'We still need to get ourselves some tickets'
Robert Palm has been in Johannesburg since a few months. He studies International Business and Languages in Arnhem and is doing his placement at the moment. He first wanted to do his placement in Germany, to improve his knowledge of the German language. But because he does his ‘study abroad’ (which is another part of his study besides his placement) in Argentina, he searched for his placement a country where he could speak English and some other languages. The choice was South-Africa.
International Football Village
‘Because of the growing economy, the language and of course the World Cup’, he laughs. Via his supervisor he got to the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg, to the east of Johannesburg. ‘The hotel is used for a big project: The International Football Village. This hotel expects many Germans and Argentines, so they were in need of somebody who could speak German and Spanish besides English. A perfect job for me! And the fact that the project has soccer as subject, one of my favorite hobbies.
In every room a telly
During the World Cup, the hotel uses its conference rooms to offer business persons the opportunity to bring their products or services to the notice. Or to organize meetings between these business persons. But the World Cup is taken into account, because all rooms and halls have besides food and drinks been provided with huge television-screens. Furthermore, the hotel has the International Football Village as mentioned before, with different rooms as the Bavarian Beer House, Brazilian Beach Bar, German Fan Mile and many more. The fact that people are interested in these kinds of meetings offered by the hotel became clear during the kick-off of the International Football Village in April, Robert tells. ‘Hundreds of companies were invited to be there, which resulted in a large turnout of 3500 people.’
Heebie-jeebies in our bellies
Robert notices that the World Cup is coming closer and closer. ‘You can see it in the street scenes in Johannesburg. Many South-Africans wear the shirt of the South-African team, or Bafana Bafana as the team is called here. And of course you see the vuvuzela a lot, the horn which is not appreciated by everyone. Every bill board is World Cup-related. People are still working incredibly hard to adjust infrastructure in the city. ‘But we also feel the heebie-jeebies in our bellies’, he laughs. With ‘we’ he means the four students of the Hotel and Catering school in Maastricht, whom he cooperates with for the International Football Village-project. ‘We probably will get permission to see the soccer match Holland versus Denmark. But we still need to get ourselves tickets. It’s almost too late to arrange something. I hope we will succeed. It would obviously be great to witness a match of the Dutch Team here.’
