The excitement of the World Cup is unlike anything I’ve experienced before. The whole world has descended on South Africa for the next month. Our neighborhood restaurants and bars are full of people from all over the world here to support their teams and have a good time. It’s only been a few days since the start, but already we’ve made new friends and celebrated with old ones.

We watched the opening game, South Africa v. Mexico, from a fan park in downtown Joburg. The crowd was fantastic and the noise of the vuvzelas was simultaneously thrilling and deafening. The final score of 1-1 was a thrill for most South Africans, who were preparing themselves for defeat.

On Saturday, Gabor and I had 2 tickets to the epic USA v. England game. As expected, the excitement and enthusiasm was through the roof. Going into it I was unsure how much of a fan I would actually be since I’ve never been an exuberantly patriotic person. It took about 30 seconds to jump squarely on the bandwagon, tie an American flag around my head, and join the U-S-A chant. The USA fans seemed much more pleased with the final 1-1 score than the English, I think most of us were just thrilled that we didn’t lose. But win or lose, I have  had more fun in these first 3 days of the tournament than I ever could have expected.

Johannesburg is city with a less than stellar reputation, a city that is not often celebrated, so to see this place exploding with jubilation and pure excitement is a truly awesome feeling. I feel so lucky to be in South Africa right now to be part of this.

Waka waka!