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Alright, so now there are two days between the previous blog and this one, but it just got too late yesterday to start writing one. So here I go for a report of two days in stead of the usual one. Days in which both the Copa and the Copacabana were at the centre of the happenings.
Yesterday was the first day that the DeVillage crew got a day off. The Dutch that had already worked at the ‘Oranjecamping’ in Sao Paulo and came over here to help us, had already gotten a day off earlier this week and had to stay in today. We didn’t have tot hink much about what to do on our first holiday: let’s go to Rio!
We didn’t leave until 10.30am though. The reason for this is that there’s wifi again but that it had to be configured on each appliance individually. A long wait it was, with both my tablet and my smartphone, also waiting for the others to get there wifi installed. After that we headed to Copacabana, by bus. A drive of a little over one and a half hours that took us to one of the streets parallel to one of the most famous beaches in the world.
We had a burger with fries and cola (for only 10 Reais – +/- 3.3 euro) at a kiosk near the beach, and then walked on to the FIFA Fan Fest. An enclosed part of the beach, pretty much a festival site, including – of course – numerous sponsored stands and a large screen on which thousands of football supporters could watch the game. In this case: Spain versus the Netherlands. The supporters at the Fan Fest seemed to mostly be Argentinian, although there were also a lot of Australians who were preparing for their game against Chili later that day.
Spain vs. Holland became a huge disappointment for me as a supporter of ‘La Roja’ because they got their ass kicked. Though it must be said: RVP’s goal was absolutely genious. World class.
Anyway, after the match we gathered outside the Fan Fest. As I went to the (public) toilet a bit further I was still so disappointed that I forgot to inform the others that I would do that. I lost the group and walked around alone fora bout two hours. No biggie though, I walked the Copacabana four or five times, also going in the roads on the side of i tand that was all quite charming. It was amazing to see supporters from all kinds of countries just celebrating together. Even the Spanish and the Dutch just celebrated together after the game. Isn’t that great?!
Shortly after that, I met a couple of my fellow Belgians again at a hotel that (just for this occasion) was named ‘Budweiser hotel by Pestana’. We walked to one of the kiosks at the beach and so a beach soccer field… It was too hard to resist. The shoes went off, the socks as well, let’s play some football! A couple of Bosnians had been thinking the same way and a game between Belgium and Bosnia was born. Us Belgians won of course, 4-2 or 5-2, something like that. We have bruises on our feet, but we don’t mind. Playing beach soccer on Copacabana during the FIFA World Cup between 10.30pm and 11.30pm, it’s a unique thing that I can now happily cross off my bucket list.
We were back at the camping lot around 2am and it was time to get some sleep. It would be a short night after having spent a fun day at the Copacabana.
Today we had to werk again, but as most of the work has already been done, it was quite chill. A little job to do here and there, no problem. Tonight, some of the Belgian guests will go to Copacabana to watch England-Italy on the big screen. Some of the crew will join them and have already left, others see tonight as a chance to go out in Lapa. Apparently that’s the place to be to go out here in Rio, but also not very safe (allegedly). I doubt I will joint hem. Going out just to get drunk, that was never my thing. I’d rather have another night like yesterday: chilling on the beach, a bit of football/soccer. So I’m going to stay on the camping lot I think. Getting some rest after the short last night, seems like a good plan.
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