Paradise Found / Paradise Lost

So you’ll be glad to hear that the hard work portion of our trip is now over with the completion of the Group Stage, no more long days with 3 matches to watch or attend, and from here on out things get a little more laid-back. The last of the group matches we attended was the seemingly low wattage Ivory Coast v Greece game, which turned out to be a bit of a cracker. I think we were all hoping, along with the rest of the crowd in the stadium, that Ivory Coast would win. But alas, that is not the way the World Cup Gods had decreed it with those cheeky Greeks sending the Ivory Coast’s back home with the injury time penalty. Shame....

With the knowledge that things would be slowing down for us, I had arranged a trip away from the throbbing metropolis that is Fortaleza, for 2 days of rest and relaxation in a place called Jericoacoara, or “Jeri” for short. Jeri is a coastal national park about 350kms north of Fortaleza, and is fabled as an out-of-the-way part of the world, of beaches, dunes and palm trees, and where time runs at a different pace. I thought this would be just the ticket for those of us burnt-out on an endless diet of football and beer. To get there was a 4 hour marathon car trip with a local driver who obviously has ambitions to compete in a World Rally stage. It didn’t help that once again it was stinking hot, and with Fiona in the front, us three guys sat, sweated and fidgeted in the back, turning the truck into a 120kph sauna, even with the air conditioning on. I can say with my hand on my heart, it was one of the most uncomfortable journeys I have taken for a while, and I hoped that the destination would be worth it.

After endless roads filled with potholes, unexpected cobbled sections and rutted dirt tracks, we tumbled out of the car at the ‘Ranch do Peixe” (The Fish Ranch..!), and found ourselves in a beachside heaven of gently swaying coconut trees, thatched bungalows and the sounds of the ocean wafting on the breeze. The resort is set just outside the Jericoacoara national park, and about 10kms from the little town of Jeri, which is famed for its stunning beaches and ‘away-from-it-all-vibe’. After checking-in at the open air reception, we were shown around the resort, past the open air bar & restaurant and the turquoise pool and lounging area, and on to our luxurious beachside bungalows, complete with deck & hammocks.... Oh Paradise.... After unpacking we headed straight for the beach bar to drink cocktails and eat pizza, with a view of the ocean and the swiftly setting sun. I guess we were all tired after the journey and after a brief paddle in the pool, Fiona &I headed to our bungalow for some serious ‘hammock-time’, where we listened to a chilled out mix on the iPod, counted shooting stars, and allowed the stress of the past few weeks just melt away....

We all met up for breakfast the next morning, which consisted of far too much food,  including omelette, fruit, cake, crepes, bread, and more cakes, after which I definitely needed a rest. Fiona & I had decided that today would be a low-impact day of lounging, swimming and more hammock time, but there was one outstanding football match between USA and Germany to be watched at 1:00pm, but until then we would just chill out. We swam for a while, lounged for a while and swung in our

hammock for a while longer.... We met again for the match in the beach bar where we saw USA lose 1-nil to the Germans, but it was enough for the both the USA & Germany to progress to the next round, so we all left contented, Fiona to have a massage at the Spa, and I went off to commune with the world from my hammock. Later that evening we collected ourselves together to go for a slap up dinner at the restaurant, before returning to our individual bungalows for the night. Again Fiona & I finished the day by listening to music and swinging in our hammocks until late. I have decided that any day in which you can spend the majority of your waking hours in a hammock, is a good day....!

Unfortunately the next day we were checking-out as we only booked for two nights, which in my opinion was a mistake, but we were going to cram as much into today before we got our transport back to Fortaleza at 4:30pm. Therefore we woke early and packed our bags and made our way to breakfast, before catching a shuttle to visit the little town of Jericoacoara, which was about 30 mins drive away, along the beach and on sandy tracks through the national park. There are very few road going vehicles allowed in Jeri, except of course for hundreds of 1960’s style beach buggies and the ubiquitous motorbikes. You really feel as if you are going back in time as you drive along the beach and towards the little town, which has no paved roads,

only sandy tracks, you could easily imagine yourself in some small beachside community in 1960’s Mexico, complete with donkeys and aged-hippies..... We stumbled about town before heading to the beach, where we set up our base camp on some beach chairs under a couple of umbrellas. The weather was being a little temperamental with intense sunshine interspersed with a five minute rain squalls every hour or so, and the umbrellas did dual duty all though the day. The beach was a wide expanse of sand stretching hundreds of meters in front of us before the shallow warm water started, and we spent the next few hours either wandering out to the edge of the water for a paddle, or watching life go by from under our umbrellas. By mid afternoon I think we were all a little sunburnt and decided to move off the beach and head inland to look for some food from one of the many little restaurants we

had seen earlier. We found a cute little Italian style restaurant where Fiona & I had the best fish meal we have had so far in Brazil, washed down with a few tasty & thirst quenching Caipirinhas.... Bliss...

But as with all good things, this one was coming to an end, and we made our way back to the pick-up point for the shuttle, which would take us back to where our transport back to Fortaleza was waiting. Fortunately this time we had a slightly bigger vehicle, and with Yates in the front, and David very kindly offered to go in the very back of truck, Fiona & I had the back seats to ourselves and the journey was far more comfortable for us all, even if it was still 4 hours long.....

Yesterday David left us to start his journey back to Colorado and it was very sad to see him go. He is a very calm & balanced individual, a sort of ‘ying’ to his brothers ‘yang’, and his appreciation of the ‘beautiful game’ is very astute and insightful. I have enjoyed having him around to discuss tactics and analyse games, and I think he would have enjoyed the whole ‘Brazil World Cup’ experience. Yates and I have taken a perverse pleasure in trying to get him drunk on every possible occasion, but I think he will be keen for Russia in 4 years time. Thanks David, travel safely.

Now we are preparing to attend our last game in Fortaleza today, Holland v Mexico, and the sound of Dutch umpah music is already wafting up from down the road as I write this at 7:00am. Tomorrow we de-camp from Fortaleza and head south to Salvador in Bahia for a further 16 days, and 2 World Cup Play-Off matches. The temperature will be a whole degree or two lower, but hopefully the humidity will be a bit less. Don’t get me wrong, we have loved Fortaleza, but incessant heat & humidity can be a bit wearing after a while, especially if you have to keep showering and changing clothes throughout the day...! But that’s enough of me complaining about the excessive luxury and enjoyment, I will report in from Salvador when we get settled in.....

Report from the Front Lines of the World Cup

It is now Day 11 of the World Cup Tournament and we are holding up well considering the pain and suffering we are putting ourselves through, alongside the constant physical abuse our bodies are taking. Each day over the past 11 days we have been subjected to as many as 3 televised games, some of which we have been able to watch from the comfort of our ocean-side apartment, in between cooling dips in swimming in the pools or hours of idle swinging in the hammock.  But for some matches, particularly for those involving teams we actively support, (this list of teams grows at each World Cup), these matches have had to be watched in a bar, just for the added atmosphere and camaraderie you understand? Mercifully we have found a bar not more than 7 short minutes walk away, not just any bar, no, not some tucked out of the way bar on some non-descript side street, but probably the biggest, busiest and loudest bar on the whole waterfront in

Fortaleza. Because it’s so busy and standing in a queue in the direct sunlight is absolutely no fun whatsoever, we have to logistically plan our trips there in quite some detail, in order to arrive at least a few hours before the games start. And the heat....!! Oh my God, have I mentioned how dam hot it is here...? Just walking the 7 minutes to the bar can be an energy sapping route march where dehydration and delirium become a real concern, luckily the bar has a ready supply of ice cold beer and tasty food and we are forced to consume copious amounts of both just to build strength enough to watch the matches on their enormous wall of TV’s. And if I am forced to drink another Caipirinha, it may just be the last thing I do..... Funnily the return trip to the apartment is always a little fuzzy and unremarkable.

Live match days are no better..... All of our games here in Fortaleza start at 4:00pm, and because we nearly always want to watch the preceding game at 1:00pm, we have to leave the apartment at 11:00am. This involves a 20 minute walk in the nearly midday sun to the bus staging area, which should under no circumstances be attempted without the right precautions being taken, which generally means buying at least 2 cans of beer from the street vendors on the way. The bus trip itself is about 45 minutes and is sometimes riskily attempted without a beer..., a situation that is immediately remedied when we get off the bus with the assistance of more locally provided street vendors. From there it is a short walk to a bar we have begun to frequent, with adequate seating, a large screen TV and another supply of beers, (although on one trip they did run-out..!!). Arriving about 12:30pm, it is

here we set up our base camp to watch the early game for the next few hours, endlessly whiling away our time with more beer, and the occasional local delicacy of a meat product in a deep-fried doughy ball. Once the early game is finished, we start our approach to the Castelao Stadium, an almighty edifice of glass and steel that seems almost like a mirage looming large through the heat haze in the distance. Queuing, more queuing, and we are in, we have reached our ‘El Dorado’, and the sense of anticipation increases as we make our ascent with nothing but a view of grey concrete, which is soon replaced by a deep sensation of achievement when the view opens out into the verdant hue of the pitch lying majestically below us. We watch the game.....

Unless we are rushing to see the later game, we will mill about our seats for a short while to allow the crowds to ebb away and discuss the match we have just seen. Slowly we will descend the narrow walkways, drift down through the darkened bowels of the stadium, finally spilling out on to the concourse and then to the road beyond. A pit stop at our bar for re-supply is nearly always called for, even though the searing heat and temperatures may have dropped a degree or two with the warm  

blanket of darkness now falling. We steal ourselves for the rugby scrum that is the queue for the bus back to the city, but we are now all old-hands at this inhumane lottery and with patience, luck and a beer-in-hand, we can generally score a seat or two on the bus. There is nothing left to do when we get back to the city but to find a restaurant, a cold bottle of wine and maybe a finely cooked morsel, before returning to the apartment for a late night swim and then bed......

We suffer the above indignations all in the name of the World Cup, and I hope you can now understand what it is we have to go through, and we plead that you may feel just the merest sympathy for our plight.... Only another 5 arduous days of the Group Stage matches, after which things calm down a touch and will allow us to enjoy ourselves maybe...?

Football, more Football, and only occasional Sweating

We have now settled in to our World Cup routine and have been catching up on the televised games, and fitting in the odd spot of relaxing when we can. It’s always the same for the first 3 weeks of the World Cup, with 3 matches a day that we could watch, it’s a fine balance between which games, where, and how are we going to fit our meals in around them. Over the years we have expanded our list of teams that we actively follow from just England & USA, to now include Australia, (acting as a de facto New Zealand if they don’t make it to the tournament), and Germany, (when David is with us). We also have our favourite teams to watch, like Argentina, Brazil, Holland and Spain, which means that in the first 3 weeks of the competition, we are watching a hell of a lot of TV. Oh yeah, and don’t forget the occasional live game we are having to attend....

But we have managed to fit in a few things over the past 3 days, including walking on the jetty’s that protrude

out into the sea at regular points along the city waterfront, we have paddled in the ocean on the beach right outside our apartment, and we did visit the FIFA Fan Fest & Shop. On a less interesting front, we know where the supermarket is, a local bar with good TV access and a mean Egg & Bacon, and we have got our bearings on the streets and bars around us. The temperatures are still up in the late 20’s but the humidity is not quite so bad, so sweating is not the full-time profession that it was for the first few days we were here. We have not yet managed to have a day without reasonable quantities of alcohol, and I have had my first MASSIVE hangover after failing to get a meal at a restaurant, and drinking ALL the caprihina’s....!

Yesterday we went to see Brazil take on Mexico at the stadium here in Fortaleza. Based upon our previous experience and the fact that we wanted to watch the Belgium v Algeria game that was on immediately before our game, we left the city early ensuring seats on the bus, (a definite plus), and went to our little bar close to the stadium. Several thousand other people had the same idea, and the bus trip was a rowdy affair with banter and singing going on between the 2 sets of fans on the bus. When we arrived at the bar there was a bunch of locals that had rocked up with some instruments and were entertaining the drinkers with a wild array of local songs, with a few Mexican classics thrown in when a group of Mexican supporters came by. We sat there for an hour before the Belgium game started, and for the whole of the first & half of the second half, with them belting out some fine tunes, some of which we could sing along with. There was a great atmosphere developing....

Once Belgium had safely dispatched the Algerians, we left the bar and headed the short distance on towards the Stadium itself. By this time there were even more people around us, either in the green & gold of Brazil, or in the green & red of Mexico, all of them in high spirits in anticipation of a key World Cup match before them. I must at this point applaud the Mexicans for turning up in such numbers, it seemed that there was almost as many of them as there were local Brazilians, and as we made our way in to the stadium through the usual checkpoints and ticket checks, the mood was very upbeat and fun. I can’t imagine going to see England v Germany at Wembley and seeing English fans serenading the Germans with the occasional German folk song and some light hearted banter.

By the time we took up our places in the 60,000 seater stadium, it must have been somewhere close to full, with a sea of gold shirts stretched out before us. To the far right and left there were vast sections of the crowd in the distinctive green shirts of Mexico, who were making their presence known with their various songs and chants. The Brazilians tried to give as good as they got, but I would have to hand victory in the chanting stakes to the well coordinated and load Mexicans. In the competition for best rendition of a National Anthem, Brazil really came into their own, with every Brazilian in the place giving it everything they had and belting it out in fine style, even when the music seemed to stop halfway through. So it was finely balanced between the competing nations, well before a ball was kicked....

As many of you will know, it was a tense & stressful game with plenty of action at both ends and the passions of the crowd were raised by incident after incident. The chanting & shouting of each set of fans was not only deafening, but well coordinated with the action on the pitch. Both sets of fans roundly abused their corresponding opposition goal keepers when taking goal kicks, with a chant that built to a crescendo that culminated with the shout of “Burro” (donkey in English). Most amusing.... As the game progressed, the dogged defence of the Mexicans, and especially their goalkeeper who had the game of his life, and the limited amount of real attacking flair from the Brazilians, led to an inevitable nil-nil draw. Don’t get me wrong, it had been a great game full of excitement and chances, but at the end of the day, I suspect that the Mexicans went home the happier, whilst the Brazilians may have been a little disappointed. Still we all seemed to enjoy the experience which was one of the best in 24 years of attending World Cups....

Today we are communing with the couch, waiting for the maid to show up to make us breakfast and planning where to watch the Australia v Holland game. Later we’ll probably spend some time sun-bathing, or take a swim and then decide where to have dinner and maybe catch the Spain game. As I say, this World Cup lark is hard work, let me tell you, but someone has to do it......

Say Hello to Uncle Sweaty....

We spent the morning of our last full day in Sao Paulo just chilling out and making the most of the sunshine in the upmarket shopping area at the end of our road. Fiona and I had late brunch at a side walk cafe, sitting back to enjoy the people watching as the city started to get excited about the upcoming opening game of the World Cup. Up until this point we had only seen a handful of Brazilians wearing their national colours, but on this morning, every third person was either wearing a Brazil team shirt or was dressed in the green & gold of the Brazilian flag. The World Cup was finally here and the locals were starting to get into it, and there was a distinct buzz & sense of anticipation on the streets.

We went to our bar round-the-corner, (called ‘The Rabbit Hole’), and got a prime table out the back with a great view of the various TV’s, and proceeded to start on the drinking. The place filled up slowly to begin with but by kick off it was almost full, mainly with locals, but there was a strange table of about 6 middle aged men next to us that we were convinced were not Brazilians. We were well into our 5^th or 6^th round of beers by that time and nothing was going to stop us enjoying ourselves, in fact I think we were doing most of the

whooping and hollering along to the TV. The Croatian goal did start to put a bit of a dent in proceedings, but even though it was a bit controversial, it was great when Brazil scored their equalising penalty which was going to go a long way to keep the locals happy. To say that Brazil had a bit of luck on their side with the Japanese referee is a bit of an understatement, but they scored 2 more goals and put the game to bed. I don’t think I saw any of the middle aged men on the next table even smile at any point during the game, let alone cheer, I think they must have been Uruguayan ‘sex-tourists’ that had been unable to find the local brothel and stumbled into this bar instead...!

I think that it was the right result in the end, but Croatia was justifiably upset, but anything that keeps the locals concentrated on the football and doesn’t give them a reason to protest about anything is fine by me. We lost count of the number of rounds of beer we had had after about 10, but even then the bill was a reasonable R$300, (US$150), and that included 2 massive plates of fried chicken pieces... Suffice to say we retired to our respective apartments satisfied, stuffed, and maybe even a little drunk. The World Cup was officially under way....

The next day was a travel day, and an easy one at that. Our flight out of Sao Paulo wasn't until 3:15pm, and with Sao Paulo’s famous traffic congestion in mind, we decided to go straight to the airport after our 11:00am check-out. We need not have worried, the taxi ride that had taken the best part of 2 hours when we arrived only took us 40 minutes on the return trip, so we were at the airport with a couple of hours to kill. We were hoping to catch up with Yates’s brother David who would be joining us for the Fortaleza leg of the trip, who was in the airport at the same time, but we were trapped in Terminal One, while David languished in Terminal Two waiting for his connecting flights to Fortaleza. The fight was another of those of the uneventful kind I have come to like so much, and after waiting for Fiona’s bag that seemed to come out last on the carousel, we were through the controls and out in the arrivals area.... Blimey, it was hot, and not just hot, but humid as well. I usually wear my heaviest, and generally warmest, clothes when I travel, and standing in the arrivals area, I was starting to sweat in places that the sun doesn't shine..! Yates was going to wait for his brother who was coming in on a flight an hour after us, so Fiona and I got in a taxi and went to our new home for the next 17 days. Bloody hell, did I say it was hot...??

We made to the Beach Class Fortaleza with no drama, and after a few communications issues with the front desk, we were soon standing in our 21^st floor penthouse apartment, with a commanding view towards the beach and the site of the Fortaleza Fan Fest. The Chile v Australia game was well into the second half by then and it was going off in the Fan Fest, where the screen was so big I could have watched the game from the balcony if it wasn't for the 50”HD TV in the apartment. And did I mention how hot it was...?? I was sweating like a glass-blowers arse.... I could not get out of my completely

inappropriate clothes and into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and lay back on the couch, sucking on an ice-cold beer from the fridge... 

Yates & David arrived about an hour later, and it was great to catch up with David for the first time since we saw him in Germany during World Cup 2006. He hasn't changed a bit in the intervening 8 years.... We didn’t waste too much time on pleasantries as we were all staring and it was already 10:30pm, so I fired up Foursquare and found a restaurant about 2 blocks away. This was a Brazilian Churascaria, where for a fixed price we could help ourselves to the extensive buffet, while white-shirted waiting move around the tables offering cuts from various barbecued meats, all of which were delicious. They gave us each a little token with a red side and a green side, and if we wanted more meat, we flipped it to the green side, and when we needed a break, flip it back to the red side, neat huh..?  We also rented about 4 litres of local beer which was a welcome accompaniment to the mountain of food we mowed through, I say rented, as I am sure that the beer was oozing out through my sweat glands as quick as I could drinking... Man, its hot here.... All I can say is I am glad that the bedrooms in the apartment have air-conditioning, we set ours at 16 degrees and left it running all night....

Woke up next morning, it was still hot...!

Today was going to be our first live game of the tournament, Uruguay vs Costa Rica at 4:00pm at the Estadio Castelao, Fortaleza. We made an early run to the supermarket for some breakfast supplies, found the details of how to make our way to the stadium, and made a plan to head at about 1:00pm, after Yates had finished exercising.  We hadn't walked more than 50 yards and I was already sweating through my shirt, and even though we seemed to buy beers from street vendors every 500 metres, I am sure I wasn’t replacing my fluids quick enough. This wasn't helped by a 50 minute ride to the stadium in a hot and sweaty

bus, which dropped us about 1km from the stadium, and after a pit stop for more beer we walked with the crowd in the early afternoon sun.  By this time I was sweating like a pig lord..... Queuing was minimal and we had no problems with the tickets, which was good as my ticket was in the name of “Susan Williams”, and we soon located our seats before searching out more beers and food. The stadium staff had not quite ironed out their operating processes, and queuing from beers was a bit of a free-for-all scrum, not helped by the Uruguayans employing some unique South American queuing techniques, but we all made it back to our seat in time for kick-off.

There were many more Uruguayans in the stadium than Costa Ricans and they made their presence felt with a rousing rendition of their National Anthem, which I swear has the longest introduction in World Football. I thought this should be an easy win for Uruguayan with their world class stars, including Forlan & Cavani, playing in the top leagues all around the world, against a Costa Rican side made up of unknowns and an Arsenal reject striker and a mediocre Fulham midfielder. The first half followed the script with Uruguay taking the lead with a nailed-on penalty, but Costa Rica were definitely not going to go out without a fight, but at half time I was still of the belief that it would go to form. The second half saw a turn-around as the ponderous

Uruguayan got caught out by quick pair of excellent goals by the Costa Ricans, and by the time they woke up it was too late, as Costa Rica slotted home a third goal to seal the game. Wow, what an upset... It was great to be in the Stadium at the end of the game with the Costa Rican chanting and the slow and dejected procession of Uruguayan fans leaving the stadium. Even after the sun had gone down, it just doesn't get any cooler, and we needed somewhere to get more beer to replenish our fluids.

We had decided before the match that we wouldn't have time to travel back into the city before the Italy v England game kicked off, and we had spotted a few bars on our walk towards the Stadium, so we found one with a free table in a prime position in front of the TV and settled in. One thing we didn't count on was the bar running out of beer before we got half way through the 1^st half, but the game was so exciting, I hardly noticed. When Italy scored I was downhearted, but this was soon resolved with a beautifully worked goal for Sturridge and England. The second half had hardly started when the Italians scored again, but there was plenty of time and

England were taking the game to Italy. As time ticked by and chance after chance was squandered by England, that sense of impending doom started to creep over me, and when Rooney missed a sitter, I kinda knew it wasn't going to be our night. Plenty of positives from England, in all area’s but the result. Disappointing.... We got a taxi back into the city and wander around for a while, tried to get into a very happening bar on the waterfront, but it was so busy and that South American queuing system was in full effect, so we bailed and went to a local bar to the apartment to watch the end of the late game and grab a bite to eat. Whilst the England result had gone the wrong way, it had been one hell of a day....

I only stopped sweating when I fell asleep in our air-conditioned bedroom.....

Some More Photo's from Sao Paulo

Here are a bunch of extra pictures of us in Sao Paulo,..... Enjoy...!

Out and About in Sao Paulo

Since the last blog post entry we have been spending our time acclimatising to Brazil, its weather and its culture, and checking out the sights and sounds of Sao Paulo. On Sunday we made our first foray in to the Avenue Paulista district with a visit to Sao Paulo’s Museum of Art, (MASP). Not only does MASP have a great collection of Brazilian art, it also has a world class collection of art from around the world, including a really comprehensive selection of French Impressionist painters, from Cezanne to Pissarro, and Monet to Manet. I was in my element swanning around the art gallery and spotting some of my favourite pictures from history, it looks like

that time at art school was noit completely wasted.  Suitably cultured-up, we wandered across the road to a park called “Parque Tenente Siqueira Campos”, which is a recreation of the Atlantic maritime rainforest that existed here before Sao Paulo came into existence. It was a very impressive collections of native trees that formed a natural canopy, serving as a cool refuge from the Brazilian heat. We wandered through this park at our leisure enjoying the unique ‘jungle’ experience in the middle of a busy city, and as this was a Sunday, there were plenty of other locals doing the same.

Hunger was setting in so after a quick consultation with ‘Foursquare’ I found an Argentinean restaurant about a block away and off we trotted. The restaurant was a pretty swanky affair but we soon lowered the tone and set about ordering some beer and very large cuts of meat. When they arrived they looked delicious and just as we were about to start the waiter came by with a side serving of rice, yum, nice, I’ll have me some of that. Just as I was contemplating a second attempt to get stuck in, another waiter came by, this time with some bean side dish, okay, that looks good. This process occurred another two times until our plates were over laden with not only some great meat but a heap of additional sides. Boy, am I enjoying eating out in Sao Paulo.

Monday was ticket collection day so we jumped on the subway and after a swift interchange, we were at the FIFA ticket collection centre, in the Sao Paulo Cultural Centre. At past World Cups we have had to queue for up to 2 hours to collect our tickets, even in South Africa, which was a pretty sweet collection process, we still had to queue for a short while. When we rocked up to the collection centre this time, it was empty, as Yates and I were only people in the place, I swear there were more security people on hand that people collecting tickets. Nice, we were in and out in about 10 minutes, and what was even better is that we each had a fist full of tickets... We still had no luck getting tickets for the opening game of the competition, and are no resigned to having to watch the game in a bar somewhere... What a hardship....

As we now had a ton of time on our hands we decided to head into the centre of the city and go to the Banespa Tower, to take trip to their observation desk and check out the size of this place. After some fannying around to actually find the place, it shouldn’t have been so hard it is the tallest building around, we finally joined the queue to check-in and ride the 2 elevators and climb 2 flights of stairs to get to the 33^rd floor...! It was a bit arduous with all the queuing and waiting around, but when we made it to the top the view was staggering. I had read that Sao Paulo was the 3^rd largest city in the world, and that it is rightly called a ‘Megalopolis’, but the 360 degree view of high-rise building & skyscrapers to the  horizon really nailed it home. By the time we got down from our precarious viewing platform it was time for lunch, which today consisted of a huge buffet where they weight your meals before you ate them. I won the heaviest combination of main & dessert, go figure. After lunch we walked down past where the FIFA Fan Fest was being set up and then to the main Cathedral for a short look around, and then caught the subway home.

We have been hearing TV news articles about trouble on the Sao Paulo metro with strikes and protests, even the use of riot police & tear gas..... We have been travelling around Sao Paulo completely unaffected by these demonstrations, and in fact I was beginning to wonder if there was another Sao Paulo somewhere that they were referring too. Having seen the vastness of this city from the skyscraper, I can now easily imagine that there could be something happening in another part of town that could go unnoticed where we are.... It’s really that big.

On Tuesday, Fiona led us on an expedition across town to check out the recently renovated and re-opened Museum of Immigration, which told of the various phases of immigration to Brazil over the past 3 centuries. This was a bit of local history that none of us had any real understanding or knowledge of before, and the interactive museum housed in Brazils’ version of ‘Ellis Island’ was very interesting and informative. The renovation work had been carried out very sensitively, and the building and its grounds were now very attractive, plus part of the complex was also now being used to help feed local people who were down on their luck. Our luck was just fine so we went back towards Avenue Paulista and found a restaurant specialising in Chicken, and once again stuffed ourselves with some sumptuous food....

Today’s adventure was to the Sao Paulo Museum of Football, which was only a 15-20 minute walk away from our apartment. Thus was the first museum that was truly busy and I guess it’s no real surprise given that the World Cup kicks off right here in this city tomorrow evening. As you can imagine there were fans from all over the world shuffling through the various exhibits, but the Croatians, whose team would be playing Brazil in the opening game tomorrow, stuck out in their bold red and white checked colours, but it was all very friendly and fun. The museum itself is located inside the Pacaembu Stadium, and is spread over 3 floors, and whilst it is a little biased towards Brazil, their world cup history & tradition, it was probably one of the best laid out & interesting museums of its type I have seen anywhere. There was plenty to see, and if we could have read Portuguese we would probably have gotten even more out of it than the 2 hours we did. I would recommend this museum even to those that don’t have a passion for football.

So that just about wraps up what we have been doing out and about in Sao Paulo these past few days. In between the adventures above we have been lazing around our apartments, taking mid afternoon siesta’s, and wandering the local area to find a bar and meal most evenings. We have mostly overcome our lack of being able to speak Portuguese with the use of ‘Google Translate,’ and navigating our way through the labyrinthine city using ‘Google Maps’, and also using technology to get cabs using ‘99Taxis’ and finding restaurants using the ‘Foursquare’ applications on our iPhones. Things have changed beyond belief since Yates & I started coming to the World Cup in 1994.

Tomorrow is the Opening Ceremony & match of the 2014 World Cup, and we have managed to reserve a table at the bar just round the corner, thanks to Google Translate & our new best friend ‘Celberson’ the waiter.  Then it’s on to the city of Fortaleza on the Northern coastline of Brazil, where we see our first game, Uruguay v Costa Rica.