Urban Death March II

Hi all. Last night w realized that today was going to be our last  unencumbered day in Brazil, and that we had to make it count. So we slept until 8:30, but then we got straight to it. 

We did 3 rounds of tabata exercises (Quinn pled down from running), had breakfast, and then went to the subway station to to to the Luz station, a turn-of-the-last-century railway station that a lot of people recommend. 

Turns out we'd been there. You transfer from the regular subway to the special World Cup train at this station, so we'd had the pleasure a couple of times. But we'd always been in transit, and this time we got to look around.

 I think it's really cool how the place is still used as it was originally intended. Just an everyday train station, but old and nifty. 

The neighborhood outside was really - well: Not really picturesque - I mean , I've been to Quito. That's picturesque. But this was the most picturesque corner of São Paulo hat we've seen. 

Just next door is a very quiet, leafy park. People were jogging and sitting on the benches. Quinn wanted to bounce his brand-new Brazil souvenir, a a Brazooka, but I didn't feel right abou it; it didn't seem like that kind of park. "It's a park! Of course you can kick a soccer ball in it!" So he did, despite my misgivings. 

And then a lady in a uniform told him that wasn't allowed. 

Ha.

Some park pics:

Back to the hostel, with a stop for lunch on the way. Quinn stayed at the hostel while I ran some errands, though first we took some pictures of us with our tickets, in case the unthinkable should happen. James, our English friend, had lost his ticket on the way to Uruguay-England, and had managed to talk his way in because he'd happened to have just such a picture on his phone. So here's our insurance policy:

(Quinn had me do a funny face.)

We had some fear put into us as well by he Brazilian staff, who'd heard estimates of tens of thousands of argentines who would be making their way to São Paulo, but without tickets, hoping to buy them or steal them. So we're keeping the doors locked and the sensors on high until after the game tomorrow.

(We already were anyway, truth be known.)

So when I went out to run errands, I saw this guy one last time:

Got a real soft spot in my heart for French bulldogs. 

On the way back I walked through another park I hadn't seen yet. This one is right along Paulista, and once you're in, you have no idea that you're in the heart of the city. I couldn't resist taking one of this old feller:

A street bisects the park, and a bridge connects the two halves. Pretty cool:

So our second half of he day was spent back at Parque Ibirapuera, where Quinn and I kicked around his Brazooka:

The guy at the store made clear that the ball was a commenmorative one - I think there's a version that's identical to the on-field variety. Fear not, Janneke: it's not that one.

We switched to a frisbee after a while. It was a bit of a novelty for a lot of folks, I think: people would stop and watch us for a little as they strolled. 

No, my fly wasn't open. 

There are a lot of Argentines in town all of a sudden. You hear them everywhere, and seven of them are staying in our hostel. Haven't met them - we've gone all hermit lately - but they're here. The excitement is building. It's not the same giddiness there was in the group stage, with three games a day, but it's still pretty cool.

Back to the hostel for he end of Germany-Algeria. Well - the end of regulation. At that point we were hungry, and I'd told Quinn that since it was our last night before our LAST night, we could eat wherever he wanted. So we walked to the mall and ate at that weigh-your-plate place, and had a nice time watching Germany's second, and algeria's first, goal. People are talking about it as the game of the cup so far. I'll quote James the Englishman again: after Portugal headed in the equalizer with 20 seconds to go, he threw up his hands and declared: "Best World Cup ever." There have been SO many great games - how many of the knockout matches have gone to extra time? Three? With two PK shoot outs? The Brazilian nightmare everyone talked about at the beginning has, in soccer terms at least, really turned out to be amazing.

Walked home. Paulista fills up at night with all these hippies who squat on the concrete in front of their blankets full of bracelets and jewelry and dream catchers, and it really puzzles me. How people choose that life style, I mean. I've known some hippies - I'm from Gays Mills, remember - but they lived the hippy dream, out in the woods, communing with nature (not to sound dismissive, but you know what I mean), homesteading, living simply. These guys get more second-hand smoke in a night than a bartender in 1978, and spend huge portions of their lives in really filthy, uncomfortable conditions. They seemed enslaved by heir state much more than freed by it. Quinn and I have talked about it quite a bit - it's been interesting to see what he notices about them. 

