2014 World Cup - Day 5 - Travel day to Porto Alegre


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Published: June 26th 2014
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Navegantes to Porto Alegre


Got up today, packed my stuff and headed to the airport as today was travel day. At the airport, I waited to meet my cousin Luiz, who I hadn’t seen in just over 12 years. I made a joke in passing in an email exchange a few months back inviting him to join me in Porto Alegre for the Argentina vs Nigeria game, amd much to my surprise, he accepted and purchase a ticket on the same flight as me the same day. A few weeks later, he managed to get a ticket to this game, so it all worked out.

The flight was very quick, only 40 minutes long. Porto Alegre is the capital of the southernmost state in Brazil. It’s my first time down here. We took a train into the city and then a bus to our hotel. I was telling Luiz that I had never noticed so few people at the airport, train or bus station in a host city ever. With that being said, there’s a report that over 100,000 Argentines are making their way over here for this game. Yes, you read that right, 100,000 will look to get into the stadium that fits 50,000 to watch their hero Messi. Out hotel is full of them!!!

We took a train and then bus to our hotel. Once we settled in the room, we looked out the window and noticed a new stadium not too far away. We know this stadium belongs to Gremio, a club team here in Porto Alegre, and although it is one of the newest ones in Brazil, it is not being used in the World Cup. Since we both like stadiums, we took a bus there to check it out. It’s pretty nice, you can see by the photos we took.

Afterwards, we made our way back and went into a Japanese restaurant to watch Japan vs Colombia. Japan needed the win to have a shot at qualification to the second phase of the tournament while a tie would secure top spot in the group for Colombia. We were cheering for Columbia but just about everyone else was cheering for Japan. At one point after Japan scored, the waiter said he would bring us each a free beer because of that goal. I guess it was part of a promotion they are having. After the game, we ate dinner there and then headed to the hotel to prepare for tomorrow’s game.

The World Cup was about to start for us.

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