A snippet of what it was like to be in the stadium
during a World Cup game

I had the good fortune to travel with two of my children to attend two Group Stage World Cup games in Manaus, Brazil. We were joined by friends there who were coming from other parts of the U.S. Overall, it was a great trip. Sadly, however, our trip was bookended by travel nightmares, the likes of which make a good story in hindsight, but had my body spewing adrenaline the entire time I was dealing with a five-hour delay that caused us to miss the one daily flight from Miami to Manaus, spending the night in a hotel on American Airlines’ dime without our luggage (from now on a t-shirt and fresh underwear are traveling in my carry-on), worrying whether we’d make it standby on the one flight the next day because of course everything was booked due to the World Cup (we did, but only because a massive thunderstorm delayed other passengers), and, on the way back, a cancelled reservation and another unplanned night in a hotel, this time in Manaus, with our luggage, again on AA’s dime.

American Airlines put us up at the Tropical, which is apparently where
all airline personnel spend the night in Manaus (We met a nice
Brazilian pilot at breakfast the next day.). Nevertheless, my daughter
got nasty bites there from what we assume must have been bed bugs.
As I look back on that week of traveling to Brazil to the World Cup, I have a hard time separating the air travel disaster from the otherwise thrilling adventure of experiencing the Amazonian rain forest and being in a stadium during a World Cup game. So I think I will run a few “Manaus Journal” posts to share my adventure and to sort it out myself, and hopefully recapture some of the magic of my first foray south of the equator.

Ah! The glory of airline travel! Especially when you are stuck spending
11 hours in a utilitarian airport like the one in Manaus. At least, it was
still all about “futbol” – here waiting passengers are watching
the Germany – U.S. game in the check-in hall.
The Manaus airport redeemed itself somewhat when we discovered
the fan zone on the lower level with fake lawn and fake palm trees
and a bunch of futons to relax on, and charging stations for our
phones, and, of course, large TV screens to follow the games.

We were lucky that the first game we got tickets for was the U.S. versus Portugal (when we applied for the tickets the game schedule wasn’t released yet), and so we actually got to cheer for Team USA. The video above was taken by my daughter who had no idea that she was about to capture the first U.S. goal, so her jumping up and our happy screaming are included. Here’s to more exhilaration and joy in traveling!