And Brazil exhales with relief...

The crowd was getting nervous.  80 minutes and Brazil and Chile were still tied. End of regulation ticked by. 15 minutes of extra time passed.  The Brazilians around us were getting more anxious with each passing minute.  15 more minutes of extra time.  Groans got louder every time Brazil missed a chance to score.  The crowd exhaled in unison when Chile's shot hit the crossbar.  Onto penalty kicks.  I was plenty nervous so I can't even imagine how millions of people across Brazil were feeling.  Part of my nerves came from being in the midst of thousands of Brazilians at Fan Fest and not knowing what their reaction would be should Chile prevail.  Brazilians fully expect their team to win this World Cup.  If they went out in the Round of 16... (There was tons of police and military personnel around, so I had faith it wouldn't get too ugly)

Luckily Brazil's goalie and strikers were better than Chile's during the penalty kicks, and the Brazilians (and many adopted Brazilian fans like me) celebrated together as they came out victorious.  Tough battle, and their next match against Colombia will be even tougher.  I'm glad I won't be there then, since I think Colombia has a legitimate chance to best Brazil in the quarter finals.  They're playing really strong soccer and have fantastic fan support (we've seen more Colombians than anyone else around the country).

Our flight has been delayed 12 hours for some unknown reason.  Luckily our pousada has our room available for one extra night (at half the rate of last night now that the World Cup groups are finished and the Round of 16 guests haven't yet arrived).  So we got to celebrate with Brazilians and grab one last dinner in town before heading back to the US (and one last caipairoska).  Annoyingly, we lose our Sunday at home before heading back to work on Monday (and no longer have an overnight flight so I'll be awake much of the 8 hours from Salvador to Miami).  On a positive note, traffic near our pousada is total crap right now as fans leave Fan Fest after the Colombia-Uraguay match, so we would have had trouble getting out of here to the airport.  Thanks, American Airlines!

Salvador charm

After an early morning flight to Salvador, checked into the nicest place we've stayed in days (hot water! Large-ish room! Wifi!).  Our stay in Salvador was off to a good start, and the day would only improve.

We are staying in the Barra beach neighborhood, which has a newly renovated beachfront promenade and tons of tourists (thanks in part to Fifa's fan fest located here though i think is normally very popular anyway). After a quick lunch and a nice walk along the beachfront, we headed into the historic downtown area (the Pelourinho).  Salvador was where Brazil brought in the African slaves in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the African culture remains strong in this area.  We noticed it in the artwork, drum lines, and dancing we saw in the Pelo neighborhood.  

Pelo is a Unesco heritage site, and they've spent a lot of money restoring the area in the last 20 years. The hard work definitely shows, as many buildings are in great shape.  They're all very colorful.  Pelo also has several squares which feel very European.  They're full of cafes and restaurants, and jam packed with people.

Stopped into a few churches here: one built by the Jesuits (how could all of us Ignatius grads resist?) and another described as one of the most beautiful baroque churches in all of Brazil.  I'll let you decide based on this pic below if you agree with that statement.  Suffice to say, it's not my taste at all.

Sao Francisco was built with slave labor, and the sculpting of some of the statues is suspect at best (Lonely Planet said it was the slaves' rebellion against not being able to practice their religion but being forced to build a Catholic church).  Apparently some of the cherubs were given extremely large, um, male parts.  Later, church officials went in and made some modifications for the sake of modesty.  You'll note the cherub below now has no male parts (they're visibly removed).  Others are covered by foliage.    It was, to say the least, a very interesting church.  And that doesn't even get into the scary museum attached to it next door.

The best part of Pelo may be all of the colorful decorations left over from the festival of Sao Joao which just ended a few days ago. The neighborhood is bursting with colorful flags, artwork, lanterns, and sculptures.  Major kudos to Salvador for throwing what looks like a helluva party (we hear their Carnaval is also quite good).

Finished our day with a beautiful subset and dinner chatting with some Americans fans heading to Tuesday's game (two of them have been based in Salvador so this will be their first USA game; these two brothers have now attended 6 straight world cups!).  We've seen enough US fans around town (and few Belgian fans) that we feel we are leaving the team with continued strong fan support for their Round of 16 game.  We did get to pass the stadium here in our taxi, and we all sent good USA mojo into the stadium as we drove by.

