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.
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