And now we are in bed, closing out the day. We will be in the upper deck again tomorrow, so little chance of catching us on TV. Thanks for reading!

A Day In The Park, and On the Move

Hey folks. The plan today was simple: Go to the park. Return a shirt for one of a larger size. Try on some cleats. Shop for "compression shorts", which apparently are a thing. Eat.

We did it all. And it took aaaaaall day.

Up and at 'em breakfasted, and out the door by 10:00. Hey - we're on vacation.

I started taking photos of every dog I saw with a sweater on, because I've seen a lot. Here's what I got today:

Maybe I don't see as many as I thought I did. 

We took a bus that our friendly hostel mistress - it's not like it sounds - told us about, and it was great because we had to wait no time, and it went straight to the park. We got out, walked in, and started kicking the ball. Easy peasy, and a really nice day to boot. These two showed up in running clothes and started stretching next to us:

They seemed like they were on a first date, and it was the most adorable thing I'd ever seen, this lengthy, smiling routine before they started off on a jog. Another São Paulo story waiting to be written.

The park is big, and beautiful:

It was also crowded, this being a beautiful Sunday. The masses of paulinos who jog or ride their bikes made for a scene comparable to Paulista Avenue. It was actually dangerous, it seemed to me, with everybody weaving in and out. There are bike paths, with divided lanes, but people passed so much that it really quickly made our minds up that, no, we would not be renting bikes today. Maybe tomorrow, when the population is thinner. 

By the way, if any of you want to become number one in some category in Brazil, come here with three bike helmets, and sell them. You'll instantly become the biggest-selling bike helmeteer in Brazilian history. 

We stopped and watched some soccer:

Petted a few dogs that wandered by too. We were unwittingly on the edge of the unofficial dog park area: 

Lots of breeds, but just as many well-cared-for and beloved mutts. I love that about São Paulo.

I also love what they've done to help this tree, which has sent a branch a little farther out from the trunk than is really wise:

There's a cloth between the bark and the metal. 

Nowhere to eat lunch in the park at an affordable price, so we set out to walk to Rua Oscar Freire, he of the Nike store, and resolved to find a greasy spoon on the way. We were on some pretty hoity-toity streets there, with lots of law offices and corporate headquarters. We saw this place:

...whose name made us homesick:

Ate lunch. Nice place, affordable. Didn't take any pictures, probably because I was exhausted. Made it to the Nike store; tried on the cleats. Quinn though that he'd found a place online to get them cheap; turned out later to be a scam. But it gave us a purpose for today.

Found compression shorts. Checked price tag. Hung them back up.

Quinn thought this guy's coat was funny:

It says "Great Britain", and has the American and British flags. 

 

See what fun we have?

Sundays in São Paulo, the big avenues give up one lane that's transformed into a bike lane. And a whole bunch of people are paid to hold flags saying "stop" so the cyclists don't swarm over the pedestrians at the crosswalks. It's extremely polite and cordial:

Back to the hostel. Footsore and swollen from kicking a ball so much, the many (felt that way, anyway) walking miles...I took a damn nap. And Quinn, a little later, had post card duty:

Off to the mall, then, to return a shirt and eat supper. There's a weigh-your-plate place there. Quinn ate; I was still coasting from eating all my lunch & half of Quinn's.  First, though, I saw what Dick Cheney's been doing with his spare time: 

It's good he keeps busy.

Quinn weighs his options before weighing his options:

They'd set up a tv so we could see the extra periods of Costa Rica-Greece:

A Columbian guy sat right next to me and narrated every move, and with every flub or mistake, declared the offender to be a "maricon" (fag). It bothered me a lot. I forget what a bubble of tolerance we live in sometimes. I looked at the guy as we left: everything about him just screamed "sleazy cave man". Unsurprising. 

Back home, another three-quarters of a mile, with McFlurries halfway there. And here we are. I had this nice long talk today with a couple of the employees of the hostel - In Portuguese! (Kind of) - about how we prefer to get to know fewer places well when we travel rather than flit from one check-off destination to another. And we are definitely doing that. 

We didn't even watch Holland, except for part of the first half over lunch. Heard about the result. Watched 3/4 of regulation time of CR-Greece, and heard the cheer as we walked home after supper when CR won. I kind of like that about today: we watched the soccer, as long as it didn't get in the way of what we wanted to so. That feels about right. 

