Its been a while since the last post but don´t worry I´m still alive and well AND full of stories :) Its taken me quite a while to write this one since I´ve not had access to a computer for a couple of days and when I have had access its been shared access so its been hard to find some solid time to write a blog post. I´ve been taking notes in a notebook everyday just to not lose track of the fresh thoughts so dont worry, nothings lost.
So this post is about Saturday - Jun 13, the big day, probably the biggest day of our trip. England play Italy in Manaus, two quality teams with a rich footballing history, two great players of this generation, Gerrard and Pirlo and we were gonna be there to witness it in person. Did we make it to the game ?
The day started early, Boochi and Walker arrived the night before from Miami and were up in no time for breakfast, all four of us(Keerthi joined us at the hostel) then headed out to a local museum here in Manaus.
The museum was quite interesting, a mixture of art and history, its not the most impressive one I´ve ever been to but it was definitely nice to catch up on some local history. The museum was staffed by young cheerful student-volunteers who seemed eager to interact with the tourists, most of them spoke good English and communication was not really an issue. I learnt from them that there that there were two other visitors to the museum from St Louis. Can you believe that, two other visitors in a city in Brazil on the same day from St Louis, I thought it was a pretty neat coincidence, maybe I´ll run into them sometime during my stay here ;)
We got lunch at the vegetarian buffet place again and then decided to watch the Colombia game in the square. The square was pretty busy with a whole bunch of Colombian supporters. Watching a game in the square is always fun and just like what you see on TV news reports. The crowd reacts to every move of the team, so theres a lot of aaaah´s and oooh´s and there is a good correlation between the volume of the crowd and the tempo of play, in short never a dull moment especially if Brazil are playing !!
So back to the square, we decided to get a couple of Caipiranhas before the game. Caipiranha is a cocktail made of Cashaca, lemon and sugar, a Brazilian equivalent of a Mojito according to Alicia( aka the-GF). The daily deal at the hostel is 2 Caipiranhas for R$5(US $2.5) which I think is a pretty sweet deal(pun intended).
So loaded with two glasses of Caipiranhas, Walker and I set out for the square which is literally right outside the hostel. The atmosphere was pretty electric and I wanted to capture it on camera for posterity´s sake so I took out my camera, it was a little tricky, caipiranha in one hand and camera in another but I managed somehow, a pretty average photo. When I put my camera back in I immediately noticed that I was missing my .. wallet.
So Walker and I headed back to the hostel to check if I had left it there, I had paid for the drinks so there was a chance it was still there. But alas, nope, it wasn´t at the hostel. We then decided to search the square, again no luck. I thought it might be a good idea to notify the cops and see if they had any ideas and maybe that would help if I had actually dropped it, maybe someone was kind enough to return it to the cops. So there we were, two guys from India in Brazil, Caipiranhas in hand, talking to the cops, trying hard to explain what had happened in our broken Spanish in a Portuguese country. I had forgotten what the Spanish word for a wallet is so I had a tough time but eventually they found a cop who could speak a little English so we told him what had happened.
The cops found a car for us to take us to the police station and file an official complaint. So we got into the car, I still had the drink in my hand, needless to say it was quite an experience, a trip to the police station (its called the DIP) in a different country, sitting in a police car with an alcoholic drink in hand. So I finished the drink on the way over and placed my cup on the floor of the car. We eventually got to the police station in 15 minutes. It was now getting close to the start of the big game. It was around 12 50 pm that I lost my wallet and by the time we were in the car it was around 1 40 pm. We had planned to leave for the stadium around 2 30 - 3 pm so that we could avoid traffic and get there well on time. The key to the locker which had the game tickets was in my wallet, so breaking the lock open was another item on our to-do list.
So we reached the police station and the driver opened my door, immediately - SHATTER, my glass drink cup on the floor of the car fell onto the road and was shattered to pieces, needless to say it was quite the entrance sequence. Another young and friendly Brazilian volunteer at the police station helped translate my complaint and I was done with the whole process pretty quickly and of course they had the game on TV in the police station as well so we didn´t lose much of the game either, Colombia were not disappointing their fans. I´m not sure how helpful filing the complaint will be but then it was probably a good idea to at-least try.
We then quickly headed back to the hostel and I frantically emailed the credit card companies telling them I had no access to a telephone and that my wallet was lost, I was frantically hoping that they not use my credit/debit cards. The best part of the hour was when I found a spare key to the lock on my bed, this meant that I didn´t have to break it open and this could save us some precious time, so we got our tickets out, I put on my Brazil jersey and we headed out to the game.
