Blog issues...

I just found out that my last few posts have been cut off after the first paragraph. I thought I had figured out how to alternate text and pictures in my emails, but I was apparently too clever. I'm going to try to recover it all!

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Driving Part 3: Country

Our favorite driving is the country driving. We do this every trip as we travel between Pipa and the highway exit town of Goianinha (10 times in total). The trip is about 30km and the GPS is worthless. It always wants to take short cuts that wouldn't be safe for a 4 wheeler.

After the first couple trips, we realized that the it reminds us of playing Mario Kart.  There are a LOT of obstacles.  The intentional obstacles are the speed bumps.  There are probably about twenty of varying sizes and colors.  Many of them sneak up on you and you have to break at the last second or just bound the rental car over them.

The pothole obstacles are the most common.  They are often in groups of 3 or 4, so that you have to pick a perfect line through them.  This is especially difficult when it rains, which is often.

The animals provide some challenging moving obstacles.  Dogs, cats, donkeys, horses, cows, goats....it never seems to end.  You can tell you are winning if you are going fast enough that the Pipa taxi cabs are not passing you in a blind corner, but your passenger is also not bouncing off the ceiling.

If you make the mistake of arriving in Pipa in the late evening, which we often did, then you will be greeted with a final obstacle:  a few hundred pedestrians between you and your hotel!

Driving Part 2: Highway

Between the larger cities is mostly highway driving. For the most part this is pretty easy. The majority of the roads we used are new, but I've heard others are pretty bad. We hit a few stretches of what Brazilians call bad and it looks like all the potholes have connected to make a lace pattern that beats your car to smithereens.

They have a different approach to on and off ramps, but it actually works pretty well. Our TomTom is mildly helpful in most areas. They don't seem to have any traffic police on the road, which I suspect is a major cause of their traffic jams. Instead they have lots of speed cameras. The speed limit changes seemingly arbitrarily and often near the traffic cameras. On several occasions we would pass a horse-drawn cart on the shoulder transporting produce or other various products (including but not limited to piles of grass) to market. We also passed the 21st century version of the horse-drawn cart - a two door sedan loaded down with a back seat full of corn going about 30 km/hour.

Driving Part 1: City

City driving is crowded and slow like most places. There are some traffic signals, but no enforcement. The sidewalks are always crowded with markets of every kind, like this corn "store". Cars, bikes, and motorcycles will just stop in the road to load up.

Italy vs Uruguay

Today we have an early game in Natal. We had breakfast (cafe' de manha) at the Tribus Bar/Cafe which as usual was delicious. There we talked to be owner (Marcia) again for a long time. She speaks many languages including perfect English. She never fails to keep us informed and laughing. We completed the trade of our USA flag for Brazil Tribus Bar shirts. She is very excited to hang the flag in the cozy bar.

Traffic was a lot tougher on this trip to Natal, because we were traveling much closer to game time.  We eventually made it to our seats about 5 minutes before game time, but we didn't even have a beer in hand!

Our seat neighbors were a great Brazilian couple named Narim and Karina.  They spoke almost exactly as much English as we spoke Portuguese, so we had a grand time trying to talk about anything and everything.  So much so, that we didn't even notice when Suarez bit the Italian defender.  We did see him running around with his shirt pulled down, but just figured it was more Italian theatrics.

After the match, Jon won the right to marry Ms. Brazil.  We're not really sure about the legality of this, but they seem happy.

Getting home was fairly straight forward.  Jon had a good clean run on the Goaninha to Pipa driving game.

Hola amigos!

Today was another big travel day. We left at 10am to drove back to Recife for the Mexico-Croatia match. We actually checked on riding the tour bus, so we could chat with our friends instead of driving for 9 hours, but we just missed the last seat.

So we hit the road in the pouring rain to travel 300km south. You'll be glad to know that we did not get breakfast before we left, so we stopped at the road stand next to the gas station for a quick bite. This time we played a new game called Carne or Queso. We would point and say "Carne?" And he would say "No, Queso". After a few minutes we has a pile of meatless baked goods but no coffee. For a country famous for their coffee it seems especially hard to find.

Today there was no serious traffic, plus we knew where we were going, which always helps. So aside from the usual driving hazards (driving blog post is almost done) it was a smooth trip.

From the moment we pulled into the parking lot, it was clear this day would belong to Mexico. Everyone was wearing bright green Mexico jerseys. At the stadium it was even crazier. Thousands of adults and kids, many of them dressed up in crazy costumes like mariachi bands and Mexican wrestlers. Inside the stadium was a sea of chanting singing green. We felt a little bad for Croatia, but I'm pulling for Team North America.

