the house<\/a> and its surroundings. Part of a gated complex, the house was a small bungalow, similar to a studio apartment, set about 100 yards up a jasmine and plumeria lined path from Pipa\u2019s main street. 100 yards or so further down from the street, you had the beach, designated as an eco-sanctuary and kept absolutely immaculate. The house itself was surrounded by tropical plants; every morning you\u2019d step out on the porch to watch hummingbirds go to town on heliconia flowers. The house had a kitchen, a living\/sleeping area, and a porch with a patio table and hammocks for days. As is common in Brazilian beach houses, shower facilities were located outside, separated from the main bathroom area by a small curtain. At first, you were a bit intimidated by the idea of cleaning up outside, but after a few minutes, you quickly got into \u201cYEAH MAN I\u2019M ALL NAKED OUTSIDE WOOOOOO!\u201d<\/p>\nVanessa, our hostess, lived a few steps away from our house, and down the stairs from ours was a pool and barbecue area that we unfortunately did not get to use. Her boyfriend worked for the only fancy brewery in town, and stocked the fridge with what I am told were delicious and reasonably priced (about US $4\/bottle, not cheap relative to regular Brazilian beer but good for craft brew) beers, all bearing stickers with the 32 World Cup nations\u2019 crests. This was the first house I\u2019d booked when we started planning the trip, and it was a winner; came with everything we needed for five people for five days, including a stray cat with a bent ear who decided we were his new best friends.<\/p>\n
Also it came with mosquitoes, as did Recife and Manaus. I spent the entire group stage looking like I\u2019d gotten chicken pox. This is after slathering on DEET every few hours, too. <\/p>\n
That Sunday, the five of us–me, Mike, and our friends Bamboo, Earl, and Erica, all from LA and all in for their first World Cup–hung out at the beach and strolled Pipa\u2019s main street, spending the day relaxing in town and gearing up for the next day\u2019s all-important US-Ghana game.<\/p>\n
Gameday: After breakfast, we all get dressed in the tasteful, understated manner expected of World Cup spectators and meet at our pal Kaela\u2019s rental house to form a group caravan. Much like in South Africa, a good couple dozen people from all over the US went in on gameday transport; unlike South Africa, this was not via van, but rather a convoy of taxis. Also much like in South Africa, Mike and I (and our housemates) decided to abandon the group at the first place we saw that looked like a good place to hang out pregame, rather than continue on to try to find some place someone may or may not have said to meet up. The five of us stuck around a restaurant and chatted with anyone else within earshot as we watched Germany flatten Portugal. <\/p>\n
After posing for a bunch of dumb photos in the cosplay photoshoot that is the area surrounding any given World Cup stadium, we finally headed into the game and discovered our tickets were the very last row of the nosebleed section. Eh, happened in Germany, and whatever, last row is still in the stadium. Then we discovered the seat number printed on my ticket did not exist. Not, like, there was a space for it and the seat had not been installed, or had been moved to accommodate a disability seating area. Nope, flat out no seat and nowhere it could possibly be. We looked over at the adjacent section to see an usher speaking to a Japanese fan who appeared to be in the same predicament. <\/p>\n
The usher took the three of us to the ticket service office, and, after a brief discussion, the staff were able to print up new tickets for us. Our stubs just say \u201cMATCHDAY CONTINGENCY–FIFA COMPLIMENTARY\u201d rather than our names, but hey, they were tickets to real seats. Better ones than we originally had, in fact–we were in the first row of the upper deck. Turns out the Japanese fan, now seated with us, was from Tokyo, but thanks to Matsuzaka and Uehara is a big Red Sox fan. SPORTS<\/p>\n
POWER RANKINGS: SHIT THAT NEVER, EVER GETS OLD AT THE WORLD CUP
\n1. Singing your national anthem, poorly, loudly, with everyone else
\n2. Watching Clint Dempsey score and think \u201cI\u2019ve known that dude since his first pro game\u201d
\n3. The explosion of hugs and hi-fives that follows your team scoring; it\u2019s like bowing and saying \u201cnamaste\u201d at the end of yoga class except with beer being thrown on you
\n4. Impromptu best buddies with anyone in your seating section who vaguely shares a language with you<\/p>\n
