World Cup--Ayoba, Befana, Befana

June 11, 2010

After I posted last night, Davis and I discussed how Erin would have filled out her bracket. She always loved picking the horses at the races in Ruidoso, based primarily on how perky the horses' ears looked and how much affection they showed for their jockey and trainer. Since we could not judge about the World Cup players' ear perkiness nor their affection towards their coaches, we had to come up with plan B. We decided she would pick based on color, giving the nod to the team with green in their jerseys or national flags. If both teams or neither team sported green we scored them as a tie.

Guess how we all did?

As you recall, Davis and I predicted wins for Mexico (based primarily on international ranking--top 20 for Mexico, 83rd for South Africa). South Africa struck first with a brilliant goal, and Mexico evened it with about ten minutes left. Both South Africa and Mexico belong to the green club, giving Erin the point for the prediction (how sweet is that?) and keeping Davis and I waiting for France to beat Uruguay so we can even the score. Here's the set up at our hotel as we wait:

We had high hopes for our trip to Pilanesburg National Park today, and it turned out even better than any of us expected. I won't bore you with the list of thirty-eight different species of animals and birds we saw (most of them quite close up). Davis will work on uploading and editing our photographs, and I will pick a couple of great shots to add here later (Why he didn't think he needed his own computer on this trip so we could work simultaneously rather than sequentially is a mystery I am still working through).

I will say that I have expanded my life list of birds considerably, including a scarlet breasted shrike that practically walked right up to us. I will also say that Walter and Davis were incredibly more competent charging the flat tyre (SA spelling) than our tour guide was. I have to say I was a wee bit uncomfortable breaking the number one rule of the park: NEVER GET OUT OF YOUR CAR. I kept replaying Jurassic Park in my mind, trying to remember the series of small, bad decisions that got everyone in so much trouble with the velociraptors. Still, I also remembered my mothers rule: ALWAYS GET OUT OF THE CAR IF SOMEONE IS CHANGING A FLAT. Mom trumped the park ranger.

Tomorrow is our first live match. The tour will pick us up at noon for an 8:30 kick off. No one seems to know what will happen in between.

Here are tomorrow's matches and predictions:

Vickie:

USA 2-England 2

South Korea 2-Greece 1

Argentina 2-Nigeria 0

Davis:

USA 1-England 2

South Korea 0-Greece 0

Argentina 2-Nigeria 0

Erin picks a win for the US, a tied for Greece and South Korea, and a win for Nigeria. Maybe I can catch up tomorrow.

Something that made me say hmmmm on this trip? When we got to Dubai, we caught a transport to our overnight hotel. A young woman (early twenties) happened to sit next to me. She just graduated with a masters in English from Texas A&M and was waiting to hear if she would have a teaching position at Blinn in the fall, besides the Buengers she was the only other American on the bus.