So, the World Cup befell Brazil and we were all enjoying it
thoroughly. Honestly. Frankly, it has felt like I were back in the U.S. – there
are so many Americans in the streets that one can mistake Rio for New York
easily. It is kind of disorienting, really. But our compatriots are everywhere,
drinking, getting lost, losing their passports, sleeping semi-naked on
the beaches,watching the games and drinking
some more on the metro. I am beginning to get the feeling that the majority of
American tourists (whose median age appears to be about 22) have come here
under the pretext of the World Cup in order to imbibe as much beer and
caiprinhas as possible.
Few days ago as I was riding on the crazy bus to the
consulate, all of a sudden at one of the stops the driver started yelling at
someone in the back who had gotten on the bus using the back door (reserved
only for getting off the bus – you get in from the front where you pay the bus
fare). After the person did not register anything, the driver went in and
personally tossed him off the bus – it turned out to be a 23 year old gringo
who clearly could not hold his cachaça, was wearing long beach shorts and a
tank top that hadn’t seen laundry in about a year. He sauntered off towards the
beach, looking dazed and confused, and a second later threw himself on the sand
and fell asleep immediately. American behavior during U.S. games became even
more erratic. While I was watching happily the U.S. – Germany game at the aptly
named Gringo Café among many of my fellow compatriots, there was a man
in a semi-naked state who would habitually run through the street where the
café is located, screaming, “U-S-A” from the top of his lungs and waving a
giant U.S. flag energetically in the process. Looked heavy but the guy had a
great deal of enthusiasm. Too bad we did not win that game. At least it seems
that soccer is becoming a thing in the U.S.
I have been watching the games religiously and believe it or
not, have managed to obtain a few coveted tickets to watch the games in
Maracana, the legendary football stadium of Rio de Janeiro. What is even more
amazing is that we bought those tickets on the official FIFA website rather
than buying scalped ones. It came to my attention that people who are unable to
attend the games habitually return tickets directly back to FIFA, which
re-releases them at some ungodly morning hour on its website every day. So,
armed with this information, the Diplomat decided to stay up all night once and
wait for tickets to appear on the website. He gave up at 11.30 pm, which I
thought was a little weak. However, apparently that same night he woke up with
an odd premonition around 5 am, and quietly went to the computer to check the
situation. To his utter astonishment, there were a few tickets available for
the finals and with trembling fingers he began the convoluted process of buying
them online. And then the amazingness of what was happening took over him and
he could not get himself together to complete the transaction. As a result, I
was woken up by his hysterical shrieks, informing me that we are getting
tickets to the World Cup, accompanied by a few eloquent expletives, clearly
aimed at expressing his delight. I was made to understand that he was too
excited to figure out how to use a credit card to buy the reserved tickets and
we had 8 minutes left to complete the transaction. I ran breathlessly to the
living room, and cursing the blurry website images managed somehow to complete
the process. Then I realized that I was actually not wearing my glasses and it
was a small miracle I could see anything at all. After we danced the happy “we
got World Cup finals tickets” dance for a while, I changed and went to work
where we irritated everyone the entire day by telling them about our success,
while simultaneously falling asleep at random places around the office. The
next night, using the same strategy, the Diplomat managed to buy us also
tickets to the round of 16 again at Maracana. That emboldened us and we began
dreaming football tickets night and day. We figured out that FIFA was releasing
them at 5 am, and so every night at 4.30 am, the Diplomat would get up
(somewhat noisily, I might add) and park himself at the computer, trying to
score us quarter final tickets. Sadly, however, our luck ran out and he gave up
the hunt largely. Until one day our evil friends from work told us that there
are several programs/applications developed by fans, which somehow manage to
know how many tickets are being released at the moment of their release by FIFA.
The application would make a sound and you will get right on the computer
frantically trying to beat everyone else who is killing themselves doing the
same. Except that the sound is a police siren and the Diplomat would leave it
next to his bed. There is nothing more annoying than waking up to a fake police
siren sound at 5.12 am, having a disoriented Diplomat make his way haphazardly
in the darkness to the living room and then come back 20 minutes later with no
tickets after all. We finally decided it was not worth it.
People though are desperate for tickets and would rather get
arrested and spend a night in prison for buying scalped tickets rather than
just sit tight in a nice little bar and watch the game surrounded by friends.
