Nossa Copa - Our World Cup: Fans

"Esta fiesta, fiesta de las piernas que la juegan y los ojos que la miran, es mucho más que el gran negocio de los señores que la dirigen desde Suiza. El más popular de los deportes quiere servir al pueblo que lo practica. La violencia de la policía no podrá apagar ese fuego."

"The fiesta of soccer, a feast for the legs that play and the eyes that watch, is much more than a big business run by overlords from Switzerland. The most popular sport in the world wants to serve the people who embrace it. That is a fire police violence will never put out."

-Eduardo Galeano

Fan Fest, Salvador

Opening Match - Fan Fest in Salvador

Post match in the streets, Vila Madalena, São Paulo

Costa Rica vs Uruguay

Airport in Brasilia

Wee hours of the morning, Airport in Fortaleza

Post match street party in Vila Madalena, São Paulo

Nossa Copa - Our World Cup: Rivalries

I noticed during the Uruguay - Costa Rica match that almost all of the Brasilians in the stadium were passionately rooting for Costa Rica. "Why is everyone rooting for Costa Rica?" was a question that I posed to several surrounding fans. "Because they're playing Uruguay," was the common response. "Uruguay is close to Argentina, plus they beat us once...." was the rest of the response. It's true that Uruguay is close to Argentina, but the match that they're referring to took place in the final group stage at Maracana stadium in 1950.

"Wouldn't it be great to have a final in this World Cup with two South American teams?" I asked Luis, a friend we met up with in Brasília. The pupils in his eyes turned to black stone as looked at me sideways, like I was seriously ill. "Nooo, nooo...." he said, shaking his head and physically backing away from me. "Imagine a final with Brasil and Argentina. If Argentina were to win...and on Brasilian soil. That. Would. Be. Tragic. That would be an absolute tragedy."

Luis, Brasília

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Nossa Copa - Our World Cup: No Plan B

We happened to fly from Brasília to São Paulo on a day when Brasil was playing. Even though we arrived 2 hours before matc time, I had a feeling that we might have a difficult time getting ourselves into the city from the airport. We stood in an overcrowded taxi line for about an hour and 45 minutes before finally getting into a taxi. We were trying to catch the match on television and even though we missed the first half, we could hear the game echoing from the streets as we drove. Everything closes here when the national team plays. Many businesses will shut down for the entire day. You will be hard pressed to buy milk on a day when Brasil is on the pitch.

Neighborhood supermarket schedule

"You kind of can't choose not to participate in the World Cup.  Everything that is not a bar is closed. Everyone is roasting dead animals and getting drunk.  There really is no Plan B for Brasilians who are not into futebol.  Even Christmas has a Plan B, for Atheists, Jews and disenchanted Christians.  The World Cup has no Plan B."

Alissa, São Paulo

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Nossa Copa - Our World Cup: "Anonymous" and Alfredo

"The World Cup? Yes, it's great for Brasil! It's great because in two weeks we will lose, then the protests will start up again. We'll break things and then vote Dilma out...."

"Anonymous", São Paulo

"The World Cup? Ok, how about the hospitals here do not have adequate resources. The land here is very good, but the people have gone bad. Everyone's like a thief...."

Alfredo, São Paulo

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Nossa Copa - Our World Cup: The Record Store

"The World Cup is not good for Brasil, but it's not FIFA's fault. Brasil is corrupt! It's an easy place for people to come in and do bad things..."

Neighborhood record store, São Paulo

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Nossa Copa - Our World Cup

"Sure it's good for the hotels, for the hospitality industry, but even that will only be a benefit for a short time, for just over a month. We need investment in things like schools, hospitals, transportation and many other things..."

Claudiana & Marildo, Fortaleza

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Salvador tem dendê...

It's day 6 of the World Cup and I've already witnessed a couple things that I never imagined were possible:

1) Buying a same day ticket to São Paulo at a decent price after being issued invalid tickets (full refund in process)

2) Costa Rica beating Uruguay 3-1

3) Being threatened with a knife and managing to just walk away with nothing taken and no one hurt

4) Did I mention that Costa Rica beat Uruguay 3-1?

In the moments between these mini miracles, there was food. My favorite food place is Salvador, where the air carries a fragrance of palm oil and where most of the time lunch is a synonym for heaven in my mouth.

Pasteis

 Carne do sol fumeiro

Escondidinho de frango

Mingao e cafe com leite xxx

Moqueca de peixe

Vatapá com arroz

Pina, she made the best moqueca de peixe (above) that I've ever eaten:

Acarajé!!!