See you tomorrow!

City Boys

Auto- correct had that as "cutey-boys". Thought about leaving it. 

Another day in the Urbe. Up at a reasonable hour and off to the only post office branch open on Saturday. A lot of you will be getting post cards, but probably after we get back. For some reason we haven't been able to find an open post office before now. So we trooped off to find it. 

I popped a pic of the first person I've ever seen doing what must be a constant chore around here:

We were in and out of the post office in a few minutes, and went off to buy some post cards and do some shopping. We got the post cards, but most places were closed because it's game day. Everybody,  practically, was wearing their Brazil jerseys:

Even a (lame) street performing Elvis impersonator got into the act:

The Posada organized another barbecue for us for the game:

The Chileans in the hostel established themselves in one room, and the Brazilians in another: 

As I pointed out on Facebook: Chilean men have round faces, powerful builds, ten extra pounds, and beards. There was another one too; I just couldn't get them all in the picture.

The game was amazing, with the Brazilians going bananas sometimes and the Chilean contingent going even more so. PKs is a terrible way to end a game, but I can't say it isn't fair. Chile should hold its head high, and its players should know that a number of big strong men wept openly when that last ball bounced off the post.

Neymar is amaaaaaazing. SO fast, such touch and control...incredible.

We watched Colombia-Uruguay, and the better team definitely won there. I was pulled more in a Colombia direction, perhaps because the Uruguayans seemed so angry. And because they seem to be angry with everyone on Earth except Suarez, who's the only one at fault. But it's a small country; they stick together. 

Quinn and I ate out:

We the did some shopping, and finished up with a dessert of pineapple smoothie - which is extremely similar, in Portuguese, to the word for "avocado". That was a close one.

I've mentioned the high regard I have for the Brits we've met on this trip, and now I think I'll mention the Chileans, particularly Matias, a lawyer who can quote Nicanor Parra poems like I can quote... Well, I can't quote anybody. Just the nicest, smartest, most well-educated guys you could ask to meet. They raise them right down there - Don, I'll have to give you his contact info. I know how hard up you guys are for someone to talk to when you're down there.

And, you know, while I'm praising things, here are a few others:

Brazilian drivers. In São Paulo, anyway, they are way into obeying traffic rules and lights, and are very, very deferential to pedestrians. In that regard, I see no drop-off from the US. I've felt very safe crossing the streets. 

"Why would you expect anything else?", sniffs Chauncey the Touchy and Easily Offended Knight of the Politically Correct.

"Because I've been in six other Latin American countries, Chauncey, and you're taking your life in your hands there every time you nip out to buy a packet of crisps, you mincing twerp."

Also to be praised: Quinn's sense of direction. He tells ME where to go 90 percent of the time. He knows before we get to the metro which train we're taking first and how many transfers we have to make. He can scan Paulista for two seconds and tell you if this metro stop or that one is closest. It's kind of spooky - to me, anyway. Like muskets were spooky to the native Hawaiians when Cook turned up.

The PosAda. James, the English traveller who was here the longest, told them before he left, "I've been in probably a hundred hostels over the last two years, and I can honestly tell you: This is the best one." Helpful, smart staff, friendly guests, great central location... Getting our money's worth, here. 

There you have it. Tomorrow we do some architectural sightseeing, and hit he biggest park in São Paulo, so Quinn - who feels better every day - can finally kick a ball around. We'll shop a bit too. I was offering a number of day trip options to Quinn, but staying in town was what he really wanted to do. Easy enough. 

Thanks for reading, good night!

Sand In Our Shoes

Quinn's feeling a lot better today. Only a minor headache at the beginning of things, which the Tylenol cleared right up. Up, breakfast, quick consult with the locals, and then we were out the door, heading for the end of the blue line and the bus station that occupies the same space. For we were headed to Guaruja!, and all its seaside enchantments. 

We metro'd across the city and bought tickets JUST before the bus left - we actually had to run to make it - and for the first time saw a little of Brazil that isn't covered with concrete. The forested hills (are they actually mountains?) look a lot like they do in Puerto Rico, and once out of the city, we saw much more in the way of forests than of cultivated fields, or even pasture. I saw a few cows and a dead horse scattered across the landscape, but apart from that, hardly any evidence of agriculture at all. 

