Today, Kyle my roommate, and I spent the afternoon with our family having a chill day. This chill day consisted of waking up a little bit later than usual (around 11am) before spending the rest of the morning eating breakfast and talking with our family about the day to come. We woke up so late because we had been up for a long time with our family the night before, and everyone needed to sleep this morning. At 1pm today some family friends, along with Kyle and my classmates came over for a cookout. We had this cookout at one of the places on the military compound where the soldiers could go to hangout with one another. It was a little pavilion with with a grass area next to it, and a soccer field close to it as well. At the cookout we spent time talking and laughing with one another, as well as playing games like monopoly and eating all kinds of meat that our host father prepared for us. The strangest food that we tried was chicken heart. It was surprisingly good, but the idea of eating something’s heart was simply too much for us to get over comfortably.
After the cookout we got the awesome opportunity to see a soccer game, which is a “must do” when in Brazil. Upon arriving the week before, our host family had gifted me and Kyle jerseys of their favorite team, thus indoctrinating us as Palmeiras fans. However, tickets to the local Palmeiras games were too difficult to come by, and we were forced to settle for the local Sao Paulo FC game. This was still a wonderful experience, and one that I wanted to take a souvenir from. Therefore I broke one of the sacred rules in Brazilian soccer fandom and bought merchandise for a second team after declaring my support for one of their rivals. I now own both a Palmeiras jersey and a Sao Paulo FC bucket hat. However, my heart truly lies with Palmeiras. The game itself was an entertaining one, as it was my first professional soccer match. I enjoyed watching both teams go at it, although Sao Paulo lost the game 2-0. After the game, we took an Uber back home, and spend the rest of the night at our apartment hanging out with our Brazilian Buddies, who came over to watch movies with us.
Overall, the day wasn’t too much to handle, and it was one of the more chill days of the whole trip so far, but it was also perhaps the one that best encapsulated the Brazilian experience. We spent time outside, eating food with our friends and family, before watching a soccer match that certainly represented the Brazilian heart and care for sports. While it might not be the day that I remember most about the trip, it was still one that made an impact on my experience and helped to give the trip even more texture than it had.
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