A funny thing happened on the way to the game....

I haven’t done a Portuguese Word of the Day in a while so I’m getting back into the swing of it with a very timely word. “Viralata = mutt.” To be quite honest, that was one of the first new words I learned on this trip. I think I was driving with my friend Gleidi from the airport the day I arrived in Brasil. There was a stray dog in the street that looked kind of funny and she said something along the lines of it being a "viralata" (mutt). I immediately thought to myself, “well gee that’s nice, I learned a new word. But when am I ever going to need to say the word ‘mutt’ in Portuguese??” Well, well, well. Just the other day I was watching highlights from Obama’s first press conference as President-elect. When talking about the nation’s next First-Dog he made a comment about himself being a mutt. The news was obviously in Portuguese so when the commentator said “viralata,” I had answered my own question: I needed to know the word “mutt” in Portuguese in order to understand a news report about the United States of America’s first black president. Exciting stuff for a Monday night…. I know!!!

OK next topic….continuing with the sports theme, on Sunday I went to see another one of São Paulo’s big soccer teams play – Palmeiras. They, like São Paulo, are in top contention to win the championship with only 4 or so matches left to play. The visiting team was Grêmio – from the southern city of Porto Alegre. One of my favorite soccer players, Ronaldinho – formerly of Barcelona, currently on AC Milan – played for Grêmio before making the standard move to Europe. So Grêmio is his alma matter and they too are very much alive in the championship race being in third place in the league. So this match was between two of the top3 teams in Brasil….a huge match!

The neighborhood very much had a Fenway Park feel to it. It was a medium-to-small sized stadium surrounded by a bunch of bars and restaurants flooded with people BBQ-ing, drinking, and partying in the streets. Although, come to think of it…they do that in a lot of normal streets in Brasil, not just outside soccer stadiums! Turns out that tickets were all sold out and only ones we could scalp were in the visitors section. However, the 30,000 home fans for Palmeiras didn’t even make half as much noise as the 300 visiting Grêmio fans. Instead, our section was a 90 minute non stop party of singing and dancing capped off even more when Grêmio won. So a funny thing happened on the way to and from the game. I went there looking to join in on the fun and craziness of one of São Paulo’s major teams….but ended up getting converted into a fan of the team from waaaay southern Brasil. Fair weather as I may be considering that in my last entry I dubbed myself a São Paulo fan….but I got love for Grêmio now!



Grêmio Fans: my new boys