First and foremost, the most exciting of the news, PROGRESS!!! The samples of the fall collection have arrived, Ive only seen it in pictures, but those in Göttingen say that the jackets look great. Here is just one of them, of which we have received pictures:
In other news, we have recently changed shipping company, from DHL to DPD. There are several reasons for this, and you can read all the details here. Briefly summarized though: cheaper shipping for almost everybody, faster shipping inside Europe, and automatic shipping confirmation with tracking number sent per email…so that you all bother us less often with „where is my order? has it been sent?“ emails!
Very few things on this Earth can make me feel bad about being in South Africa for the World Cup, but this is definitely one of them. It was bad enough to begin with, but seeing BFM on stage with all (or at least most) of its past members, even including my good friend Victor, great and glorious original guitarist of BFM who I havent seen in almost 10 years, flown in from Mexico just for the show was too much.
It all began innocently enough. While on „safari“ in Kruger National Park, the other person in the car announces that he needs to go to the bathroom. It being strictly forbidden to exit your vehicle in the park, I drive to the nearest visitor center and park the car in the parking area. We both exit the car and walk the 20 meters to the entrance. We find it locked, and not a person anywhere in sight. We turn around to see at least two hyenas, one directly on the footpath between us and our car, and the other in the shrubs just off to the side.
We being city people whose idea of „wildlife“ consists of seeing a large dog and confusing it for a horse, we had no idea how aggressive this animal is or isnt, but didnt particularly want to find out by using our bodies as experimenting grounds. Plus, we knew from what we learned during our nighttime guided safari the night before that dusk is when animals are most active and search for food…and it was precisely this time of day and these things were taking a rather exaggerated interest in us.
Instinctively I proceeded to lifting and pushing my, much smaller, partner through the small opening in the fence to safety, and quickly attempted to get myself to safety the same way. This was an approximately 50 cm wide opening, located horizontally at about two meters height above the ground, formed by the space between the top of the metal fence, and the beginning of the cement roof.
After a few acrobatic moves which a person with an ankle injury such as mine can only perform under the influence of extremely high doses of adrenaline, it quickly became clear that I was simply too thick to pass throught the opening, regardless of how much I willed myself through. Words cant convey how much I was regretting every single bite of junk food Id consumed the last few years of my life as I thought that I was going to either die or be mauled by a wild animal because of it. Fortunately, I realized that not even my head fit through, so I wouldnt have fi tregardless of how skinny I was. I then proceeded to rule out entrance through the bathroom windows (extremely small) or climbing up to the roof (impossible).
Almost 4 am, still awake, unable to sleep due to pre-game excitement (as usual), and have to be waking up in about 5 hours. We took it easy today, but its been a pretty agitated day in Pretoria with the deportations, raids, and so forth.
For those who dont speak Spanish, the following video is interesting just to see all the banners, flags, etc. of the different Argentine teams in Pretoria. If you do speak spanish, its interesting because they interview some people from Hinchadas Unidas Argentinas who say some pretty logical things about why they are being monitored, harassed, and deported in South Africa. Its then followed by an interview with a police investigator who states, among other things, that the amount of Argentine barras at this World Cup is not particularly higher than in 1998 or 2006 (I respectfully disagree). Otherwise…Argentine is Nr. 1 in the World Cup deportation table!
(And they finally showed the „disturbances“ that led to the 6 30 am police raid and subsequent deportations, and absolute joke. See for yourselves: http://www.tn.com.ar/2010/06/16/deportes/02202880.html )
The flight of the Argentine national team to South Africa. Barrabravas included…
Less serious…Argentine fan cleaning windshields to finance his South Africa stay:
Today the South African cops arrested and deported a further 17 Argentine barrabravas. Apparently, this was for „misbehaving“ during the first game. Interestingly enough, none of the newspapers goes into any further details at all regarding what this „misbehaving“ may have been.
You can read the original article here.
In lighter news, today we spent spreading Latin American magic and talent in a game of street futbol with the local kids in Soweto! Sorry, no pictures for the public.
PS At the entrance to the, very appropriately named, „The Shack“ bar in Soweto…