The match was fun. There were no goals in the first half and we were beginning to think we were cursed, since we had only seen 1 goal through 2 1/2 games. In the second half the game opened up and Mexico got several goals.

It was funny that the Brazilian fans in the stadium were all watching tv on their cell phones to keep track of the Brazil game going on a the same time. Every time Brazil scored (4 times) the Brazilians would abruptly stand and cheer for a totally different game.

For a brief moment in the game, Mexico scored enough goals to catch up to Brazil for first place and the Brazilian fans got very quiet but shortly afterward Brazil scored another and all was ok again.

Meanwhile, the Mexican fans were having a great time tormenting the Croatian players with their new favorite chant which is completely inappropriate, but amusing.

Several Mexican fans commented on our USA jerseys. Many were compassionate about last nights disappointment. To the ones that weren't, we reminded them that they wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for USA beating Panama last year in a game that didn't even matter for us. We said a lot of "de nada" too.

After the game, Jon accomplished a major goal. He was able to trade his Landon jersey with a young Brazilian fan who had an Oscar #11 jersey. Those are surprisingly rare here. The whole country is wearing Neymar #10. That kid's head is going to get so big it pops!

We left the stadium and had a surprisingly smooth trip back to Pipa. Much better than Fridays marathon. We got home around 11:30 and found a great pizza place a half block from our apartment. Probably should have taken a picture of the arugula pizza. Brazilians take their pizza very seriously. No Papa Johns around here. Anyway, after another very long day it was delicious and filling. Off to bed now. Our last match is in Natal tomorrow at 1pm!!

USA vs Portugal :)

Wow! I hope everyone at home was able to enjoy
the game with screaming friends. We were so lucky to have 100+ soccer fanatics to share an amazing experience with us.

The party started at 3pm for the 7pm kickoff our time. We were the first to arrive, but more decked out USA fans joined us shortly after. By 6pm the bar was packed with nervous Yankee energy.

Some brilliant fan brought an iPod loaded with the perfect play list. The bar pumped it through their massive speakers. It started with "Born in the USA" and continued through a massive sing along rendition of "American Pie".

Singing and chanting was pretty much constant throughout the pregame and game. So many fans were completely decked out with patriotic gear from home. When the USA hit their two goals the eruption in the bar was insane. I'll try to add some video to the blog later. Like all of you, the last second equalizer was a big blow for us too. I had the camera all ready to record the insane victory scene. But instead there was stunned silence in the bar.

The general consensus was good result, but what if... We outplayed one of the best teams and players in the world and we were SO close. A lot of fans slowly got their perspective back after the initial shock. We still control our destiny and this is pretty much the best case scenario that I had ever hoped for 3 months ago.

After the match we said goodbye to our very happy hosts (best party ever in that bar) and wandered out into the streets to drink probably too many Caipirinhas. Now it is finally time for bed.

Tomorrow we travel to Recife again for Mexico vs Croatia which will decide who goes to the next round. We will be pulling for our southern neighbors. Hopefully the 4 hour later start for the game will help with traffic. We just can't handle that stress again. I'm afraid that late departure probably means no Breakfast Roulette for those of you that were rooting for another round.

Todo Bem (all good)

Pregame for USA!

We got up and tried some new treats for breakfast. This is Acai, which is a berry made into a sherbetish cold treat served with honey, banana, and granola.

After breakfast we went to a bar to hang the Stars and Stripes outside so all the Americans would know where to go for the match!

Once that was completed we went to a new beach because we were bored with our three fabulous beaches. We met up with some friends that we met last night and drank beers and played soccer in the sand. We started with just our group, but quickly added more Americans, Brazilians, and Uraguans. It was a bit hot but the sea breeze helped we both got a couple goals and didn't get hurt or humiliate ourselves. Great time at a beautiful spot.

We did not order the lobster or snapper in case you were wondering.

We went back and cleaned up and plopped down at the bar 4 hours early to make sure we had a good seat for the USA! As I post this we have 2 hours to go until kickoff and the bar is packed with decked out USA fans!

Italy vs Costa Rica in Recife

Friday was a big adventure. We have tickets to see Costa Rica vs Italy. Italy is a if favorite in the cup, but tiny Costa Rica has been playing really well including beating South American powerhouse, Uruguay in the opening match.

The game was in Recife which according to Google and TomTom is about 3.5 hours away. Since there is a lot that TomTom doesn't know about driving in Brazil and we don't know where the heck we are going in Recife, we left Pipa at 6am for the 1pm kickoff.

We made it almost all the way to Recife without much trouble. We successfully stopped for gas and a game of breakfast roulette. Much of Brazilian breakfast involves a baked pastry loaded with something. We suspect the shape might mean something, but we haven't cracked the code yet.

After 200km of driving, I'm saving the Brazilian driving details for a separate post, we finally started to see signs for the stadium. Unfortunately, at 11km the traffic stopped completely dead. Eventually everyone got out of their cars to wait, and it was obvious that with the exception of the truck drivers, most of us were heading to the match. Finally, the police decided to let the traffic go, but we never did figure out why it stopped in the first place.

A bit later, we saw signs for the FIFA park and bus area, which was a huge relief because we were a little concerned about having to improvise parking.

Arriving at the stadium was really cool. It was about noon, by the time we got there and there was a lot more energy around the stadium than in Natal. People were mingling, music was pumping, and beer was reasonably priced.

We found my friend Kirk from Maryland and hung out with him and his new British buddies before the game. Stupidly, I forgot to take a picture of us all!

The stadium is great with no bad seats. Jon had decided to root for Italy out of his love of a visit there a few years ago. I was pulling for Costa Rica because they are an underdog, they are our soccer neighbor in the conference, and their star forward is an Arsenal player. The crowd was pretty equally split, with the majority of the Brazilians supporting Italy. The Costa Rican fans were definitely more rowdy, often breaking into song to cheer on their team.

The Italian team had several legends on the field lead by Pirrlo and Buffon, which made the game even more exciting to watch. Spoiler alert, Costa Rica wins on a single goal in the first half and the stadium roars. After the match, I continued to chant along with the Costs Ricans in my USA jersey and flag. When I stopped to ask some Costa fans what we were chanting, they told me "Tico Tico" and offered to trade jerseys with me. I had to switch my brain back to Spanish to say Muchas Gracias!!!

We made it back to the car with no issues and even got on the highway and a away from the stadium pretty easily. What we didn't expect was that we would hit horrible traffic at every city and town along the single highway that connects Recife to Natal.

I think we spent about two hours stuck in traffic getting hungry and grouchy. We could occasionally hear matches on the radio, but our Portuguese isn't strong enough to catch anything but GGGGOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLL!!!!

When we finally got to Pipa (look for that adventure in the driving post coming soon), we found out that it had turned from a sleepy little beach town to a great big street party while we were gone. Normally, that would be great, but right now we were starving and the only way we know how to get to our hotel is through that crowd and the guy won't let us try. He gives us directions for the backway in Portuguese and we have to turn around. It turns out there are more than 5 blocks in Pipa. After 45 minutes of wandering through alleys and deadends, we tried to get back to the town entrance for the third time to tell him what we thought of his directions. We were almost there, when we suddenly realized that we had stumbled into our hotel! Unfortunately, our usually empty parking spaces were all taken by the new weekend crowd. We did some creative backing up narrow alleys and eventually found a spot on the street at 10pm. 18 hours after we left, we were finally able to check in with family on the wifi and eat our first meal since we lost the breakfast game. Several beers and a big caipirinha later we said good night to the still raging street party and hit the bed. Saturday will be our first travel free day. Should be a bit more relaxing!

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Japan vs Greece in Natal

So Thursday night we parked at a very modern and American mall in Natal and went off to the stadium. I mentioned in the last post that we stopped at a little pizza joint to watch England play. We were the first ones in there when they opened early for us but about 20 more Americans soon followed to cheer for England

After that game, we walked the rest of the way to stadium. The main steward were very secure. Every corner had cops and military. Jon is posing with two soldiers and our new friend Francisco from Pipa. He took a big leave of absence to bus around north east brazil watching games.

The stadium in Natal is beautiful. It was designed to represent then famous sand dunes in the area. The game itself was very exciting, but ended 0-0 which is unusual for this cup.

We retrieved the car from the mall parking garage and battled some city traffic to get home to Pipa about midnight. Another huge day on Friday!

Boa Noite (good night, pronounced boa noich)

Watching England vs Uruguay

We found a great pizza joint outside of the stadium to watch the game before ours on tv. Amazing pizza, good beer, and a whole mess of American soccer fans.

First real day in Pipa

So today we woke up in Pipa. It is great little town. About five cobblestone blocks of people, bars, restaurants all behind an amazing series of beaches and cliffs (plus more bars). People are here from all over the world. Lots of Americans included.

More stories to come. Off to our first match in a few minutes, Japan vs Greece. Another driving adventure in Natal. This time we WILL take pictures. Last time we were too busy dodging motorcycles.