After Holland beat Brazil, I was determined to get up to the Netherlands to watch their semi-final game and take in more World Cup flavor. Unfortunately, I woke up so tired in the morning that I decided I would not take the journey up there and rather just watch the game at the big screen in Gent, so I did not bring a change of clothes (of course to wear something orange!). But, as the day went on the thought of watching the game and my "when in Rome" mentality kicked back in. I decided to go to Breda which is a smaller but very nice Dutch town not too far across the border, only about an hour and fifteen minutes away. I arrived about an hour before the game and the amount of people covered in all different kinds of orange outfits were flocking to the city center. As soon as I got out of my car I could hear the vuvuzelas (they are so loud, can't imagine a stadium full of them), and people singing songs. It was a neat and different atmosphere because the entire city center / main square was packed full of people. But, the difference of this main square was that there was a huge church in the middle, so it was not completely open like most others in Belgium. There were big screens set up but every bar in the city center had regular big screen TVs and speakers setup with a bunch of chairs outside, so it was really one big party comprised of 15-20 smaller parties.
After Holland went up with an early 1-0 lead, the place erupted and it was quite a scene. Then everyone was nervous again once Uruguay tied it up but the back to back goals started the party for Holland. Check out a couple of the pics.
Captions: Top - Before the game
Middle - After they took a 1-0 lead
Bottom - City of Breda
No comments:
Post a Comment