Couple of Guys with a Map: Olinda Parte Umo

After Sunday night’s devastating tie, we made the quick walk back from the Fan Fest to our temporary home in Centro, and inexplicably went to sleep on the Megabed 4 hours before we had to wake up. We arrived at the airport mentally functioning at about the 3^rd grade level. After a quick 3-hour snooze of a flight involving only 3 wakeups by the folks sitting next to me to use the restroom (God.), we were greeted at the airport in Recife by our driver, Gilberto, as well as Samba dancing and free airport Caipirinhas. United could learn a thing or two from TAM Airlines. Gilberto dropped us off at Dolores’s adorable little home in the heart of the historical district of Olinda, the neighboring town of Recife, which we proceeded to promptly destroy. Just as a word advice, when renting an apartment for a few days using AirBNB, it’s generally considered disrespectful to break a shower curtain (Becca), flood a house by leaving the windows open on a stormy day (all of us), and clog a toilet (Goose, Becca, Megan, (not me)) within 24 hours of arrival…but more on that later. Dolores, if you’re reading this, Desculpe o senhora (Forgive me, ma’am).

View from the apartment porch is fine

We arrived and were met by Soulange, who set us up with everything we’d need despite speaking approximately 0 words of English. Gilberto drove us to the market to grab some groceries, and gave us some super obscure and unintelligible directions for our cab back to the house. We nodded as if we had a remote clue of what he was saying, grabbed our grocieries and a new cab back. We told the cabby the address, he nodded, and started driving. Generally, when a cab driver does this it is assumed he has some sort of idea as to where he is going and/or what planet he is on, but this guy had neither going for him. The 5-minute drive turned into 25, we ended up on top of a mountain briefly, but eventually found our way home using nothing but the graffiti art we noticed earlier as landmarks. For some reason, instructing a driver to find the “mural that looks like Plankton from Spongebob and take a left” doesn’t work in Brazil/anywhere in the world.

After a quick turnaround, and an absolutely thrilling joy ride to Arena Pernambuco about a half hour from the city, it was time to witness a World Cup game.

This match, Mexico-Croatia, was essentially an elimination game, as the winner was to move on to the knockout round. Mexican fans were well aware of this fact, and they spent every last peso they had to get here, dominating the environment inside and outside the arena. This had positive and negative effects. This was great because, as it turns out, they are all completely out of their minds and almost all wore absurd costumes. This was not awesome because Mexican men tend to like pretty women possibly even more than futbol, and therefore there were just as many people trying to take pictures with people dressed and painted up as Aztec warriors as there were to take pictures with Becca and Megan, dressed as American women in tank tops. There was a point when Goose and I waited for them to catch up walking, but they couldn’t because there was a line of three groups of men trying to take pictures next to them. But this did give us some time to analyze and come up with a Mexican Futbol Fan Power Ranking. The top 6:

6. World Cup Trophy within a sombrero

5. Aztec Warriors stumbling into a futbol match

4. Peppers in a sombrero super heroes?

3. These Guys

2. This monstrosity

1. Unicorn siting

A World Cup game is unlike anything else. There is no sporting event on the planet, Olympics included, which can bring individuals and nations together like this one. Despite incredible violence, drug-induced wars and gang-related terrorism in their homeland, every Mexican amigo was on the same side. They chanted, sang, screamed (and eventually annoyed the crap out of us) in unison before, during, and after the game. Four goals in 20 minutes was a treat, but recognizing the bigger feat of such a game was incredible. The World Cup is greater than the sum of its parts and extends FAR beyond just the game.

We took the train back to town with hundreds of our Mexican neighbors screaming and chanting like they just won the entire tournament, and checked out the festival occurring downtown in honor of someone that did something good somewhere along the line. It started pouring for the 4^th time of the day, and we took cover with Germany fans Andy and Marcus below a makeshift bar manned by Eddy the Brazilian bartender. We basically decided that we liked Eddy’s caipirinhas, the local drink of choice, but that we were just going to start making our own. Eventually, this led to me becoming assistant bartender alongside the two, and forging a pact to open a bar called The Three Gringos, featuring a drink that I just invented during the course of the evening.

We walked back toward our place to retire for the night…and were met by an outdoor Samba-dancing festival on our street, highlighted by a mid-70s Brazilian rapping to the beat and being echoed by everyone else on stage, which was really just someone’s front doorstep. Another Biblical rain struck though, forcing us to retire our extraordinarily Caucasian moves until next time.

Slept in yesterday morning, ready for a nice relaxing day at the beach. Upon arrival, though, there were some kids juggling a soccer ball in front of me. Obviously I was joining that. From there, being an American with unexpectedly decent footskills, we were going to have to take it to the pitch up the beach.

A full-fledged game erupted featuring Goose and I and a group of ten other Brazilians. I’m not here to brag or anything but exploding for 4 goals and 2 assists in the span of an hour and a half against some Brazilians is no easy task, so I made sure to let everyone on the beach know how big of a deal this was with every excessive celebration I could think of. Goose manned the goal and almost broke a leg or three with his breakaway saves, giving us a good name in the eyes of Brazilian jogadores. The problem with this game was that Goose and I had been running in Brazilian heat for almost 2-hours and sweat out about 300 combined gallons of water, which didn’t provide the most relaxing beach day in the world. The moment of the match? 5-year-old Manhuel scoring, running to midfield encircled by the high schoolers, and immediately Samba dancing as a celebration. This country is crazed by soccer in ways that are impossible to describe. Despite the minimal communication, we left the game with hugs all around. They loved it.

After a nice, small, 6,000-calorie dinner we all nearly passed into food comas, walked the beach, played cards (I won, but who’s counting?), and then possibly the most foul act in human history went down.

The problem with eating so many amazing fried cheeses and breads is that your toilet tends to be susceptible to explosions of sorts, and when Megan walked out timidly, explaining that there was a “problem with the toilet,” we were all blown out of our minds by what exactly she was talking about. The entire scene and smell of what had just occurred in the porcelain bowl was easily my worst nightmare, as I was previously convinced that women never actually did that, but just smelled like flowers. This presented the second toilet problem of the day: earlier in the day, Megan and Becca were in the bathroom together (which is probably the weirdest culturally acceptable girls-only tradition that exists in the world), and provided exhibit A as to why this shouldn’t be done: Becca hit Goose’s electric toothbrush off the sink and immediately into the toilet while Megan was using it. Whoops. NOW though, at 1 a.m., we were having far larger toilet problems with far larger potential consequences. We don’t know of any Brazilian plumbers and had no choice. Goose admitted to some previous foul damage he did as well, but then rebounded and claimed, “unclogging toilets is one of my greatest skills,” and went into battle.

After 10 minutes of attempted plunging with his shirt tied around his face like a terrorist, he even went so far as to yell from the bathroom battleground (while we were seeking refuge on the porch) that we were now approaching “Emergency Levels.” Later this was taken a step even further when Goose declared the apartment to be on a full-fledged 12-hour Bathroom Lockdown. Lockdown Status is rarely achieved, but the situation called for it, and there was no way I was going to let this situation pass without writing about it. Apologies to anyone I have offended (mainly Megan). An hour after loading the toilet with soap, chlorine, and hot water, and Goose putting his life and precious brain at risk with the toxins he was inhaling, success was achieved. For now. We’re halfway through the Olinda leg. Desculpe, Dolores.