So, for a bit of background, I was in Brazil for the entirety of the 2014 World Cup, which was one of the most insane, overly stimulating, fun experiences of my life. It kind of felt like carnaval all over again, aka super crowded streets with people from all over the world dressed up and partying, except this time it was a month instead of just four days. And a lot more (sleazy) men in the streets, as I explained to reporter Loretta Chao exactly a year ago (not exactly how I wanted to end up in national news but hey now I can say I'm in the WSJ lol).
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| The very first day of the World Cup before watching Brazil vs. Croatia at my homestay |
Much to the envy of my friends and family, I had quite literally won the lottery in terms of World Cup tickets. Thanks to my friend Erin who entered me into the lottery as her guest for the Rio series back in October 2013, I won 5 tickets to the World cup games to be held in Rio: Argentina vs. Bosnia, Spain vs. Chile, France vs. Ecuador, Russia vs. Belgium, and one round of 16 game that ended up being Colombia vs. Uruguay. Then upon my own initiative I was able to buy tickets for me and my friend Kate to USA vs. Germany and a round of 16 game that I believed the US would play in (as long as they placed 2nd in their group) which by a miracle they did end up in, playing against Belgium. I ended up selling all my Rio tickets except Spain vs. Chile to fund my trip to Recife and Salvador where I saw the U.S. play, so in total I went to 3 world cup games. All of them were amazingly fun and the stadiums were beautiful and well organized. As a cherry on top I was able to get Brazilian student tickets that were EXTREMELY discounted at only 30 reais a ticket for the group stage games (which was about 12 $ at the time....).
Some memorable highlights:
Getting woken up by police helicopters escorting the Dutch national team to their hotel that was two blocks from my apartment, a week before the World Cup...Running along the beach and seeing the team Dutch team board the bus, waving to them and getting a wave back from one of the players!
FIFA Fan fest in Rio, the area where they would show the games on a giant screen on Copacabana beach. Always the epicenter of the action during the world cup, the mood there would alternate between crazy fun and just pure crazy. Think a music festival with a huge stage and music, with soccer games thrown in here and there. Me and my friends got shown dancing on the jumbotron during France versus Honduras! I mostly kept my distance from Fan Fest because it was just a little too crazy. I saw several fights almost break out on several occasions between drunk fans from different countries. During the Germany-Brazil game, I was especially glad to not be at Fan Fest...there was an "arrastão" or mass mugging at Fan Fest in which gunshots were fired into the air (oh Rio...). At one point early in the Cup, it made national news that dozens of Argentines in the street were getting pepper sprayed because thousands of them were flooding the street and blocking traffic. After the final I went running along Copa beach and there was trash everywhere, and tons of Argentines sleeping on the beach, in their cars, or even in the luggage compartments underneath buses, weary travelers who had traveled a great distance to support their team.
My favorite games:
USA vs. Ghana
This was an amazing game, a surprise win for the US and also the venue I was in was simply stunning, a hostel perched at the top of Vidigal, a pacified favela with some of the best views of Rio. We rode motorcycle taxis to the top and watched the game alongside fellow Americans while eating nachos and burgers that a Cal alum who relocated to Rio to open his Mexican food business made for us!
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| So happy that the USA won! |
Spain vs. Chile in Maracana
Almost missed this game because I thought the game was at 6 pm (11 months in Brazil yet clearly military time STILL confused me...embarrassing -___-) instead of 4pm. Me and Sarah arrived at the stadium in our red white and blue gear (neither of us had Spanish or Chilean swag but red white and blue happens to also be the colors for Chile, the country we chose to support since we wanted to see a Latin American team win in Latin America), and the area in front of the stadium was suspiciously empty, we thought it was because we were so early (this was at about 4:10 pm)... or perhaps the rain was making people late? Regardless, we were stoked to see a promotional McDonald's booth with free soft serve with absolutely NO line. Too good to be true. Then we walked around the sponsor displays and asked a woman to take our picture, and she looked at us funny and asked us what in the world we were doing out there, didn't we want to see the game? When we realized we were already almost 15 minutes late to the game, we SPRINTED to our seats just in time for the first Chilean goal---we received high fives all around from ecstatic Chilean fans who joked we were the good luck charm that made Chile score its first goal. Chile ended up winning in a spectacular upset, and we didn't miss any of the main action, but the moral of this story is to NEVER trust free ice cream when there is no line.... haha.
