So we went to Brazil. And we left Kade behind. I missed him, but Brazil was kind of a neat place.
Here are some interesting things I thought about Brazil:
- Brazil has tiny elevators, like seriously miniature.
- The bathrooms in both our hotels had a bidet (not built into the toilet, just a power hose on the side)
- In Sao Paulo everyone was selling socks in the street. Possibly a hot item there?
- In our hotel in Sao Paulo you had to plug your key in to get the lights to work. Can't leave the lights on when you leave the room.
- The stores are TINY. Seriously so small. Like elevator status small.
- The stores aren't only tiny, they are super random too. We would walk down the street and in a matter of minutes pass a pet store, then a restaurant, then a window blinds store, then a barbershop, then a toilet seat store (I kid you not), then a drug store, then a bar, then a light switch store... etc.
- There aren't any pedestrian buttons to cross the street. You just sit and wait, or dodge traffic - most people exercise the latter option.
- Drivers are extremely aggressive. Which makes it challenging to dodge traffic...I may or may not have been scared for my life once or twice, as a pedestrian and passenger.
- The people we ran into do not speak a lick of English, and they have no mercy with English speakers.
- Breakfast consisted of toast and jam, crescent rolls with meat, rolls, a platter of cheese, platters of sliced lunch meats, fruit, and CAKE! Cake for breakfast?! Might be enough to get me to relocate. (Jokes - but seriously, I am never leaving the US again)
We did some touring which was awesome. Went up to the city center building in Sao Paulo (they compare it to the empire state building) and could see for miles and miles, the city was like something out of a painting.
In Rio we went to the Cristo Redentor statue, that was one of the highlights of the trip for me. We rode a train up and around the mountain and saw all of Rio! Gorgeous. We got pictures of this amazing statue, and we saw Labron James up there too! (That's a lie. But he posted a pic on Instagram like the day after we went, so we kind of saw him - and yes, I follow King James on insta).
We were also able to go to the FIFA Fan Zone at copacabana beach, beautiful beach and really fun environment down by the fan zone too! Those Argentines are looooong winded. I think I know the song they all sing now...but the lyrics might not be completely accurate--they were ALL over the city and everyone was singing.
The soccer games were awesome too! The semi final stadium was full of Argentina fans cheering for Argentina (naturally) and Brazil fans cheering for Netherlands because they did NOT want Argentina to win. So this created a funny environment where the Argentines were chanting "siete!", since Brazil had just lost their semi final game to German 7-1 (adding salt to the wound? I'd say so) in response the "Netherlands fans" (Brazilians) would chant "cinco!" Because Brazil has 5 World Cup titles and Argentina only has 2. It was great.
Going to the World Cup Final and closing ceremony was A-MAZ-ING. I was worried about not feeling safe down there, since big events tend to draw out all the crazies, but they had 25,000 people policing the game, complete with military dudes with machine guns--I felt pretty safe. The finals also drew so much diversity, and everyone has SO much country pride, we sat next to a man from Guatemala who wanted to take a picture of us to remember who he sat by (Guatemala wasn't even in the tournament). He was a sweetheart and offered to share his popcorn, or at least I think he offered me that. We also saw people from Canada, a ton of them (represent), Sweeden, Columbia, and Mexico to name a few. It was really neat. There were the same chants that were going on at the semi final game (see above...poor Brazil) and the intensity of the crowd was seriously unreal. A few final fun things, I was on the big screen in the stadium (mission accomplished) and there was a streaker at the game (mission accomplished for him too).
Well that's it. It was a fun and crazy experience.
Took a picture of the screen on the airplane....longest flight of my life (literally)
Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo panorama pic
Semi Final Game
Argentina vs. Netherlands
Argentina won in PKs (scoring 4 Netherlands had 2 blocked shots)
Me and the hubs in a tree at the beach
Cristo Redentor
Cristo Redentor
Cristo Redentor
Jumped on a Police bike
FIFA Fan Fest at Copacabana Beach!
World Cup FINALS, with my obnoxiously pink outfit
Argentina vs. Germany
Germany won in overtime 1-0
A piece of our view...not to shabby of seats eh?
