The Plan…

Destination: Brazil for three weeks from June 14th through July 7th.  That’s the plan though it does run a little deeper than that.

Schedule: The itinerary has us taking in four cities, eight matches and as much of everything else along the way that time will permit.

Group: The tour party is made up of myself and a group of three friends, who I hope will remain so after the trip. Two of the guys I went to college with and the other chap is a friend of theirs who I got to know recently. How we all get along in close proximity for three weeks will make for an interesting experiment, let’s hope the ‘conclusion’ is a happy one. Our one day trial run last year to watch an England vs Australia cricket match did end up with a trip to hospital! And yes, it was for me (story for another day) though I’m not accident prone. Honest.

Venues: We’re travelling to Rio, Fortaleza, Recife and Salvador. A coastal tour that avoids the jungle and, with it, the spiders, the snakes and the mosquitos. Strangely, I’m fine with that.

Lots of different themes and culture across those venues, incredible geography, history of the slave trade, different music and dance too. It’s not just Samba here as we hope to find out…bring on the Forró! If you google it you’ll see it may be a bit advanced for me straight off the bat but by the end of three weeks, who knows.

Games: We’ll get to see a good range of teams (unfortunately not Brazil) but we will catch Argentina, Spain, Germany plus a few of the smaller contenders (Greece, Ghana, USA, Ivory Coast, Bosnia / Herzegovina and Chile). Then we’ve got tickets for two second round games and a quarter-final. It’ll be great to get involved with supporting the fringe teams. I’ve already got my Cote d’Ivoire shirt, amongst others.

Connectivity: I will be putting as much information on the fun and games here as I can and the censors will allow. Dependent on the degree of connectivity I have day-to-day – if it goes quiet it’s probably just a small glitch in the internet access matrix…or another trip to hospital.

Any suggestions for events, sights, things to try, etc, are all welcome. Though if I don’t respond, don’t hold it against me, as being connected will probably take second place to wide-eyed exploration and enjoyment.

Whitinho    (my Brazilian football name – find yours here)