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| Chi-chi-chi Le-Le-Le, Viva Chile |
Northeast trip
When i left the Rio bubble with my dear friend and fellow Cal Bear Kate, this is when things got really crazy for me. First we arrived in Recife at 2 AM on the day of the US-Germany game, then crashed in my friends motel room that was close to the airport (we had booked a hostel but decided it would be much more convenient to stay close to the airport since we were arriving so late). We had initially planned to awake very early to go to the American outlaw official US fan Preparty, but we awoke to torrential downpour at 8 am. Our taxi from the airport had promised to pick us up at 9 am the morning of the game to take us to the outlaws party at a bar near the stadium, but was nowhere to be found. We heard from other people in the lobby that no taxis were taking people to the stadium because the roads were flooded throughout the city. Us stepping outside to try to buy ponchos confirmed this, as we waded through a good two feet of water to cross the street to go to Lojas Americanas (basically like a Target) only to be told they were sold out there. We then went to a pharmacy, and then to Carrefour (a huge grocery store) but everywhere we went it was sold out. In a measure of desperation we bought trash bags and turned those into makeshift ponchos. Despite leaving at 9 am, we arrived at the game exactly in time for kickoff at 12 noon, after navigating two metros, a bus, then a 1km walk to the stadium located in the middle of nowhere. The US didn't end up winning but it still felt like we won because we qualified to the next round (thanks Portugal! They beat Ghana, solidifying the US's place in the round of 16.)
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| It was so much fun meeting fellow 'murricans in the stadiums, here we are with a group from Houston. |
OK this post is going on forever so I'll wrap it up but basically long story short, after the crazy day of no sleep, torrential rains in Recife, arriving to the stadium just in time, shotgunning a beer cuz 'MURICA, watching the game, then taking hours to get home and finally arriving after sunset to our new hostel, I got a gnarly flu... I wasn't able to see Jorge & Mateus (a brazilian country duo) perform at the festas juninas of Caruaru in the interior of Pernambuco state, a small city that me and Kate specifically traveled to a couple days later in order to observe their yearly traditional festivities celebrating St. John and that are supposed to be the biggest ones in all of Brazil, basically a huge party with a huge bonfire that would have been EPIC if my health had cooperated :-(
From Caruaru we thought we could take a bus to Salvador to make our USA vs. Belgium game for the round of 16, but they were all sold out. So then we had major drama trying to figure out how to get to Salvador, it was super stressful but we got SO lucky. Basically what happened is that we took a 2 hour bus back to Recife, then in Recife there was a line of about 40 people (mostly americans!) trying to book the overnight bus from Recife to Salvador for the USA game that was happening today and that was all sold out. In a panic we even booked a flight to Maceio from Recife, Maceio is about a 3 hour drive from Salvador. The flight would have arrived in Maceio at 9 am so it was still cutting it really close since the game started at 2pm. We were still hoping for a miracle in terms of an overnight bus magically making itself available. In a stroke of crazy gringa luck, we frantically asked all the bus companies at the Recife bus terminal if they had any seats left in overnight buses going anywhere near salvador, and one company had exactly TWO seats left to Feira da Santana, a city an hour outside of Salvador. So in total we bussed from Caruaru- Recife (2 hours) then we took a bus from Recife to Feira da Santana (12 hours) then another bus to the main Feira da Santana terminal (30 minutes) then a bus from Feira da Santana to Salvador (1 hour) and then a taxi from Salvador terminal to our hostel, dropped of our bags, then a bus from near our hostel to the stadium.
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| Still smiling despite being sick and without sleep because we MADE IT TO SALVADOR ! With new Brazilian friends in the bus to the stadium. |
We ended up losing against Belgium which was sad but I was OK with it because I didn't have any more World Cup tickets anyway and I would have felt left out if team USA went on to the next round but I couldn't watch them (selfish I know, haha). Also after that crazy northeast trip scrambling to get to the games on time it was such a relief to not have to deal with that stress anymore and just relax!
The rest of our time in Salvador was pretty chill, and then I remember going back to Rio and watching the final in the comfort of my homestay in Ipanema with my close friends :-) It was so much fun, and also hilarious how the Brazilians would cheer as loud as if Brazil itself had scored whenever Germany scored against Argentina (their biggest rival).
After the World cup I spent a lot of time with my Brazilian friends and roomies, training for the Rio half-marathon, and just soaking up every last drop of Brazil I could.
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| Running the Rio half-marathon-- a "goodbye Brazil" gift to myself, couldn't have asked for a better year abroad! |
OBRIGADA BRASIL <3
QUE SAUDADES !
xoxo
M