Last week, again on the proverbial bus, I saw two middle-aged Frenchmen who
both had pinned pieces of paper to their shirts with the following on it,
“Looking for tickets for France-Ecuador game!” I started laughing (because it
was funny), which they took to mean that I have tickets for them (which I did
not).
So, I ended up going to three games overall – to a 16th
round to see Colombia spank Uruguay (I was actually cheering for Uruguay
because blue is my favorite color, but I was surrounded by so many feisty
Colombians that I did not dare say a peep), to a quarter final to watch Germany
beat very polite and tactically France, and finally to be treated to a model
game at the final between Germany and Argentina. Folks, Maracana is AMAZING. Like,
AMAZING! It was redone for the World Cup so now the seats are very comfy and spacious
and no matter where you sit, you have a great view of the game. Unless you wear
glasses with really crappy prescription, like I do, in which case you don’t
really see very well and keep asking, “who is Messi, wait, where, where, wait,
what just happened, who is that??” every two minutes. The final game at
Maracana was clearly once in a lifetime experience. Unless Brazil hosts the
World Cup again when I am 89 or something and Argentina happens to play Germany
again, and I happen to have tickets, in which case it will be twice in a lifetime
thing. Either way, it was spectacular. Even Gisele Bundchen showed up to unveil
the FIFA trophy. The whole city was filled to the brim with Argentineans who
had driven over the border for the game even though only a tiny fraction of
them had tickets to the game.
As some of you might know, the Brazil-Argentina football
rivalry is epic and legendary. It is indeed so bad that during the final, most
Brazilians supported Germany even though they had just lost to them in a
staggering 7-1 semi-final simply because they are passionately against Argentina winning.
As one TV commentator said, Germany gained 250 million fans overnight. The stadium
was packed with Brazilians dressed in German shirts, screaming every time
Germany made a pass to the goal, and booing every Argentinean move. The rest of
the stadium had 23 real Germans and a ton of Argentineans wearing Messi’s
number 10 jersey (for those of you who have lived under a rock the past one
month, Messi is from Argentina and is the best soccer player in the world right
now as evidenced by him winning the World Cup 2014 Best Player after the game).
The Diplomat suddenly had the epiphany that he had loved the Argentinean team
all of his life, and bought a Messi shirt on the way to the stadium to add to
the blue madness there.
After an emotional game with 2 overtimes (and no penalties,
thank God, can’t take any more penalties!), we headed home to what promised to
be a nice, peaceful Sunday night. We needed it, as we had had a crazy week
leading up to it. We had had the pleasure of hosting our very first guests here
in Rio – five of the most fabulous Bangladeshi ladies ever who came to enjoy
the World Cup and party with us in Rio. After a few days of dinners, drinks and
incessant shopping, they left a couple of days before the final. That following
night, the Diplomat and I hosted a 12 people goodbye dinner for one of our
colleagues, which meant a day and a half of intense cooking, and a morning of
the final game with intense hangover. And so, with all that emotion and the
World Cup over, we were looking forward to cleaning up the apartment and
getting ready for the new work week. Well, it was not meant to be. As we were
standing in the train, watching some feisty and rather inebriated Argentineans
getting tossed out of the metro, we noticed a few familiar faces – another group
of good Bangladeshi friends who were obviously also coming back from the game.
Turns out, they had come to Rio a few days before that, and did not realize we
were there already. Since it was their last night in the city, they were
mulling over going to Lapa, the party district of Rio, to celebrate the end of
the World Cup. A couple of caipirnhas later, and the Diplomat and I took the
most logical decision ever – to go out with them. And so we all dragged
ourselves to our apartment, continued drinking while we changed, and then
around 11.30pm set out to check out the club scene in Lapa. The mood there was
incredible! Crowded and loud, the craze overtook us and we started ordering passion
fruit caiprinhas from street vendors (yup, street vendors) while waiting to get
into the club. At 2 am, good times or not, I simply could not continue to
overlook the fact that I had to get up at 6 am to go to work and we reluctantly
left. I am proud to say that I made it work on time and was even coherent
enough to interview over 120 visa applicants.
And so, the World Cup is over. The city is none the worse
for it and I think we are all about to exhale a collective sigh of relief as
the tourists promptly leave Copacabana and the prices of pretty much everything go down. At least for the next two years until the Summer Olympics hit this country again.
