What's Brazil like during a World Cup match
I'm probably the only human in Brazil who doesn't care about soccer or the World Cup.
Yesterday was my country's first match, against North Korea. Game's kickoff would be at 3:30 PM by the Brasilia time. We were allowed to leave work by 2 PM. I did that. I was planning to go home and enjoy a well-deserved half day off.
As I walked down the streets of Sao Paulo to reach my train station, I noticed that... well, chaos was taking over. Sao Paulo was one huge traffic jam, even more than what it usually is. The Morumbi train station in southside Sao Paulo was closed, and a noisy mob gathered by its gates. Railroad officials would open the gates periodically, only allowing a certain amount of people to enter the station at a time. The bus stop on the road that runs at the banks of the Pinheiros river was unspeakably crowded as well, and buses stopping by were so full that people in them were looking like sardines in a can.
After walking north all the way (a mile or so) to the Berrini station, I could finally take my train. Then I usually step down at the Hebraica-Rebouças station, where I take a bus that quickly gets me home in Sao Paulo's central area. But... As I stepped down and reached the bus stop at the Rebouças avenue, buses were still full of compacted, mashed-together beings that only vaguely resembled humans. So I decided to stop by the Eldorado shopping mall and have lunch.
Upon entering the shopping center, I realized all stores were closed. This was about 3:25 PM. A lonely mall cop politely told me that the food court was open though, so I climbed the escalators, hoping to have a meal.
Five minutes before kickoff. I notice that almost all restaurants were closed. I see people in a McDonald's, but they weren't serving anything. Instead, they put up a few flat screen TVs and all the mall's workers were gathering there to watch the game.
Only one restaurant was still working. The oh-so-lonely me orders a sandwich. The clerk behind the counter looks like a ghost, visibly feeling the most miserable person on the nation for being forced to work at such a festive moment for Brazil.
I sit quietly to eat my lunch, surrounded by a surreal field of empty chairs and tables. Through the music in my earphones, I listen to the people cheering and blowing their vuvuzelas. I eat my sandwich. I drink my Coke. I get up and head home.
As I leave the mall, I find myself at the other side of a cultural wormhole. Only 20 minutes into the game, Sao Paulo's streets had become dead empty. I could take my clothes off, and walk the Rebouças Avenue naked if I wanted, and noone would have noticed me.
I stepped into an empty bus, the driver and cashier listening to the game on a loudspeaking radio. The cashier had no change. He said "oh, you can ride for free" - like that. Completely nonchalant. His mind was somewhere else.
I sit down and keep looking through the window. The usually noisy, buzzing, fast-pacing metropolis of Sao Paulo is silent, clean, still and beautiful. I seize the moment.
Ten minutes or so later, I'm finally, finally home.
---------- Post added at 02:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:23 PM ----------
Oh, and by the way...
We scored only 2 -1 against North Korea.
Not Germany, England, Italy or Argentina. NORTH KOREA scored a goal on Brazil! Fuckin' soccer superstars took a goal from NK!!!
Damn!