Lots of audacious engineering, though. It's a steep descent from São Paulo to the coast , through rough mountains of unpredictable twists and turns. They've split traffic up - there is one two-lane road strictly for going down, with separate tunnels and bridges and everything from the "up" road, which we crossed numerous times going down. I'm not sure, but it sure seemed as if the cArs and heavier vehicles had been split up, too, since I only saw trucks and buses on our two-lane road. Which would mean that there are FOUR such roads, each with an individual set of bridges and tunnels, going up and down the toughest sections of the mountain? Wow. It really was quite a drop - didn't lend itself to photography, really, undortunately. But I tried.

So we pulled in to Guaruja after about an hour. Definitely a dingier and smaller town than São Paualo, but I'd guess it has over a hundred thousand souls living there. We took a cab to the local hostel that Roberto at Dos Franceses had told us about - it belongs to the same owner as D.F., so Roberto called ahead and told them we were coming. They gave us a locker and said we could put our valuables in it - they didn't recommend we take anything valuable to the beach. So our passports (I don't like to carry them around, but we were leaving the city, so in case something happened, I wanted them), credit card, and phones, as well as all our money, save enough for lunch, in the locker. So, no photos of the beach. 

Small price to pay, though, because while Quinn and I tossed a frisbee in the waves, three or four kids on bicycles swooped down and grabbed our back pack.

I only know his because a pair of women nearby said they'd seen them just prior to my running out of the water because I saw our pack was gone. The kids were long gone, somewhere dickering over $7.50 (change from lunch), a dry towel,ear buds,and a bottle of Tylenol drops. 

Quinn was disturbed by the whole thing but relieved, even tickled, that they had failed to get anything of value. We managed to end our day at the beach in pretty high spirits. 

I still get sinking panics when a memory comes up, though - the memory of hitting a Brazilian woman in the neck with the frisbee. It just took off in the wind on me. I RAN to her, babbling apologiesand looking   stricken; she was clearly unhappy, but was very gracious about it. A few minutes later I offered to buy her and her family a round of what they were drinking, (this was before the bag got nipped), but they refused, politely. "Ya pasO," she said. Uff - I still feel just terrible. And lucky - her husband was evidently a body builder. I mean, professional-grade. He was friendly and gracious too, which was a nice surprise. I was half expecting some roid rage. 

Had there been any, though, fear not. I ran a pretty respectable 200-meter dash back in the day, and Quinn's faster than I am. We'd have left the bag, our towels, our shoes - our identities if it came to that. 

Dude was HUGE.

We ended our day at the beach at about 3:00, and walked back to the Guaruja hostel. Showered, had them call a cab for us, and headed back to the bus station. The cab driver was a nice guy - his Portuuese was easy to understand. (Is it can drivers that are so easy...?) he turns out to be the father of the woman who handled our stuff at the hostel. "What country are you from?" "The US." Big smile: "Barack Obama!" So there it is. That's now the thing people say when they find that out.

Onto the bus:

And back to São Paulo, back through two trains on the metro, and to a mall, where there weren't any movies that interested us. So we had a cheapish dinner there and walked back to the Pousada. 

 And there you have it. I wound up being kind of an expensive day, between bus fare twice, cab fare twice, two meals out, and $7.50 lost to the criminal bike gangs of Guaruja. So we'll take all the cheap options tomorrow. Time to relax and maybe catch another episode of "an Idiot Abroad". That Karl Pilkington. He's such a moron.

"Go Korea! Shoot! Yeah!"

Howdy, everyone! First things first: the health update. Quinn had a slight fever before bed last night, so I ran (not literally) to the pharmacy and got Tylenol, in a format I hadn't seen before: Drops. You count the drops and drop them directly into the mouth, no swallowing of pills or mixing with water. It was very efficient, too - Quinn felt better almost immediately. Slept long and well, and had another dose in the morning. Felt so good that we finally hopped aboard the metro and saw the  Mercado Municipal. 

I got a pic of the map on the wall of he subway just for old time's sake. I know I could just keep the map we've been using, but then you wouldn't know what it looks like, would you?

