{"id":802,"date":"2010-02-19T11:06:44","date_gmt":"2010-02-19T11:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/?p=802"},"modified":"2020-10-26T14:15:38","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T14:15:38","slug":"farewell-europe-hello-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/blog\/2010\/02\/19\/farewell-europe-hello-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Farewell Europe, hello Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>The ferry from Algeciras led us to Ceuta. The swell was huge and the crossing much slower than usual. As we made our way from Europe to Africa we left Gibraltar trailing behind us and I couldn&#8217;t help but contemplate the time to come.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Sure, the worries were there: will I have enough dosh? Will I get sick? Will I lose The Ball? What will I do if my passport or bank cards get stolen?<\/p>\n<div class=\"captioned_image alignnone\" style=\"width: 640px\"><span id=\"attachment_803\"  class=\"wp-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_gib_andrew.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-803 size-full\" title=\"Andrew passes Gibraltar\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_gib_andrew.jpg\" alt=\"Andrew passes Gibraltar\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_gib_andrew.jpg 640w, https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_gib_andrew-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_gib_andrew-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_gib_andrew-200x150.jpg 200w, https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_gib_andrew-240x180.jpg 240w, https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_gib_andrew-320x240.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/span><small class=\"wp-caption-text\">Andrew passes Gibraltar<\/small><\/div>\n<p>But the positive visualisations of Africa outshone the negative thoughts. I was glad to be leaving Europe and entering Africa. Winter in Europe is not the ideal place for random football encounters. Nor for street football. People in Western Europe might just be more interested in the thousands of other leisure options they have. The real journey is about to begin. I am expecting that much more football waits us in Africa.<\/p>\n<p><em>Let The Ball roll.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ferry from Algeciras led us to Ceuta. The swell was huge and the crossing much slower than usual. As we made our way from Europe to Africa we left Gibraltar trailing behind us and I couldn&#8217;t help but contemplate the time to come. Sure, the worries were there: will I have enough dosh? Will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[207,18,232],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-morocco-countries","category-the-ball","category-the-journey"],"geo":{"latitude":35.88237380000000342761268257163465023040771484375,"longitude":-5.32562259999999998427711034310050308704376220703125,"description":null},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2010\/02\/sp_gib_andrew.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3434,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802\/revisions\/3434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}