Photos from the Long Street party, Signal Hill, the City Bowl and the awesome, awesome Cape Town Stadium on the night that Cape Town welcomed the world to the 2010 FIFA World Cup Draw.
After we had watched the draw, we headed up onto Signal Hill to take a look at the Stadium where it will all be happening – and couldn’t resist a few shots of beautiful Cape Town shining beneath us.
Here’s the Flickr set for more leisurely perusal (or if you don’t have Flash installed.*ahem* iPhone).
I don’t want to come over all gushy and emotional here, but I have just been into town (more specifically the Waterfront and Green Point) and there is an unbelievable vibe in the Mother City right now. I feel so lucky to be here and be a part of it.
The combination of the start of summer, World AIDS Day and the FIFA World Cup draw has really got people into the party spirit and the Waterfront is absolutely pumping. It seems like everyone has a smile on their face and is happy to be here and that makes for a wonderful atmosphere.
There were dancing girls (and boys), Sugarsmax and Slikour from Skwatta Kamp, a giant Coca-Cola makaraba, a plethora of Zakumis, life-size foosball, huge footballs from World Cups since 1970 and a Sony-sponsored 5-a-side tournament. Even by Waterfront standards, that’s a lot going on.
I could hardly keep up and I had to go and hide in a local lab until the excess of adrenaline had left my body. Fortunately, it didn’t take long before the shaking subsided and the people stopped staring.
I was rushing around, but still managed a few shots here and there. You can find them all here. I have a feeling that this vibe is going to continue throughout the week – and hopefully onwards towards the World Cup. I’ll definitely be out and about snapping as and when I can, so don’t forget to come back and check regularly.
Some of you may be thankful to hear that there won’t be a huge amount from me here this evening. It’s been another busy day chez 6000 and I’m all on for for watching Barcelona and Real Madrid kick chunks out of each other in a short while. I love watching the big games and there’s probably none bigger than El Clássico. One day I will go to Spain and watch it live, but until that time, channel 203 will just have to suffice. If it is anything like as exciting as United’s game at Bristol City yesterday (we won 3-2, equaliser scored on 90+5 minutes, winner scored on 90+6, 10 yellow cards and a partridge in a pear tree) then I will be more than happy.
Earlier in the day, we watched a billion motorcycles ride past on the annual Cape Town Charity Toy Run, which passes close to our road every November. Alex – who is fortunate to be blessed with far too many teddy bears and cuddly stuff – donated several of his toys to the charity by giving them to the bikers as they passed by and as you can see by the photos here and here, he certainly wasn’t the only one. What an amazing effort. Also see my Toy Run 2009 Flickr Set
After my success earlier in the day with getting my daughter to sleep (despite the continuing roar of the passing motorcycles), I was entrusted with putting her to bed this evening. Things didn’t go quite as well as I had hoped and I had to switch to Plan B early on. Plan B wasn’t actually that great either and I didn’t have a Plan C. I ended up running through a few more plans that I made up as I went along but lost count somewhere around L.
That, if nothing else, explains why she is going to be watching the Spanish footy with me now. Enjoy!
With summer finally here, I made an effort to sort out the “automatic” watering system in the garden last night. “Automatic” because it actually requires you to plug in the hose. Manually.
As usual, a range of ants, bugs and small pieces of sand had crawled into many of the sprinkler heads and they were blocked. In this situation, one must remove the offending sprinkler head and try to extricate whatever is in there, usually by sucking it into your throat and choking. In the meantime, the water in the sprinkler pipe, temporarily free from any form of resistance, shoots up into the air, like some giant mutant drinking fountain.
Kids love this:
Our new fountain is a lot more fun than you could ever imagine. However, the sprinkler system is still out of action, which is not good for the plants. I have absolutely no doubt that we’ll not be fixing it again tonight. There are more pics here.
With the temperature soaring to an almost impossibly hot 34°C today, I thought I would share a quick photo from the weekend, most of which was spent cooling off in or around the pool.
I was trying to catch a picture of Alex holding the step in the pool and practicing his kicking, but even with a 1/1300s exposure, because of the sunlight on the highly reflective splash, everything was coming out overexposed.
Knocking down the brightness digitally not only made the splash appear a little more defined, it also gave me a cool effect on the vegetation beyond the pool.
I quite like it. More detail here.