Salvador, Brazil Day 3

Friday, February 8th 00:36 (9:36cst)

Just got back from the futbol game. As expected, it was really fun to see a futbol game in Brazil. It ended up being Bahia versus Pocoes. Honestly, I have no idea where Pocoes is but Bahia is Salvador and everyone there was cheering for Bahia. The location of the game was about 45 minutes away, I'm really not sure why they didn't just play in Salvador. Perhaps because (I've heard) that the stadium is being renovated after part of it collapsed and killed a bunch of people, and also the fact that it wasn't that big of a game. The stadium would compare to the size of a high school football field and bleachers, but maybe a little bigger. Someone was saying that it seats a few thousand people. Semester at Sea brought at least 300 people there to fill one side of the stadium. Basically anyone who didn't go to Rio, the Amazon or some other overnight trip was there. One thing that was really nice was the fact that a Brazilian tour agency was in charge of everything, including translation and keeping us safe. For example, when we first got off of the bus David and I went away from the entrance to go to a stand that was selling jerseys. Almost instantly one of the tour guys were there behind us making sure we don't wander off and translating what we were saying to the people selling the jerseys. Then he followed us back to the entrance of the stadium. It was just so nice to have a translator there, since that has been the biggest problem in Brazil so far.

Bahia ended up winning the game 2-0. During the second half of the game a big group of locals that were doing all of the cheering moved over to our section to get us involved which was pretty awesome. Even though we couldn't understand what the cheers were we still tried to follow along. I know one of them had to do with dissing Victoria's futbol team. Anyway, it was all really cool. Too bad it wasn't a big game with a huge packed stadium though.

So in Pelourinho (also referred to as old town, or the older part of Salvador) there's this huge elevator. It's basically the monument of the area. The elevator takes you up this really steep hill from down in the market area where we are docked. It costs 5 cents per ride. You can either take this elevator or walk up the side of the hill yourself on a street that goes at close to a 45 degree angle for a couple blocks. So today we went up there and found an Internet cafe so we could download our emails and such. Unfortunately, it was too slow for me to upload any of my pictures to flickr but I was able to use Skype for a bit which was nice. I'm hoping to find another one most likely on Saturday so I can try to get a complete download of Open Office on here. I desperately need it because my spelling isn't always that great. Tomorrow is the Calabar Community favela visit from 8-12 then I'm really not sure what the plan is. Most likely do some shopping in the nearby market then going out with some people.