On my own in Cape Town

Cape Town, 08/07/2010 23.45 in the “afternoon”.
This will be a story in English because now I’m “alone” in RSA. But I met some wonderfull people in a restaurant nearby our hotel and I said them they could look at our weblog as well. But because of them I have to write something in English so they can also understand a bit of our blog.
At 6 p.m. I took Bernard to the airport where we were supposed to take our plane back home to Holland. We left our rented car at the place of the Budget company. We were looking friendly( so I was told later) and we started a conversation with a man who took our keys. After explaining I was going to bring my brother in law to the airplain he asked me how I was going back to Cape Town. I told him I was thinking of taking a cab back. He said to me he wasn’t allowed to say this but he did it anyway. You can drive back with your car to your hotel and I will drive with you and take the car back to the airport. So I went with Bernard to the departure hall and said goodbye to him. A strange moment, because we were together almost all of the time during the last 17 days…
After saying goodbye I went back to our rented car and the man I spoke with went back with me to our hotel. I had to drive and it went very well because he said to me I drove like a real South African, believe it or not.
I was back at the hotel within an hour after leaving Bernard at the airport. Then it was time for a little to eat so I asked Karen where to find a nice restaurant. She told me there was a good restaurant nearby called Brad’s Grill. She didn’t say too much. As soon as I got in everything was okay. I was ordered to wait a minute and then they would find me a place to sit. I was sitting opposite to the door so I could see everybody coming in and a lot of people did. Because I was wearing orange clothes people paid attention to me. I had quite some conversation in a short time. People were telling me how much they would like the Dutch to win the tournament, did I have a ticket etc…
Then some people invited me to sit at their table and have my dinner there. They had already eaten but I was told to sit down by them and it was a lot of fun. One of them, Dean, lives in Joburg and offered me to stay with him on Sunday. I told him I would fly back to Cape Town because there was no hotel vacancy in Joburg etc. Hopefully I will drink a couple of beers after the match and the plain is already leaving ad 7.10 in the morning so there will be not much time to sleep, but it’s very nice when a person who you have just met an hour offers you a place to sleep. With Dean were two other nice people Kevin Derman and Shana Kay, CEO and Managing Director of Infointeg, I know so well because I got their cards. Very nice people.
Before I forget, the food was excellent. I heard from a lot of people that if you want to eat a good steak at the grill you have to be at Brad’s grill. I couldn’t agree more to that. I also had the opportunity to meet Brad, he is a wonderfull person who runs his restaurant for 34 years already. He told me he is going to visit Belgium and especially Brugge next year. So I gave him my phonenumber and emailadres and also our weblog and we talked about meeting next year. I’m looking forward to it. It would be nice to do something back to the people who are good to you here in South Afrika. I also got a big flag from him of South Africa. When I went out of the restaurant everybody gave me a big applause and Holland had to win and so on. That was very good for me, I don’t think they applauded for me just because I was leaving…
I also met several other people of whom I don’t know the names anymore. I’m very sorry about that but I gave them the name of our webblog so they can make a reaction (called reactie in Dutch) to let me know “all about them”. One of the persons I met was Geoff Pigott who gave me his telephone number so that’s why I can recall his name. He was on a table with a lot of other nice people, including his very nice and handsome niece who said she was living nearby. I’m going to look around very good the next few days that I’m here.
I also met some people from Holland, they told me they were already here from 1970. I know why they stay here because it’s very good to be in South Africa.
I felt very good with all these people and forgot that I came in alone.
It was another great experience in a very friendly and warm country.
It’s very understandable that they say when you have come to South Africa once you will come another time. I agree to that, it’s absolutely no penalty (what about the football) to be here.
So I would like to thank all the people who we met the last couple of weeks and were so good to us.
Thank you very much!!
So now it’s already 0.45, time to get to sleep.
Have a good night!
Greetings from JoHANnes(burg) Verhaegen
(Johannesburg, what’s in a name, I have it in my name, that should be a good sign for Sunday….)
09-07-2010 10.45 a.m.
Goodmorning to everybody.
What a wonderful experience it was yesterday. This morning I told Karen she sent me to the right address and told her the story I wrote down. She was pleased that it went on so well.
After another champions breakfast I have been reading the morning papers. The most of the articles are about the good football Spain was playing against Germany. They compared the teams who are in the final now. Both with opportunity to win for the first time. We are the outsider, that’s nice.
But all the people I have been speaking lately say the Dutch are going to win. I hope they are right.
The last thing I am going to do is import two fotos that have been taken yesterday evening and sent them to my sun to set them on the blog. On the place where I am now I can’t put anything on my blog. Only by writing it in a reaction.