2014 World Cup - Day 4 - Itapema

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Had a really nice day in Itapema today. I woke up, had breakfast (ate a maracuja, one of my favorite fruits...passion fruit I guess for you North Americans) and then went for a nice walk along the beach. But before I took off on the walk, I went on Facebook and chatted with a few friends of mine regarding my upcoming visit to my hometown of Blumenau. That chat delayed me a bit in leaving but at least I know I will be having lunch with a bunch of my school friends on Friday.

Once I started the walk, I picked a building way far ahead for reference and decided that’s where I was going to turn around. I had about 2 hours to spare before the Holland-Chile game that I wanted to watch. I also wanted to buy some minutes for my cellphone. I walked and walked, the sun was out, it was quite nice. Once I reached the building, it was 12:20, and when I looked back, I thought “oh no, how am I going to be back by 1pm if I just walked for 1hr and 20 minutes?”. I didn’t have a watch on me during the walk, so I realized this once I asked someone for the time. So I turned around and started running. I ran all the way back non-stop, for 40 minutes, probably 5km or so. Not what I had in mind for today, but I enjoyed it. I arrived back home at the 6 minute-mark, and watched the rest of the game with my uncle.

After the game, I hung out with my cousin’s daughter Julia, who is quite the character. She was barking orders at me, posing for photos, just being a real brat, which I enjoy of course. It was nice meeting her and seeing her 3-month old baby brother again (which I had met the other day).

For lunch, we had a dish my godmother made for me which was delicious. She also made for a maracuja pudding for dessert, which was something else. I could eat that stuff forever.

At 5pm, Brazil’s game with Cameroon started. Brazil need to win and make sure Mexico didn’t beat Croatia by much in the other group game. Brazil started the game much better this time, putting pressure and showing they wanted to put the game away early. That was nice to see. Neymar scored half-way through the first half only to see Cameroon tie it up a little later on a bit of a broken play that caught the Brazilian defense by surprise (it was a nice goal also). Neymar made it 2-1 before the break on another nice run, making it 4 goals for him in this World Cup. That puts him at the top of the goal-scoring race. In the second half, Brazil made it 3-1 early and was controlling the game. At this point we thought we would be assured first place, but then Mexico started scoring like crazy in the other game. They went up 3-0 on Croatia fairly quickly and if they scored another goal it might have meant Brazil was going to end up 2^nd in the group and face Holland in the next round. Fernandinho, who had come off the bench to settle the game down, got the last goal with a few minutes left and made it 4-1. With Croatia having scored a goal towards the end, Brazil was assured of being tops in the group. Brazil now face Chile in the Round of 16 next Saturday, and I’m already looking forward to watching that game in Blumenau.

After the game, I phoned my mom’s best friend Rosita so I could swing by for a quick hello. My uncle Djalma was nice enough to take me to the nearby beach town of Balneario Camboriu and we visited for about an hour and half. We’ve known them all our lives and my parents have been friends with them dating back to their teens. After the visit, we drove along the main avenue along the ocean and eventually stopped for a bite to eat.

So now it was 10pm, we were sitting on the sidewalk having a beer and eating a shrimp dish that was delicious. And you wouldn’t believe how many people were out and about walking, jogging, rollerblading, biking, playing beach soccer, beach tennis, etc... I’m not used to seeing hundred if not thousands of people being active outside at 10pm, it just doesn’t happen back home in Calgary. I couldn’t help but think that if I lived here, I probably would be out there playing soccer, or riding a bike. Well, at least I can say that, not sure if that would actually happen. Haha



We made our way back home after dinner and I am now getting ready for tomorrow. I fly to Porto Alegre tomorrow with my cousin Luiz for my first game. I’ve been calling this trip my World Cup trip and it’s about time I see a game live. I haven’t seen my cousin Luiz since 2001, which is an eternity really. Me and him are quite similar in that we love sports, and I really happy he accepted my suggestion to go with me to Porto Alegre. I've been trying to get Luiz to go to a World Cup with for years and years, and here we are now, it's finally going to happen.

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