We reached the end of our short World Cup adventure. Mexico is playing Holland on Sunday after a great first round. It’s a tough match but doable. Unfortunately we can’t stay and must go back to watching games on TV like all of you sad suckers.

We came back to Fortaleza for one last game: Greece vs Ivory Coast.

Brazil was great. I will try and post some final thoughts and cleaned up photos and videos in the next few days.

Next stop: Russia. In four years at least. If my wife lets me. But she will because she’s THAT cool.

Madness in Recife. The crowd was over 90% Mexican. The atmosphere before, during, and especially after the match was unbelievable.

New people keeps joining our group. Today Fernando and Grazi took us to Porto de Galinhas for a little bit of suffering.

Afterwards we made it in the nick of time to see the oldest synagogue of the Americas (closed yesterday and tomorrow).

Full day of activity. First we went to pick up tickets, then to the FIFA Fan Zone, old Recife (where the oldest synagogue in South America is), lunch at a nice seafood restaurant across the bay, more FIFA Fan Fest, and finally the town of Olinda. I didn’t catch a photo of the amazing tapioca crepe things with the iPhone so those photos will need to wait until we get back and I can download then from the grown up camera.

We had to leave Natal at 6 AM in order to arrive in Recife on time for the match (Costa Rica vs Italy).

We met out hosts Grazi and Fernando, and fellow World Cup travelers Arturito and Nathan.

Recife is huge, the bus to/from the airport was great. And even though I wore an Italy jersey, I’m happy Costa Rica won (note: Ticos always want Mexico to lose).

Some photos:

We flew to Natal (a short one) just to see the city and the Greece vs Japan match. Nice stadium, underwhelming soccer.

During the day we took a ride on a dune buggy.

We arrived to Natal a few minutes ago. It was quite the adventure. It hasn’t stopped raining since Mexico played Cameroon here. Bit we are safe and sound and have decent internet in the hotel lobby.

Some random stuff from my phone:

Trash can with forbidden items outside of the stadium. VUVUZELAS!

During the layover at Manaus on the way to Fortaleza.
This is not Memo. This is me outside the stadium before the game.

We go to the same hair stylist.

Nice match today. Incredible vibe. I was hoping for a win so that I can tell my children, and their children, and their children that I was there. Alas, not this time.

We Mexicans were vastly outnumbered but could definitely be heard. An interesting thing happened: the “cheer” Mexicans do when the opposing goalkeeper is about to do a goal kick was promptly learned and imitated by the Brazilians. Is this going to be another “Mexican wave”?

Here’s a cool panorama of the stadium: