Day 24: first match and Argentina here I come...

I started writing this blog and with all that has gone I already forgot about my first day here and started writing about the day I was going to the Argentina game, obviously.

My first game at the World Cup was France and Germany. After the crazy travels and almost missing the game I was off Marecana in Rio to watch my first game. The stadium is unbelievable in Rio. It will be something when we come to watch the final game here for sure. The security is at its top here and there was one redundant check after another within 10feet of each other. Germany did win but it wasnt a dominant win for Germany. The crowd was really good and always amazing to watch these games live!

As soon as we were done the game we took the subway back to Ipanema where we were staying. The apartment is amazing! Its walk away to the beach and in the center of all the restaurants. Also, just a skip and jump away to Copacabana. We decided to go and watch the Brazil game vs Colombia at a close by restaurant (Percao). This place a dream place for any carnivore. We were fortunate to have some really amazing fans cheering for their respective teams but we chose to cheer for the Colombians for obvious reason ;)

When the game was done we (Amre, Alnoor and myself) got freshened up and headed over to the bus station in Rio to go to Belo Horizonte. It seemed as though they brought Schumacher to drive the bus to Belo!!! It was quite the ride to Belo and if that wasnt enough, Amre picked a taxi that the driver was half sleeping while driving. Good thing Amre was able to help him stay awake!
Once we arrived to the Belo Airport we checked in but not so easy for Alnoor as he had quite the experience as it requires a blog entry of its own :) Nonetheless with his majic, we all ended up in Brasilia with enough time to spare to make the Argentina vs Switzerland game! The Argentina fans are just amazing! Constantly chanting and screaming at the top of their lungs! It was just an amazing experience. Although this was match against the Swiss it seemed a lot of Brazil fans were in the crowds to just torment the Argentina fans. They have chants to rebuttal each others chants it was just an amazing sight to see. I need to learn these chants for sure. The game was not that exciting because Argentina scored the first goal early on and just decided to take the lead and defend the rest of the game. There were some chances with Messi having a breakaway that he didnt score. It was just amazing to see him live and how quickly he breaks down defensive systems.

As soon as the game was done we had to rush back to Brasilia airport and try to get on an earlier flight so we can make it to our bus to come back to Rio. This time I picked the taxi and boy oh boy did I ever picked a good one. This guy looked like Mr Magoo and just Magoo he couldnt see! He almost rear ended a car at full speed and once again Amre rescued this driver pretty much pressing the brake from the passenger side. We finally got to the airport, safely, and got on a the standby list. Surprisingly we actually got on the plane while we were waiting to get our lunch, the funniest thing was we were telling a bunch of people there to take our lunch for free but no one took it not because they didnt want to steal it but they just didnt understand what we were saying because it was in English it was quite entertaining to see people just staring at you when you are offering free food!!

We all got on our flight back to rio and this time Alnoor picked the taxi. Well it shouldnt be a surprise that there is another story about this driver. The simplest thing for this driver was that red light meant go go go and green light meant slow down!! Needless to say we got to our apartment pretty quick!
Next day is going to be a relaxing day at the beach and play some soccer on the beach!