So this post is about Saturday - Jun 13, the big day, probably the biggest day of our trip. England play Italy in Manaus, two quality teams with a rich footballing history, two great players of this generation, Gerrard and Pirlo and we were gonna be there to witness it in person. Did we make it to the game ?
The day started early, Boochi and Walker arrived the night before from Miami and were up in no time for breakfast, all four of us(Keerthi joined us at the hostel) then headed out to a local museum here in Manaus.
The museum was quite interesting, a mixture of art and history, its not the most impressive one I´ve ever been to but it was definitely nice to catch up on some local history. The museum was staffed by young cheerful student-volunteers who seemed eager to interact with the tourists, most of them spoke good English and communication was not really an issue. I learnt from them that there that there were two other visitors to the museum from St Louis. Can you believe that, two other visitors in a city in Brazil on the same day from St Louis, I thought it was a pretty neat coincidence, maybe I´ll run into them sometime during my stay here ;)
We got lunch at the vegetarian buffet place again and then decided to watch the Colombia game in the square. The square was pretty busy with a whole bunch of Colombian supporters. Watching a game in the square is always fun and just like what you see on TV news reports. The crowd reacts to every move of the team, so theres a lot of aaaah´s and oooh´s and there is a good correlation between the volume of the crowd and the tempo of play, in short never a dull moment especially if Brazil are playing !!
So back to the square, we decided to get a couple of Caipiranhas before the game. Caipiranha is a cocktail made of Cashaca, lemon and sugar, a Brazilian equivalent of a Mojito according to Alicia( aka the-GF). The daily deal at the hostel is 2 Caipiranhas for R$5(US $2.5) which I think is a pretty sweet deal(pun intended).
So loaded with two glasses of Caipiranhas, Walker and I set out for the square which is literally right outside the hostel. The atmosphere was pretty electric and I wanted to capture it on camera for posterity´s sake so I took out my camera, it was a little tricky, caipiranha in one hand and camera in another but I managed somehow, a pretty average photo. When I put my camera back in I immediately noticed that I was missing my .. wallet.
So Walker and I headed back to the hostel to check if I had left it there, I had paid for the drinks so there was a chance it was still there. But alas, nope, it wasn´t at the hostel. We then decided to search the square, again no luck. I thought it might be a good idea to notify the cops and see if they had any ideas and maybe that would help if I had actually dropped it, maybe someone was kind enough to return it to the cops. So there we were, two guys from India in Brazil, Caipiranhas in hand, talking to the cops, trying hard to explain what had happened in our broken Spanish in a Portuguese country. I had forgotten what the Spanish word for a wallet is so I had a tough time but eventually they found a cop who could speak a little English so we told him what had happened.
The cops found a car for us to take us to the police station and file an official complaint. So we got into the car, I still had the drink in my hand, needless to say it was quite an experience, a trip to the police station (its called the DIP) in a different country, sitting in a police car with an alcoholic drink in hand. So I finished the drink on the way over and placed my cup on the floor of the car. We eventually got to the police station in 15 minutes. It was now getting close to the start of the big game. It was around 12 50 pm that I lost my wallet and by the time we were in the car it was around 1 40 pm. We had planned to leave for the stadium around 2 30 - 3 pm so that we could avoid traffic and get there well on time. The key to the locker which had the game tickets was in my wallet, so breaking the lock open was another item on our to-do list.
So we reached the police station and the driver opened my door, immediately - SHATTER, my glass drink cup on the floor of the car fell onto the road and was shattered to pieces, needless to say it was quite the entrance sequence. Another young and friendly Brazilian volunteer at the police station helped translate my complaint and I was done with the whole process pretty quickly and of course they had the game on TV in the police station as well so we didn´t lose much of the game either, Colombia were not disappointing their fans. I´m not sure how helpful filing the complaint will be but then it was probably a good idea to at-least try.
We then quickly headed back to the hostel and I frantically emailed the credit card companies telling them I had no access to a telephone and that my wallet was lost, I was frantically hoping that they not use my credit/debit cards. The best part of the hour was when I found a spare key to the lock on my bed, this meant that I didn´t have to break it open and this could save us some precious time, so we got our tickets out, I put on my Brazil jersey and we headed out to the game.
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