Now, remember when I said Brazil required a fair bit more homework to get to than Germany? If you\u2019re going on a US passport, you need a visa; they were free with proof of ticket purchase, but otherwise cost $160. You\u2019ll also have to send away for it, or spend some time at a nearby consulate. Getting a group stage game in Manaus meant malaria medication was advised, as well as typhoid and yellow fever vaccinations (plus anything else you need renewed). You also had to find airfare and housing for each group city, plus normal travel expenses. Even if you took the American Outlaws package deal, you still had to get yourself to one of the departure cities, and even if you were only able to make one game (as our LA-based housemates were), you still had to get all the paperwork and transportation together first, and there\u2019s always whatever arrangements anyone needs to make with work, school, or family to take off vacation time. You can argue that these are just fans with that kind of disposable income, but the fact remains they\u2019re fans who made this the priority for what to do with that disposable income. Bottom line: Even one game was a pretty serious time and money commitment; this was not just showing up at RFK for a weekend friendly.<\/p>\n
Which is why it was all the more surprising to strike up the national anthems, look around, and realize that even though officially Ghana was the \u201chome\u201d team for this match, this was a US home crowd<\/em>. Yes, the \u201cI BELIEVE\u201d chant is cheesy and simple, but it was something more than just \u201cU-S-A\u201d that got the crowd organized and yelling for the entire game. And it\u2019s one thing to have the whole crowd doing that routine in Kansas City; it\u2019s quite another to have a stadium full of Bomb Pops blowing up in Natal, Brazil. I\u2019ve got some reservations about American soccer fandom, for sure, but to feel that stadium shake as Brooks slid home, that\u2019s exactly the kind of thing I mean when I say that \u201894-14 has been a golden age for the sport in the US at every level.<\/p>\nAfter the game, Mike and I walked out to the spot where we\u2019d arranged to meet our housemates. A tall, military-lookin\u2019 gent walked up to us and asked if we were Americans. \u201cI\u2019m from Vice President Biden\u2019s Secret Service detail,\u201d he said. He wanted to buy a US jersey, but the souvenir stands took only Visa cards and Brazilian currency, neither of which he had. Would we be able to convert $50 US to reais? <\/p>\n
\u201cHeck yeah,\u201d said Mike, and the Secret Service officer gave us a really generous exchange rate. Later, we realized we either should have offered to give him the jersey off Mike\u2019s back (an \u201806 Twellman US home) or said \u201csure, but can we get a photo with Diamond Joe, too?\u201d Our photo op missed, we met up with our friends and headed back to the taxi fleet to return to Pipa. <\/p>\n
We spent Tuesday much as we did Sunday: kicking around Pipa enjoying the beach and town. Our buddy Ed dropped in on his own super bacheloritis tour (dude rolled down with a passport and a change of underpants, pretty much) for the afternoon to take in some lunch and the fancy beer in our house. I had one priority: Pick up a surfboard and hit the waves for the first time since I discovered in 2008 that I was pretty good at surfing.<\/p>\n
Which I did! Only I discovered I was not good at it. Oh well, still got some quality beach time that included some dolphins dropping by for a visit. While we were in the water, everyone–swimmers, fishermen, coconut vendors, dolphins, gulls–began to pack up in a hurry, as though a storm threatened to roll in. Nope–Brazil-Mexico was about to start, and nobody could miss that. Among those packing up were a trio who lived in Harvard Square, because it just wouldn’t be a World Cup without flying halfway around the globe to meet people who live in our neighborhood. Mike and I decided we could miss the first half, at least, for a brief nap on the shore.<\/p>\n
We went back to town for the second half and wound up watching it at a family\u2019s corner store\/lunch counter, tv set up on the patio, everyone crowded around a 32\u201d CRT set. You want a beer? We got some snacks, too, help yourself. One of the women in the family was actually from Winnipeg, but had moved back to Brazil a few years ago; we discussed how the only reason we were watching Memo Ochoa play out of his mind was the US qualified so hard we brought Mexico with us.<\/p>\n
As fantastic as Pipa was, though, it was time for us to move on to the next venue, and so Wednesday morning we boarded another taxi caravan to the airport and joined an A321 full of other Americans. We were off to Manaus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In this episode, we actually get on the road and watch a game or two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,1,20,10,8,16,28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tifosi.hooverdam.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tifosi.hooverdam.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tifosi.hooverdam.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tifosi.hooverdam.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tifosi.hooverdam.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=819"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/tifosi.hooverdam.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":959,"href":"https:\/\/tifosi.hooverdam.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819\/revisions\/959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tifosi.hooverdam.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tifosi.hooverdam.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tifosi.hooverdam.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}