Brazil World Cup 2014 - Day 4

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Got up fairly early this morning around 6am; but it wasn't really a problem because we seemed to be jet-lagged the opposite way than we should be : sleeping and getting up early. I guess it's not really jet-lag and we just end the day tired from all the activities and sleep early. Had breakfast at the hotel and hit the road a little after 7am.

From then on it was almost a 2 hour drive to Brasilia, mostly on the highway. There were speed limits enforced electronically at regular intervals. The countryside was mostly large green fields and valleys. From what i gather this is cowboy and ranching country. We didn't see any cowboys riding horses unfortunately, but we did see a couple of people in the typical hat, as well as some cows and horses grazing. Was a pleasant drive with some nice sights and we found the apartment we were staying in with no trouble thanks to the GPS.

The street address was SQSW 301, which sounds more like some code; and this is another indication of the fact that Brasilia is a 'planned city'. Which means it didn't organically grow like typical cities. About 50 years ago the president decided to establish a city here (which was otherwise in the middle of nowhere) and make it the capital. So an architect was assigned and everything was planned from the start. A separate sector for apartments, a separate sector for houses, a separate sector for offices and so on. Driving is also supposed to be simple here because the roads are very structured.

The apartments themselves are a little bigger and better than the one in Rio: it's a high rise with several apartments and our host Luis has 3 bedrooms here. He's staying in one of them and has his own bathroom. He said there were supposed to be some more guests in the other room but they're not here so we have a bathroom for ourselves as well. According to him we're far from his first guests: he's hosted people from California, Colombia and Ecuador already. He's very friendly and nice and speaks good English. He also had a ticket to the game today (though obviously not in seats close to us in the stadium), so we went together in his car. We stopped a little way from the stadium to get parking and then walked there. Oh, and also he painted his face in the color of the Nigerian flag: simply because from personal experience he dislikes the French! It's all in good humor. Also, the reason he was able to go to the game instead of work is because Brasilia declares holiday on any day where a game is hosted here, simply because the traffic would be too disrupted for normal work routines.

This stadium was also really good; it's a little smaller capacity than the Maracana (69000 vs 80000) and the rows of seats rise in a much steeper angle than the Maracana in Rio. In any case, we had pretty good seats this time too, and since we came early we even got to see the players train/practice before the game. Was interesting and fun to see players that we know and how they form little cliques to train (suggesting who is friends with who) and also the organized routines. The game itself, while fairly enjoyable, was not as good as the previous one we went to. Neither team played too well, and the individual quality of French players eventually told with two late goals in a 2-0 win. There were a few French fans somewhat near us and a whole bunch on the opposite end of the stadium: most frequently chanting "Allez les bleus" (it was so overused i was tired of that chant by the end of the day). Nigeria had an unexpectedly strong support simply because it seemed as though all the Brazilian locals were rooting for them. But neither sets of fans could match the noise levels and energy of the Colombian fans from our first game. Another tragedy was that my camera ran out of battery just as the warm-ups were being completed so i didn't have nearly enough pictures and videos as i wanted.

Afterwards we headed back home, freshened up, then went with Luis to a place near a lake that had about 5 different restaurants. They were all obviously very crowded with people watching the Germany vs Algeria game that just started. We met a couple of friends of Luis, and two more joined later as we watched on a TV the game along with dinner. The food was beef steaks with chips and a side of traditional Brazilian seasoning called farofa : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farofa. It was all very delicious. One of Luis's friends i was sitting next to is studying International Relations, and hopes to become a diplomat. He's already worked in the field before and for the UN briefly. We had brief interesting chit chat about each other's countries. To be honest, in between the food and the talk i missed most of the game as it finished 0-0 in 90 mins, and then we watched the extra time as Germany eventually won 2-1.

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