Final notes from South Africa

... The one thing we did do in Joburg was go to Sandton mall for some last minute souvenir shopping and a new suitcase to carry it in. Adam and I managed with a single backpack for the whole trip, but we were struggling by the end, so we bought a bag and with a sigh of relief we hit the fifa shop and some non-fifa approved world cup souvenir shops and then some.

We are staying near the airport, as I mentioned. What I didn't mention is that we are staying in a casino complex. I have never seen anything like it, but then I have spent about 2 hours in casinos in my entire life. It is a massive complex with three hotels, convention centre, casino and restaurants - no shopping centre which I would have expected, but I guess that distracts from gambling - and a childcare centre open until 5am and a "feeder casino" i.e. the children's games centre, but with plenty of gambling for kids in the form of "deal or no deal" and various forms of roulette, with tickets as the prize. We are assured that those games are available in Australia too. The restaurant strip was also scary with the fake outside street set up, under a roof painted like a blue sky, but always kept at low light to make you feel like it is night and therefore encourage gambling. Also the rooms are good but have no natural lights, have poor entertainment options and no mini bar... all part of the conspiracy.

We went to see Schucks Tshabala's South Africa guide (or something). Big tip: don't go. We think it was a scam. Or a cruel joke.

The final was great, but a very long day. We left here around 2pm, got a taxi to the stadium, and then just hung around in the sea of orange for 3 or so hours, avoiding the horrible horrible american beer, and soaking up the atmosphere. By this stage of the competition a shirt and scarf doesn't really indicate a true fan, they are wearing elaborate costumes. For the dutch it was fluorescent orange overalls, st nick outfits, orange fur and orange raver outfits. For the spanish it involved men in flamenco dresses. Adam and I were wearing netherlands shirts and scarf, nothing elaborate. But there were plenty of people supporting other countries equally dressed up - some japanese samurai's, mexican's in sombreros, english with their flags, etc - and one guy dressed up as a referee with novelty oversize cards which got a good work out whenever a card was handed out on the pitch.

It was a fun night, with good football, terrible finishing, what appeared to be pretty average refereeing (although there is the suggestion that it wasn't as bad as it looked to us), and a big party atmosphere - the dutch near us had a full brass band. I would have preferred a stunner goal to settle it, rather than an off-the-back-of-bad-refereeing-decision goal. With the extra time, the traffic getting out of there and the distance to the hotel, we eventually got back to the hotel after 1am.

Overall it has been a great trip. The football side was fun. The refereeing was poor. Things have gone pretty smoothly, but we have had to get used to Africa time. People were generally friendly but nothing special. White Afrikaners' first comment was always about the rugby once they knew we were Australian, despite the fact we are clearly there for the football. And every South African has a brother/sister/aunt/uncle/etc living in Australia, mostly in Melbourne surprisingly.

A final point: if you are planning to come to ZA, bring your own cold and flu medicine. We all had a cold at various times - I am still phlegmy, but I was the last to get it - and the options for cold and flu meds were very limited with no day/night ones. But there are aisles and aisles of homeopathic remedies.