Erin is off to Turkey early tomorrow morning.  Beth, Nancy and I have most of the day to enjoy Salvador before heading back to Chicago tomorrow night.  We're planning to head to Fan Fest to watch the big Brazil v Chile match tomorrow.  We figured we started the trip watching Brazil at Fan Fest in Rio, so it's only fitting to bookend with another Brazilian game at Salvador's Fan Fest.

Ode to cloth napkins

Brazil has not been introduced yet to large or absorbent napkins (or for some reason is ignoring this wonderful advancement in napkins).  Most are akin to American cocktail napkins but often coated with something that makes it even more useless and non-absorbent.  Here in Olinda and Recife, however, we've found three restaurants that have given us cloth napkins with dinner.  We are in love.  Oh, and these dinners have been delicious.  Some of our top meals of the trip, without question.  Clearly worthy of cloth napkins.

Olinda is an UNESCO Heritage Site and is described as Recife's charming little sister. We thought that seemed like a nicer place to stay than another big city (and wow is Recife big!  much larger than i anticipated).  Olinda reminds me a bit of a small European town, complete with many cobblestones and more churches than seem necessary for a small town. The first night and next morning we were here, however, nothing was open (restaurants recommended in our guidebook, cafes, churches, etc).  Semi-deserted towns don't have quite the expected charm.  Just before lunchtime though we happened across a lively market area, complete with a cute restaurant where we could grab lunch and watch the Argentina-Nigeria match.  By the time lunch was over and we headed back through the cobblestone streets, stores and restaurants were open and people were everywhere.  Apparently Tuesday night is a quiet night here? <shrug> The town grew on us quite a bit once it got more lively and fun.  Lots of artists here, so the craft markets are great and street art is everywhere.  Erin's and my favorite street art was a tree that was painted with dozens of little faces - so creative and cool.

There's clearly a lot of rain in this area (evident to anyone who watched the US match....but more on that later).  Many of the buildings and particularly the churches are covered in black mold/mildew.  They look like they need a big scrubbing with a giant bottle of bleach.

There were way less US tourists at first than I thought would be here.  we'd grown quite used to seeing Team USA fans all over Natal and Manaus, so Brasilia and Olinda were a big change.  As the big US-Germany match grew closer, however, USA shirts and bomb pop jerseys started reappearing in Olinda.  Apparently everyone just needed a day or two to do some laundry.

Also headed into Recife briefly.  The area near Marco Zero (where the town was founded) is in the midst of restoration.  Some of the buildings look fantastic, whole others are still rundown.  Great craft market (bonus: it was indoors during another downpour).

US advances out of Group of Death!

Going into the World Cup, pundits across the US and the world gave the US very little chance of advancing out of the so-called Group of Death.  Ghana had kicked the US out of the last 2 World Cups, and Germany and Portugal are two of the best teams in the world.  Guess what folks?  USMNT wasn't about to take those predictions lying down.  They fought through every match, and thanks to Germany beating Portugal by so many goals (goal differential was key after Portugal's late goal against Ghana) we have officially advanced out of the Group of Death.  Huzzah!!

Woke up for the US-Germany match to a strong, steady rain that wouldn't end up letting up until halfway through the match.  It made our 2.5 hour journey to the stadium much more annoying than it otherwise would have been. Everyone was soaked by the time we finally arrived at the stadium, 20km outside of town.  Luckily, Recife had set up good public transportation to get to the match, so that part went fairly smoothly (other than having to get through some massively flooded roads due to 3 days of rain).  Getting to Recife from Olinda was a giant (wet) pain, but we finally worked that out and met some nice Colombian-Americans on the way (crazily, they'd also be on our exact bus back from the match hours later...small world).

Fans were a bit more subdued heading into this match versus the earlier ones, thanks in part to the rain and in part to the massive task ahead of us of facing Germany.  Tons and tons of German fans too, with much better songs and chants than the US has (they've been at this longer than we have). We tried to up our game a bit during the match with some new cheers, I think partly inspired by the Germans.  We even chanted in Portuguese (Estados Unidos!).  During the game, US fans were definitely enthusiastic and IMO out-chanted the Germans (they only got loud after the German goal).

