Sao Paolo Recap

I am so depressed/shocked/angry/sad/confused right now I can barely type. Portugal’s 95^th minute game-tying header just sucked the life out of the Americanism-dominated Sao Paolo fan fest, where we watched Geoff Cameron have two of the most devastating mental blunders in U.S. Soccer history within a span of 95 minutes. BUT, before THAT wild ride of emotions – what a weekend.

After United Airlines put on the most impressive display of incompetence since the invention of Cutlericks,

re-routing us on 4 occasions, delaying 4 flights, and jumping our anticipated 14 hours of travel to 40, we arrived at 10 Saturday morning. We were greeted by a nice taxi driver who transformed me into a fluent native during the 20-minute drive, and were dropped off at Hotel Internacional, where we were greeted by an equally-kind host and an incredibly foul homeless lady walking around with her pants at her ankles and carrying her box-bed above her head. Welcome to Sao Paolo. The hostel is basically the same as a Ritz Carlton except there’s no hot water and our beds were all built for toddlers that enjoy sleeping on cement. So small, in fact, that I actually found myself sleeping like this in the middle of the night:

Our solution, obviously, was just to create one large Megabed…which was large enough for Goose.




Before that, though, we attacked the day with vigor. We took down the entire center of the largest city in the Southern hemisphere in a couple hours, seeing Mercado Republica (Translation: ‘Cheap crap with a few handmade items mixed in’), Monasteirio Sao Bento, Basilica Ifigenia, Catedral do Se, the FIFA Fan Fest, had a drink about 500 feet in the air in Edificio Italia, Beco do Batman, and Vila Madalena for street food, joining a wedding party that was doing soccer chants, the outdoor party scene, and a live music Samba bar. Not a bad effort on day one. Day two we came out hot again, taking down the southern part of the city by hitting up a 500-foot viewing tower first. This took an hour and we were granted 5 minutes in the viewing station. We love lines. We then got the doors of the Metro closed on our bodies like a rubber guillotine and proceeded to the Liberdade street festival – a Sunday afternoon festival featuring incredible Asian food and incredibly too many people in one place – followed by Avenida Paulista and then Parque Iberapuera, the city’s Central Park (or Memorial Park, I hear you Omaha). We ended the day with an awesome night at the Fan Fest, meeting Americans from all over and hugging the other ones I didn’t know during our 94-minute victory over Portugal (and 1 second tie). In summary, with pictures:

The Cathedrals were epic, as expected. America has some catching up to do in the “Build ridiculously obnoxious churches” arms race that began in the 1500s.



The FIFA Fan Fest is full of games and is incredibly well organized. One game involved running in place on a mat and a simulator tracking your pace while you race the person or group next to you. Needless to say this got a little heated, and either our tracker broke or Becca’s dual ACL problems started acting up, because clearly, judging by my pristine form, I deserved every bit of a victory here but Becca and I came away losers against Goose and Megan, which was about as depressing as giving up a 95^th minute goal GOD BLESS AMERICA GEOFF CAMERON.

PICK IT UP BEC!!!

 Walking around, we've noticed that despite the riots and whatnot you've heard about on the news, Brazilians really like Brazil soccer. Really, really like it.

Classing the joint up in the 41st floor Piano Bar

..with this as our backdrop

 We've also noticed that if something is not graffitied in Sao Paolo...well, it will be in the morning. But, ironically, the only remaining bits of SP that are not graffitied upon are graffiti arts themselves. Beco Do Batman, which has absolutely nothing to do with Batman, is a street of graffiti murals on people's houses and walls (not entirely sure if any of it is legal) and the art was perfectly kept and pristine, possibly the cleanest part of the entire enormous, dirty city.

Beco Do Batman

Outdoor weekend nightlife in Vila Madalena

Some native Brazilians

Touring the nicest gym in Sao Paolo - some giant cinder blocks attached to rods

View from the top of the bank building

Downtown Omaha skyline. Or Sao Paolo, they look basically the same

US-Portugal watch

When the US beat Portugal

Finally, we have two early favorites for Picture of the Trip. I'm pretty sure this one is going to win, hands down:

But this one, by the Iberapuera park's lake, is probably the fan favorite:

 Thanks for reading. Flight for Recife leaves in 6 hours so I'm sure we'll be feeling just spritely tomorrow. That's all from SP for us, goodnight America, and go Portugal on Thursday (but only by 2 goals).