The Most Amazing Soccer Game Ever

Still in Sao Paulo, and we really messed up today, but we learned so many lessons. Here is a crazy story for all you readers...

We woke up and had free breakfast at the hostel, which is just bread, jam, cheese, butter, tea or coffee. If you read the last post, you know that our shoes got owned by the rain, and we washed them in the washing machine but they were still wet after a cycle in the dryer so we sat around fanning them for a while in the morning. After a few hours of fanning and squeezing out moisture with a towel, we walked to the nearest Metro station and took it to Centro.

Walking around, we saw a lot of cool buildings, cool roads full of busy looking people, shoe shiners, and lots of really amazing street art (see Facebook album for just a few pictures). We ate some good food at a pay-per-kilo restaurant, drank more Guarana soda, and went up 34 floors in an Empire State building replica. We looked in a mall for a bit, and it's crazy how dominant American urban culture is. Regular Nike Dunks sold for R$350 (about 175 US dollars), and New Era hats cost R$199 (about 100 US dollars). What's even more ridiculous is that these are in a ton of the stores in the malls and kids actually spend that kind of money for American brands. We kept walking around and looking at stuff and eventually came back to our hostel.

Okay, so I sped through our day, but here's the good part. We got back to the hostel and did a little bit of quick research so that we could go to our first soccer game in South America. Yoontae checked the schedule and the bus lines and we quickly got ready and left for the stadium. We took the first bus, asked some people for help and had a fun time playing charades, but they helped us and we got where we were needed to be, a street called Faria Lima. From there, we had to run across a couple busy streets and take another bus towards the stadium. Again, we needed help from a fellow bus rider, and we managed to make it to the stadium. Buying the tickets, we got in the wrong line, had to move to the other side of the stadium to buy our tickets, waited in line, and then found out that all the cheaper tickets were sold out. The only ones left were R$30 tickets, and we only had a total of R$50. We were R$10 short. Standing in the rain after going through all that trouble just to find out that we couldn't go to the game, we were really disappointed. We turned around and got ready to leave, but the guy behind us stopped us and said in English (this was a surprise since most of the people we met up to this point did not speak English), "How much do you need? I will help you pay for your tickets." I don't know about the rest of Brazil, but in America this kind of stuff doesn't seem to happen too much. We were so surprised, but grateful, and we thanked him repeatedly and got our tickets. Now we had absolutely no cash for our bus tickets, but we figured there would be ATMs inside the stadium and at least we got into the game! We went inside and watched the game and it was amazing.

Never have I seen a game where everyone is constantly standing, yelling, singing, and cheering all at once. The noise NEVER stopped, and we got sucked into the intensity of the game. At half-time, we went to look for an ATM but there weren't any in the stadium so we went back to watching the game. We decided to leave a little early, because we needed to find an ATM, get to the bus station, and get on the bus before the huge crowds got there. On our way out, we told a worker about the dilemma we were in and he told us to say to the bus driver, "No ten dinero," which means, "I don't have money," and he would give us a free ride. We tried this out, only to find that the worker had lied. The bus driver was saying we weren't allowed and was going to kick us out, but another passenger came up and paid for our tickets. We were really starting to love Brazil. So many generous people! We got off the bus back at Faria Lima, and now we really needed money. Just one more bus to take back to the hostel... but where were the ATMs? In Brazil, 24 hour ATM means that they are open from 6 AM to 10 PM. That is NOT 24 hours! So we ran around the street, looking for an ATM, but we couldn't find one. The bus lines stop at midnight and it was a little past 11, so we were getting worried. Finally, around 11:20, we found an ATM, got some money and started looking for the bus stop we were supposed to be at, but it wasn't the right one. Whoever gave us directions back at the hostel mislead us, and we started running up and down Faria Lima trying to find the right bus stop. We ran past 6 different stops, never seeing our bus. At 11:45, we knew the next few buses were the last ones that we would see, so we just took one that was headed towards our hostel and crossed our fingers. Luckily, the bus came pretty close to our hostel and we only had to walk a mile. Exhausted but relieved, we walked back, stopping to buy some yakisoba from a street vendor.

We had such a crazy night and got back around 1 AM, we basically just got to our beds and knocked out. Although nearly every aspect of our nighttime excursion got messed up in some way, things fell into place and by some miraculously kind person or sheer luck, we did everything we wanted to and made it back home. Looking back, it was an amazing adventure. I can't say that I prayed for a miracle or that I even thought to ask God for help, but in my mind there is no way that we could have been that lucky. I asked some Brazilians if people are usually that generous, and they were laughing at my story telling me that it was ridiculous how lucky I was. I did nothing to put myself in a position of need or to deserve the generosity of the people around me. The situation just presented itself to me and God used it to show me that He's got my back, even to go to a soccer game.