We were excited to be in the upper deck which meant we were covered. Lower deck fans got soaked even further. We were still in the US supporters section, which has been really fun.  I think this was the first match in which US fans didn't outnumber our opponent's fans.  There were a lot of Germans there (direct flights from Frankfurt doesn't hurt).  I think we represented well though and tried to inspire our team through a tough match.  

The US team held our own for most of the first half, and we were lucky to only allow one goal in the second half.  Kudos to a strong defensive performance.  USMNT did what they had to do to advance (win, tie, or lose by minimal goals).  

After the match, USMNT came over to celebrate with the fans, celebrating their advancement to the next round (we all knew the Portugsl-Ghana score).  They looked so happy, despite the game loss. As Erin said, only in the World Cup can a tie feel like a loss and a loss feel like a win.  USA! USA! USA!

(Btw, the coverage at home we've seen of Christiano Ronaldo "saving" the US team with his last minute goal is so annoyingly inaccurate. US would have advanced had Portugal-Ghana tied, so we didn't need Portugal to beat Ghana)

We're sad not to be seeing the next match in Brazil, esp since we are heading to Salvador, the site of their next match just by happenstance (we head home tomorrow night). Hopefully the US continues to have amazing and loud support, and we can keep rolling through this World Cup.  Bring on Belgium!

Excited to watch the game at home, however, with other excited Americans (and English commentary - we've watched every match here in portuguese).  Chicago is having giant watch parties in Grant Park, so we may head there if they continue that for the knockout rounds.

Off to Salvador!

Brasilia!

Internet access has been non existent so a few belated blog posts...

Given the choice between a 6 hour layover in Brasilia's airport or a 22 hour layover giving us the chance to explore Brasilia for a few hours, we opted to extend our time in Brazil's capital.  Brasilia was created in the late 50s/early 60s when Brazil's president decided to move the capital from Rio.  He hired Oscar Niemeyer as the architect for the city buildings and seemingly let Niemeuer have free reign to create some very unique, crazy buildings.

Brasilia is much larger than we anticipated, so we were very happy to find a city bus tour to show us the sights. It's definitely a planned city: take a look at the aerial view - it's laid out like an airplane, with most of the main buildings near the plane's fuselage. 

The signature church is called the Crown of Thorns, and it may be the most unique church I've ever seen.  I wasn't prepared for how beautiful the interior would be, or how colorful, given the stark white exterior. Quite simply stunning.

Other unique structures include one that looks like the planet Saturn,waterfalls coming out of buildings, lots of moats, an incredible bridge voted by some association as the Most Beautiful Bridge in the World, and a very stark presidential palace.

Away from the bus tour, we had a few minutes to stop into another church with beautiful blue Murano glass windows.  They certainly know how to build visually stunning and unique churches in this town.

We all really enjoyed our stopover in Brasilia and voted it well worth our time.  Plus we had beautiful blue skies, no humidity, and actually had to put on a sweater a few times.  What a relief from the Amazon!

Goodbye malaria zone!

We are all happy that we have left malaria (and other disease) carrying mosquitoes behind.  Nancy is a magnet for them even in Manaus. Spent yesterday traveling to Brasilia.  We poorly planned our flight so that it was at the exact time of the Brazil-Cameroon and Croatia-Mexico matches.  Luckily our flight crew kept us fairly up to date on the Brazil score.  However, we perfectly planned our flight so that we landed in Brasilia as Brazil won their match (and their group), so we got to see fireworks and firecrackers going off all over the city.  So cool!  Brazil! Brazil! Brazil!

Off to check out Niemeyer's architecture. 

USA v. Portugal - the elation and the heartbreak

These USA games are not good for my heart.  The entire second half of tonight's game had my heart beating double time, and by the end of the game it was beating like a drum.  Holy smokes!  What a game!  

