VARSITY ATHLETICS

May 12, 2008

Bigart And Soccer Team Land In Brazil...

By Senior Forward Kevin Bigart (Naperville, IL)

We left Case Western Reserve at noon for Cleveland Hopkins airport on Wednesday. We took off at 2:30 p.m. on a short flight to Atlanta, where we changed planes with about a four hour layover. We took a 767 which was supposed to take us straight into Sao Paulo, but we had to land in Campinas because of bad weather. We got refueled and after a four hour delay, took off and got to Sao Paulo airport 30 minutes later.

After getting through customs we got on the bus and drove towards our Hotel, HOTEL ILHAS DA GRECIA. We stopped 30 minutes into the trip and ate a really good all you can eat Brazilian style buffet called Joaquina. The rest of the drive to the hotel was about an hour and half through the mountains. Brazil has some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen, and the high ways wind through the mountains giving amazing views. Speaking of driving, we’re still not sure what, if any, traffic laws exist here. Almost all of the cars are small hatchback Volkswagens and Saabs. There are a ton of motorcycles as well, and the people that drive these are crazy, they split the cars and buses by driving on the lines.

Because of the delay we had about 15 minutes to get changed and back on the bus so we could make it to our first game. We played in a cage against a university team. The field was turf like our stadium in Cleveland except we played six on six with goalies because the field was very tiny. Brazilians play a much different style then we do, which made it even more fun to play them. Everyone played well, a little rusty from a 14 hour trip, but we won most of the games we played.

Dinner was pizza, only it wasn’t like the pizza we have back home. My table ordered three pizzas. The first of which, bacon, we thought wouldn’t be very exotic except the pizza was topped with a whole bunch of things we’ve never seen before; it was still really good. The second was turkey, sundried tomatoes, and buffalo cheese, which was also really good. For the third pizza we picked randomly from the menu, which was entirely in Portuguese, and it turned out to be my favorite, even though I still don’t know what was on it.

The hotel we’re staying at is about 150 yards from the ocean, and the weather is incredible. The rooms are situated in a rectangle, all facing into a small courtyard with a couple palm trees and no roof.

We got a good night of sleep after hanging out on the beach last night, woke up this morning and had surfing lessons; easily the most fun I’ve had so far. The hotel has a complimentary breakfast which had nothing but delicious food, including chocolate covered bananas. The culture here is very different from ours but I’m loving the experience and I can’t wait for the rest of the trip.

Posted by: Creg Jantz May 12, 2008 09:20 AM | Category: Men's Soccer

Posted by: cnj4 (Creg Jantz) May 12, 2008 09:20 AM | Comments (0) | Trackback