One Day into the World Cup

I went out to eat a quick lunch at a restaurant before returning home to watch the first game, but I ended up staying to watch the first half. Unfortunately there was no goat on offer today, but the feijoada was excellent as always. My lack of discipline always comes to the fore when I am in a self-service restaurant, and today was no exception. In addition to the feijoada I had escondidinho de charque (baked macaxeira purée with cheese and charque, which is like beef jerky) and some roast pork. The restaurant has always had a tiny little tv on the wall inside, but now they also have a big-screen tv outside on the corner of their patio. So I sat in front of the tv and enjoyed my lunch, finishing just as the match started.

The male diners, and some of the women, stayed to watch the first half. Some of the people sitting at the tables hadn't ordered anything. At halftime they all walked off to return to their jobs. I went to the butcher around the corner, only to discover that the butcher shop had closed permanently. I bought some food from the produce stand in front of where the butcher had been (that guy must be worried now). The cheapest banana option was two reais for a bunch of fourteen bananas. I live alone. How am I going to eat fourteen bananas? I have eaten five since I bought them, but I'm still doubtful that I will beat the clock and eat them all before they go bad. I also bought the cheapest carrot option, since the carrots looked very good. What am I going to do with a kilo of carrots? Actually, I have less than a kilo. He was going to put two or three more in the bag to make it an even kilo when I told him, "Let's just call this a kilo, okay?" I like carrots, but now I have nine in my refridgerator.

So I went home and watched the rest of the match. Germany is decent going forward, but their defense is laughable. Costa Rica has one good player. A game between a bad team and a horrible team wasn't the best opening the tournament could have had.

Globo (the Brazilian network that is the equivalent of ABC, CBS, and NBC combined) showed a novela during the hour between games. That's Brazil for you, right there. Football and novelas.

I watched the first half of the second game at home. At the start of the second half a friend called, saying he was waiting in his car in front of my apartment ready to go to a bar to watch the game. (It turned out he thought the game was just beginning.) So off to a bar we went, and at five in the afternoon the bar was packed with people. And it occurred to me that the World Cup is a lot like Carnaval. It's a party, one that you want to go on forever. It's like the first two or three hours of a particularly good acid trip. If it could only go on forever...