I don't know what the sports guys are saying back home, but here in Brazil we believe the USA outplayed Portugal and contained Christiano Ronaldo (until that last goal).  For a few minutes we really believed we were going to beat Portugal, kick them out of the World Cup and advance to the knockout rounds.  The US sections at the stadium were absolutely rocking (and we definitely outnumbered the Portugals fans, by quite a bit). That last-second goal sucked the life out of the USA fans and temporarily added some to the Portuguese fans.  Leaving the stadium, however, everyone was pretty subdued. Team USA fans were pretty heartbroken about the ending (though going into the game, we would have been thrilled with a tie), and Team Portugal fans were disappointed they didn't beat us (and know their road into the knockout rounds is a lot tougher than the USA's or even Ghana's).

There are still several scenarios for the US to advance, so we've got to bring our A game against Germany on the 26th (and hope for a Ghana-Portugal tie for the easiest path).  As Klinsmann said, they call this the Group of Death because we're in it too.  

Ended up a wee bit depressed back at Manaus's main square tonight, which was absolutely rocking.  Manaus was out in full force.  We were almost immediately asked by several Brazilians to take our photo in our USA gear with them.  This went on for maybe 10 straight minutes, making us feel like celebrities.  What a kick all of these Brazilians got out of these pics.  Our group lost our allure a bit as fans in better costumes showed up post game, though we were continually asked for pics the rest of the night as we chatted with other American fans and local Brazilians. We decided we found our South American "Gingers" - drinking street beer in the Manaus main square.  Got us all mostly out of our post-game funk, though I can only imagine how much more exciting the square would have been had we actually won that match.  Alas...

For your blog viewing pleasure, Erin and I made it our mission tonight to get pics with some of the very many amazing USA outfits we've seen fans sporting at the games.  Sometimes I could just grab a quick pic as someone was walking by but their outfits were too good not to snap a pic (even if I couldn't get them to stop and pose).  Sadly, no Elvis sightings tonight.  Hope they're back in Recife. Our team USA gear is tame compared to some...  

Presidents!

We have seen several guys sporting these flag spandex shorts, but this is as close as I've been willing to get to take a pic.  

Colorado represent! Later we saw a Wisconsin flag and Packers jersey but no pics available.

Not the greatest pic of the tri-cornered hat but had to include for Jen (I know how much you love your tri-cornered hats)

Lots of USA leggings around too (and not always on women).

Illinois in the house! (Or in this case the post-match square)

USA!

American forces are out strong in Manaus today. At lunch, our pizzeria erupted with cheers of "I believe, I believe that we will win."  T minus 4 hours to game time.  Let's do this.

PS - in case ESPN doesn't mention this a lot at home, it's really, really, REALLY hot and humid here.  We are sweating profusely just walking around.  I already feel bad for the players.  They're calling for some scattered storms, so maybe we will get a little rain to cool us off?

Survived the rainforest

Our rainforest trip did not turn out quite like we thought it would be. Our tour operator is taking full advantage of the massive amounts of World Cup guests by jamming as many people on their tours as possible.  That meant not only were we reassigned to a very rustic jungle lodge instead of their nicer lodge next door, but also that our tour group had 22 people in it (normal groups are 5-8 ppl).  Transportation to/from the lodge was also challenging given the huge number of people heading to both lodges (most people were on our same itinerary due to the World Cup match schedule).  We had to take a van, to a boat, to another van, to another boat to get to this lodge.  Our trip there took 6.5 hours (thanks to a 2 hour rain delay as we waited for the storm to pass through so we didn't capsize on the Amazon), and our journey back took 4.5 hours (we finally got off our bus and took a taxi the rest of the way to the hotel since we were so over everything by the time we were asked to switched buses again in Manaus).  We were told normal transport time is 3 hours when they're not moving 40+ people plus luggage at the same time.

Our guide did the best he could given the tough situation he was put in, but it certainly wasn't ideal.  At least we were still given our private room with beds (with a private bathroom) rather than sharing a giant room sleeping on a hammock with 30 other guests (ours was not the only tour staying at this lodge).  No towels or blankets on our beds, but we had some privacy (and sometimes a frog would come visit us in our bathroom). 

What made up for these downfalls was our tour guide, the very nice staff at the lodge, and the other folks on our tour.  We had a lot of fun hanging out with them and bonding over the fact that we couldn't hear anything our guide was saying on our jungle trek since we were so far back in the 22 person line.  Lots of Americans on the tour but also people from Croatia, Jamaica, France, Canada, and Spain.  A couple of guys were there from Fusion network (a new younger-skewed ABC network), filming the local's perspective of the World Cup for a documentary.  We can't wait to see what footage comes out from this experience.

