tried to keep in mind that I was not complete trash and also wanted to finish the game to see if we could pull off a win.

To make a long story somewhat shorter, we ended up scoring in the last 5 minutes to tie the game, and then once more in the last 20 seconds to win it all at 3-2. The trash talking continued throughout the rest of the half, making it more of a verbal competition than a game of soccer, but it ended quickly after the final whistle blew because they fled the field immediately after. After all was said and done, I was just happy that I did exactly what my dad has always told me to do by punishing them on the scoreboard instead of with my fist or my mouth. Hopefully that is the last we will see of that team, and that the teams that we will face in the league will carry themselves with a bit more class.

         As if that was not enough action for the weekend, today on our way to the beach we hit a whole new level of “excitement.” First, let me explain the form of transportation that we were riding in. We typically take minibuses around town during the day because they are extremely cheap modes of public transportation that allow us to get from one place to the next for well under one US dollar. With these vehicles, you really get what you pay for. They are extremely sketchy vans that pack people into any room possible and play loud music as they make stops up and down the main roads shuttling people inside and out. I could get into the stories that come out of your average minibus ride but you can’t really understand them until you actually step inside for a ride, and right about now I’m sure you’d just like me to get to the point.

As we were traveling along the windy road of Chapman’s Peak, which has the beach along one side and the mountains on the other, we reached a point where each person had to pay one extra rand (about 14 cents) in order to make it to the next stop. Unfortunately, and much to our driver’s dismay, a couple in the front did not have the extra rand to make it. So our driver’s solution was to stop right in the middle of the windy road to let them out. Just as the man in the couple was begging him not to stop because it would cause an accident, a range rover slammed us from behind and forced us into the side of the mountain alongside the road.

As a result of the two moments of impact, the back windshield fell in on my friends and I (who were in the last two rows of the van) and our belongings went flying. Thankfully, we all managed to collect our bearings and escape relatively unscathed. Aside from some headaches, sore necks, and whiplash, there was not much damage done to the passengers of either car. Although, this being my first real accident, I was in quite a bit of shock and still remain pretty startled as a result of today’s events.

Anyway, we gave our story to the police, exchanged our information with the medical aids, and took a nice long walk to the beach in order to avoid riding in another bus for a while. In the end, we splurged for a real taxi home and sat to calm ourselves down by watching Disney movies for the remainder of the night. As much as I would love to finally dive into my exciting, happier stories from break, I am pretty beat up from the weekend and looking forward to a good night’s sleep. So please stayed tuned because blogs and pictures about break will be up soon! Take care!