Caipirinha

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Uruguay vs Costa Rica

It must have been at least 2 miles from the stadium when the fan bus rolled to its final stop. We set out on foot towards the direction of Fortaleza's Arena Castelão. It what was an odd sort of pilgrimage with thousands of other fans, a pilgrimage loosely accompanied by a military police escort and sporadic forro bands. I found out later after the match that the fan bus drop points had been previously orchestrated with the municipal government during last year's Confederations Cup in attempts to avert a transportation strike.

On the pitch, no one expected Costa Rica (ranked 28th) to win against Uruguay (ranked 7th) this afternoon. Not only did they win, they won 3 -1. The best part about this brilliant "upset" today was that it further proves that sometimes you just have the better game and stats can be as relevant as rain coats in Qatar.

Costa Rica - their fans were pretty awesome as well!

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Opening Match

We watched the opening match from the fan fest in Salvador, which was set up a few blocks from where we we're staying. Here are a few pics from last night:

The crowds.....

There's quite a strong presence of military police almost everywhere you go. These guys were watching the crowd and the jumbo-tron in equal measure.....

  

 Neymar's penalty kick.....

...and of course, a trio electrico!! 

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Booking Flights: A Cautionary Tale

I always try to book flights directly from the airlines whenever possible, but in our somewhat last minute arrangements to attend the World Cup, we had flights booked through Travelocity from San Francisco, CA to São Paulo, Brasil. Our original flight was from SFO to São Paulo with layovers in Miami and Manaus. As is customary, I called the airlines to select and confirm our seats 2 weeks before leaving and was surprised to find out that the route had been changed, that we now had layovers in Miami and Orlando. TAM airlines suggested that I call Travelocity to have them issue tickets, explaining that the tickets for the re-routing hadn't been issued. I hung up with TAM, called Travelocity and was told that everything was fine with the issuing of the re-routed tickets.

Imagine the horror when we arrived at the check in counter at SFO to find that neither TAM Airlines or American Airlines would honor the tickets that Travelocity issued. Both airlines indicated that on April 19th Travelocity had re-routed our tickets, but did not issue valid tickets for the change. We spent several hours on the phone on hold in the airport with Travelocity's customer service. We were even hung up on several times. There was really no accountability or ownership of the issue whatsoever. The American Airlines agent was able to issue us a boarding pass to Miami, only because that portion of the itinerary hadn't changed. We made a quick decision to try to get to Miami, in the hopes that Travelocity could fix the rest of our itinerary during our red eye flight. In the back of my mind I was thinking if we could get to Miami, as a last resort we could at least try to get on one of the flights to São Paulo that leave almost every hour.

We arrived in Miami at 5:00am local time and proceeded to spend hours on hold with Travelocity as we missed our connecting flights because we weren't allowed boarding passes due to the invalid issuing of the tickets. With both of our mobiles plugged into the wall, both on hold with Travelocity, my partner and I looked at each other in delirious expressions of exhaustion. "What are we going to do? WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO??!!!" we were both asking each other. I put my mobile on speaker so that I could start looking up same day tickets from Miami to São Paulo. Within an hour, we were running to catch a flight for tickets that we'd just purchased moments before. The doors had already closed, but we were fortunate enough that they let us on. We made it to São Paulo by the skin of our teeth and were only about an hour later than our "invalid' itinerary.

Since arriving in Brasil, we've been communicating with Travelocity via Skype credit regarding an acceptable resolution. This week their corporate customer service has agreed to provide us with a full refund. It has been quite a nightmare. If we didn't make it to Miami, we may not have made it here at all.

All this to say, I have a couple of travel recommendations from this week:

• MAC Zoom Waterfast lash mascara - highly recommend. It's really water proof and works great if you find yourself sobbing in an airport.

• Travelocity - not so much.

As a cautionary tale, always book directly through the airline whenever possible. Perhaps friends shouldn't let friends use Travelocity.

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A bit of Street Art in São Paulo

We took a taxi into the city from Guarulhos International airport, as we arrived in São Paulo on the 2nd day of a metro strike. In the days before our departure, we endured a transportation "sick out" in San Francisco, so I had just become accustomed to the slower rhythm of moving from Point A from Point B.

Sometimes something like a transportation strike enables you to slow down and to take notice of your surroundings. I took my friend's dog Megy, also known as "Megy, the Stealth Beagle", for a walk through São Paulo's Sumaré neighborhood. Below are a few murals we encountered along the way:

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