We spent quite a bit of time out on the lake where our lodge was located (on a tributary of the main Amazon rivers).  We went piranha fishing, though only one of the French guys was successful in catching one (they are a lot smaller than I thought they'd be - maybe 6"?).  I got to hold a caiman (alligator) that our guide plucked from the water.  We saw lots of birds, though sadly no blue macaws.  Briefly saw monkeys, but struck out on our quest for sloths.  Visited a local native Amazonian family's home where we saw how they lived and made a living (milling a grain and building canoes), then played soccer and volleyball with their kids.  Despite not speaking the same language, the kids certainly know how to direct us around a volleyball court!  We got to see a spectacular sunset over the Amazon, as well as a pretty cool lightning show a different night.  The weather changes frequently and quickly in the rainforest.  Could be sunny one minute and raining the next, and then sunny again moments later.

Thank goodness we knew enough to bring long pants and long-sleeved shirts since the mosquitoes in the jungle don't pay much attention to DEET.  We all basically bathed ourselves in DEET, and the mosquitoes would come take a bite of any exposed skin anyway.  We saw a couple of girls on the way back whose legs looked like they had chicken pox since they had so many mosquito bites.  Ouch.  A few people tried some of the natural bug sprays, and those were even more useless at keeping bugs away.  Luckily these mosquito bites aren't as itchy as the ones in the US, so they'd sting when we were bit but an hour or two later, they wouldn't itch much at all.  Of course as a trade off to this non-itchiness, they do carry evil diseases, but hopefully all of our immunizations and anti-malarial meds will take care of that problem.  

Overall, we were all ultimately underwhelmed by the experience.  Maybe it would have been better with a different operator or if we were staying at the main lodge or if our group didn't have 20+ people or if we didn't spend hours in the canoes with hard wooden seats.  But maybe the rainforest just isn't our cup of tea.  Animals are difficult to spot, and it's hot as an oven, and the mosquitoes are relentless. Maybe we are spoiled because of our safari experiences, though Nancy has never been on safari and was equally (more?) unimpressed as the Polichs. The rainforest tour is something we're glad we did once but aren't going to be signing up for again anytime soon (except Erin, who thinks taking a 7 day tour deeper into the Amazon is the solution to our complaints - maybe she's right but I'm not booking that trip any time soon).

In any case, we are back in Manaus and getting ready for tonight's big USA v Portugal match.  Last night we saw way more USA fans around town than Portuguese fans, so hopefully we will be able to own the stadium again tonight.  We are in the US fan section tonight (upper deck), so there's a chance you may see us on TV.

Hello Amazon Rainforest

We have arrived safe and sound in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.  Manaus is a rather gritty city.  It was formerly quite prosperous during the rubber boom of the early 1900s, so some of the buildings built during that era are quite stunning.  Manaus then fell on hard times after it lost the monopoly on rubber trees. Now it is reinventing itself as a manufacturing and tourism hub for trips into the Amazon, but for the most part does not have the charm of a tourist city. 

What Manaus does have going for it is its main plaza in front of the Theater Amazonas, which they have turned into an outdoor cultural center during the World Cup.  They have two giant screens to show all of the matches, as well as a stage for putting on performances between the games.  Last night the plaza was a hub of activity with locals and tourists alike enjoying the matches and various musical groups (we weren't fans of the Brazilian rappers, but enjoyed the Bossa Nova and guitar/folkish bands). Happy Croatian fans gathered there after beating Cameroon at the Arena Amazonas a few kilometers away.  Major thumbs up to Manaus for expanding on the World Cup fun with these free cultural bonuses.

We are off on a jungle adventure the next several days and are unlikely to have Internet access at the jungle lodge.  We will update the blog once we are back in wifi world with tales of excessive humidity (while wearing long sleeved shirts and pants to keep the bugs off), amazonian wildlife, and hopefully not too many bug bites (yes, we've all gotten yellow fever vaccinations and are taking anti malarial meds).

Windburned in Natal

One of the big tourist things to do in Natal is to go on a dune buggy ride through the sand dunes that surround the city.  We don't get to drive the buggies (a professional driver takes us on the tour). We opted for the 2 hour excursion over the 7 hour excursion that went further north, and I think our windburned faces are thankful for that.  We all wish our trip had included more buggying up/down the dunes and less time speeding along the flat, wet beach.  The dunes part was more fun and involved less sand whipping up into our faces.  We are all nicely exfoliated now.

Perhaps our favorite part of the trip was when we stopped to take pics at a viewpoint.  A nice Brazilian man came over as our "paparazzi" and proceeded to have us pose in a series of ridiculous poses.  I think you'll agree that the pics below were well worth the $5 (US) we gave him.  (We did turn down both donkey and camel rides though...)

Made it back to town to watch the Brazil-Mexico match at a crowded beachfront bar.  Think the Brazilians were slightly disappointed with the tie while the Mexicans were pretty happy.

We tried tapioca pancakes for dinner last night, which are similar to a crepe/tortilla/Swedish pancake but made with tapioca flour which makes them a bit thicker and sponger.  It's nice to see that most cultures have figured out a way to make a thin pancake and stuff it with tasty goodness.  For as diverse and large as the world is, some things (like stuffed pancakes) transcend borders.  

Off to the Amazon rainforest and 100% humidity.  Hello ponytails and high-octane bug spray.

One Nation. One Team.

Wow.  What a night for the USA.  Crowd support was incredible, and despite not playing their best soccer, team USA managed to pull out a very exciting victory over our World Cup nemesis Ghana (Ghana has kicked the US out of the last two World Cups).

As previously mentioned in an earlier post, there are a LOT of American fans here in Natal.  We definitely made ourselves known in the stadium.  We were very loud the entire time (though, disappointingly, we had no drummer to counter the loud, rhythmic Ghanian drummers). The Americana outfits were amazing.  We will try to get more pics of some of them next game: Elvis, Abe Lincoln, red/white/blue unitards, super hero outfits, Marilyn Monroe, tri-cornered hats, Uncle Sam, an eagle, etc.  Absolutely phenomenal.  We were asked for lots of photos of us with various other people, so they must have liked our Americana too.  The cutest pic we were asked to pose for was with a couple of older Brazilian ladies who were on their way home near the stadium, and a friendly police officer took our pic (there is a lot of police and military presence here in Brazil, but since everything is pretty calm, most of them stand around looking bored the whole time).

The game itself started off on a fantastic note when Clint Dempsey scored 30 seconds into the match. The entire stadium erupted in joy (except the Ghanian section, of course).  For most of the rest of the match we seemed pretty content to focus on defending against Ghana's attack instead of forming an attack ourselves.  American fans yelled, cheered, and chanted through the whole match - not just the fan club section but throughout nearly the entire stadium. Finally, Ghana broke through with an equalizer late in the second half.  The Ghanian fans then exploded, making their presence felt too.  Fear not though, America: a nice set piece and the first international goal ever for young John Brooks, and the stadium once again swung happily, loudly, and finally to the USA.  Our game-long chants of "I believe we will win this game" indeed came true. What an ending, what joy, what excitement.  Wow.  I love the World Cup.  Nothing else is quite like it.

The only downsides to the match were our injuries (Jozy's and Besler's hamstrings and Dempsey's broken nose), as well as transportation to/from the stadium.  Natal is not prepared to deal with getting 40,000 fans to and from the match.  Buses were a joke (crowded and/or non existent), and most folks relied on taxis (which of course were nearly impossible to catch after the match, and traffic was awful both to/from the match).  A lot of fans ended up walking 5 miles back to the Ponta Negra hotel area instead.  We finally caught a cab about an hour after the match.  I'm sure taxi drivers were thrilled with the extra business, but there were definitely a lot of frustrated fans trying to get home.

Next up: USA vs Portugal in Manaus (in the rainforest).  With a win or a tie, the US gets out of its pool. Portugal is playing down several players (red card and injuries), and played poorly against Germany.  Suddenly this Group of Death isn't looking as ominous as it once did.

One Nation. One Team.