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Bruno and Antonia are hosting me in their apartment in Leme Beach in Rio. Leme and Copacabana are side by side, separated by nothing really. Beach and water-wise, they are the same; officially, an avenue perpendicular to the beach separates them. In today’s entry, you can see a few photos showing the view of the beach from the apartment, including FIFA’s Fan Fest in Copacabana just to our right.
Woke up to a sunny Rio de Janeiro today, and after Bruno went to work, Antonia, Nina and I went to the beach for a couple of hours. The water was very clean and nice and cool, but not too cool. I played with Nina lots, jumping waves, making sand castles, kicking the ball around, etc... The only thing I didn’t do was play beach soccer. I saw one going on when we were returning to the apartment, but we had plans to head to an older (but super expensive) neighbourhood called Urca. This neighborhood is located at the bottom of the Sugar Loaf.
In Urca, we drove around a bit and stopped for Nina to play at a little park. I just relaxed for the most part and watched her play. While several
kids played on the swings and slide, 3 slightly older kids played soccer amongst all the chaos. These kids were about 12 years old, and I could related to what they were doing. If we had more room, I probably would have asked to play with them. One thing I noticed is that they were all about over-stepping the ball, doing fancy moves for the sake of doing them. Maybe they’ve been watching Cristiano Ronaldo (or even Neymar) too much. Haha
After the park, we stopped by a corner bar and grabbed a beer and some appetizers. We grabbed some “pasteis” and “bacalhau” balls. I’m not going to make an attempt at translating or explaining the way I should, but they were delicious. Haha We sat on a wall that overlooks the Guanabara Bay, right under the Sugar Loaf as you know. Waiters constantly cross the road back and forth to bring food and beer. On the way to the bar, we saw a little monkey walking on an electrical wire. This is the exact type of monkey I used to have as a kid.
Once we were done at the bar, we picked up Bruno from work and headed home. Antonia
cooked a delicious dinner while Bruno and I caught up and talked about soccer. He’s an editor and loves books, so he showed me a few that he thinks would interest me. One of them was a photobook about Pele’s life which had some very cool photos of Pele during his career.
Overall, a nice relaxing day in Rio getting to see what neighbourhood life and traffic is like.
Tomorrow, gameday for me between France and Germany at the fabled Maracana Stadium, where the Final will be played. At one point in time, this stadium held over 200,000 people for the 1950 World Cup Final game between Brazil and Uruguay.
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