FORZA ITALIA's Travelblog: NYC - Joburg

oh man...what a ride. 9pm departure from jfk on wednesday, june 23rd...12pm arrival local time friday, june 25th...south africa is only 6 hours in front of EST, so you must be wondering...why so long? why was my trip a total transit time of 31 hours? because we had a 15 hour wait in madrid..hmm. this was the one time in my life i wanted to be american or just any nationality where you don't need a visa....couldn't leave the airport due to my indian passport...couldn't even leave the terminal (there were 4 terminals and we landed in terminal 4, the smallest one)....and the airport really sucked...i mean....worse than jfk if that's possible...nothing to do...a total of 3 restaurants to choose from (slice of pizza for 5 euros anyone? compare that to $1 double cheeseburger...what what....and we ask ourselves why we are fat?)...

but hey, at least i would be able to watch the soccer games in the airport because it's the world cup, and i was in madrid, SPAIN...rite? nothing could go wrong there, rite?....if you're following my general tone/mood of how things have gone so far, you may be able to take a guess as to what follows....

THE 2 TVS THEY HAD FOR PUBLIC VIEWING WERE 24 HOUR NEWS CHANNELS AND YOU COULD NOT CHANGE THE CHANNEL!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! IN SPAIN? WHY? WHY?

so imagine me sitting in madrid, having a bunch of fans laugh and make fun of me for my maldini jersey, which i was wearing proudly cuz i was confident Italy would qualify (more on that later...) and being in a vacuum.

but i didnt give up...i knew there had to be someway of watching something...so i went up to the VIP lounge (obviously only reserved for first/business class ppl) and asked them kindly if I could just sit there for 2 hours and watch the games...they said no...i said if there was anyway i could pay them just to watch the matches and i would leave immediately..i wouldnt even take any food, drinks, or any of the other amenities they provided...they said no (i wonder if I didn't have my milan jersey on whether the outcome could have been different because i've come to realize more and more a LOT of ppl hate italy...the reason mainly has been that italians are divers....yes that is true..but south americans invented it and then brought it across the european continent...but r u telling me other nationalities don't dive??? even gerrard, rooney, kaka have succumbed to the most pathetic of dives...anyway, more on that later)

so after much frustration and scourging the airport, i found a very uncomfortable loophole. there was a specific point you had to be outside the VIP room at a corner, where the glass walls were see through (most of the glass on these walls had been lacquered and coated so you couldn't see through it)...but i found a small crack, and this is the one time lady luck smiled down on me....through that crack, you could see the entire TV...that was all you could see, the 42inch TV...had to sit uncomfortably for 90 minutes to watch the denmark-japan game in this hidden corner...if you had seen me (i actually wish someone took a picture), you would be laughing...thankfully keisuke honda made it worthwhile...milan, pick him up.

unfortunately they didn't show the italy game cuz local programming there is shiite....ive come to realize not to ask logical questions because i will often get an illogical answer...guess that's real life...i found out about the italy result from some other dejected italian fans in the madrid airport...oh well...the guy who collected my boarding pass right before i was about to board the plane patted me on the back and said..."in 4 years time".....i told him, at least there was 4 years ago....cuz in reality don't anticipate italy winning anything anytime soon....

will talk more about joburg soon....about to watch brazil-portugal....enjoy