We got off at São Beto, right across from the cathedral (which we still haven't been in; it looks so modern and Batman-ish, I'm really not that keen on it), consulted a big tourism-friendly map on a wall, and saw we'd have to take our first right, first left, and then our second right, and we'd be there. Our first right led us down this street:

It's steeper than it looks. But then we were there, and this is what it looks like:

Big, impressive, cool. Lots of shops that don't mind you sampling their wares, lots of locals doing their shopping and getting their midday meals. I thought this business' name was funny:

"Porco Feliz" - "Happy pig". Which is dead and has been cut into pieces. Quinn loved the fact that the guys behind the counter gave the thumbs-up for the camera. I hadn't noticed. 

Here's where we ate:

Here's the view from where we sat - add the Mercado to the list of businesses displaying all 32 flags of the participating nations in the Cup:

And here's what we ate:

Thin-sliced ham, cheese, and sun-dried tomatoes. Yum. 

We were back at the hostel in time to watch USA-Germany. I 'bout had a heart attack at the end there when the US almost headed one in. We lost, but we're moving on. To face Belgium. So Quinn and I decided to go do some scouting of our next opponent. Quinn had another shot of Tylenol, and we headed to he stadium for Korea-Belgium.

Here's our view of he field from our seats. Are we in the last row? Ha! Don't be ridiculous. This stadium is huge. It just looks like we're that high up.

We were in the second-to-last row. 

Still, you could follow the game very closely - totally unobstructed view, and you get to watch plays develop more when you can see the whole field. I liked being close enough to see faces the last 2 games - and I have to say, if we had to have "meh" seats for one game , this was the one. We were close enough to Rooney, Robben, and Suarez to see the whites of their eyes. And I couldn't even have named any of hese players in this game today if you'd put a gun to my head.

The flags at the beginning. Game-wise, the stadium, mostly populated by Brazilians, seemed above all to want a good game. So they set out to cheer for Korea, figuring the highly-regarded Belgians were the overwhelming favorites. And they cheered mightily every time Korea had a chance. 

Notice I didn't say "every time they shot". Because for some Unknown reason, the Koreans simply refused to shoot. Every time they got near, it wasn't near enough, and they'd dance around some more, looking to get an even better shot. We were going crazy, the whole stadium, howling "shoot!" In various languages. But they just wouldn't . Always looking for ONE more turn, ONE more step to get a slightly better angle - and then the chance is gone. They've lost the ball.

Their worst offender in this regard, #9, was subbed out in the second half after an especially egregious waste of an opportunity, and I noticed that when it was over, and Korea had lost, and the players had walked to the end of he stadium where most of the Korea fans were, he hung way back when it came time to bow, as if to say "I don't deserve to be up here". But his teammates dragged him in, hugging him and forcing him to take the cheers along with his teammates. Kind of a cool thing to see. 

There was a Korean man in our row, about 50, there with his daughter, probably 20, who never sat down, practically, and cheered wildly the whole time. Nothing obnoxious- just loud, and in English, for some reason (it wasn't his first language).  "Go!" "Shoot!" "Yeah!" "Oh no!" Quinn asked me surreptitiously if I thought he was happy, or crazy. He was definitely just happy, and I was happy for him. Cheering on his team with his daughter, who clapped politely and followed the action, but with far less passion. I found myself inventing whole story lines behind them. It was hard not to think about them, what with his cheering interjected into every action we witnessed. You came to expect it. In fact, I think I"ll let him help me out, in his shrill and clipped voice, with my scouting report, with some of his favorite cheers:

Belgium is a very good team ("Oh no!") with a lot of skill ("Stop them!") and incredibly accurate passes ("Cut them off!"). They never lost a header to the Koreans ("Jump! Jump!"), but were susceptible to a fast attack down the sidelines ("Go! Go!") and to well-placed crosses ("What a kick!"). One of their players got a red card ("Bye bye!"), which the Chileans at the hostel, who saw it in replays on TV, say was well-deserved. I don't know if it was one of their preferred starters, but whoever it was will be banned from he USA match ("Yeah! Yeah!").

Back to he hostel on the metro. On the way out, we saw this, on the eastern side if the stadium, which we saw for the first time today: 

Hard to tell, but that sign is all along the outside wall, and is probably sixty feet high. That's how the other side is unfinished, I'll bet: the sign there isn't working. 

We're going to try to hit the beach tomorrow. Wish us luck! ("Go! Go! Go!")