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Thread: Brem’s World Cup Diary

  1. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bremsstrahlung View Post
    A lot of Aussies missing flights today due to traffic and a bit of poor planning.
    Myself being one of them.
    $500 flight and 5 hours in a cab today, not the day I had planned but bugger me its a story to tell!
    Checked in and at the gate waiting for our flight take two now.
    So you have topped me 4 hour taxi ride from Curitibia to Florianopolis
    Cant wait to hear this story

  2. #42
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    Day 5 - Friday 15th June

    Todays plan was to do one last stroll through Moscow, get our flight to Kazan and find a pub to watch the Egypt game and then another one to watch the Spain V Portugal game.

    Today did not go to plan.

    Met a few Aussies around Moscow obviously doing the same routine of getting up early and beat all the crowds. Got some breakfast and headed back to the hotel.
    At about 9, (for a 11:45 flight) Reception offered to organise a taxi so she could talk to them in Russian so “there won’t be any issues”. Told her we were headed to “SVO, sheremetveyo”.
    Taxi came and greeted us with “Aeroport?”
    We said yes, SVO.
    Off we went. Traffic was pretty shit through the CBD so we thought we were headed to the outer ring of Moscow where we would then take off towards the airport.
    After about 15 minutes, we tried to confirm, and did my best pronunciation of “sheremetveo”. He said Da da da.
    Anyway, another 15 minutes later it became obvious we were getting absolutely no closer, so we showed him the airport and he nodded. And he said something. So I did my rendition of it again and he looked at me puzzled, and he was like “VKO?”.
    “No! SVO, sheremetveo”
    So then he busted out google translate and offered us “pork to get to which knuckle.”
    Fearing there was some kind of miscommunication there, we tried our google translate which probably told him we liked flowers and wild Putin’s.
    Anyway he started saying sheremetveo and changed the route.
    Traffic in Moscow is horrendously bad. Never seen anything so terrible. It’s like being on the M1 bumper to bumper, then up to 100km an hour, and slam on brakes. Anyway. We arrived to the airport at 12:00. Missed our flight so we began rapidly trying to source a plan b, c, d, e and f. We tried to book a 6pm flight, but wouldn’t accept our cards, we then booked a different one through Expedia as cards didn’t work on their site again (not my idea) and it said there would be 30 minute until confirmation.
    Meanwhile the earlier flights had now sold out. We were fast running out of options.
    We waited 45 minutes for confirmation, nothing. So we tried to cancel. 30 minutes to see if the cancellation worked. I said f**k it, and went and booked us onto a flight from one of the other airports at 8:30.
    We left
    Our airport at 3:45 and arrived at the other 2:45hours later. Traffic is a joke. Then in a final nail to our coffin, my mate was turfing everything of if his bag and suitcase trying to find passport. He was convinced her left it at the airport. Was ready to say see ya, when he felt it inside his jacket pocket. FMD, it’s a shame they don’t sell brains sometimes. Natural selection just doesn’t cut it.

    Got to airport and there were a lot of Aussie frantically running for their 7pm flight. A lot of people missed their flights earlier and a lot were almost Going to miss this one. At this point all other flights were sold out. The only option, hire a car for 12 hours of death defying driving in Russia or take a taxi for $300 for 12 hour ride.

    Anyway, made our next flight and got to our hotel in kazan! Turns out we are staying at the fanatics hotel, next minute who walks in, Daryl Braithwaite! He’d performed for the fanatics (seemingly a group of 40+ year olds) opening night! And the lobby broke out into a rendition of horses. What a time to be Alive.

    Finally, after 5+ hours in a cab, 3 airports, we finally arrived in Kazan! Bring on match day!

    Place is buzzing!

  3. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by MFKS View Post
    So you have topped me 4 hour taxi ride from Curitibia to Florianopolis
    Cant wait to hear this story
    Not straight. You still got the record bud

  4. #44
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    Day 6 - Saturday 16th June

    Game day!

    Woke up at 7 this morning to grab some brekky nice and early. Now, I’ve figured out why breakfast is free in most places...it’s trash. Maybe not all places and my taste in probs a little picky, but bloody hell, these guys do breakfast weird.
    There were “fried” eggs, which strangely resembled boiled eggs with shells on. There was some steamed carrots, cauliflower and broccoli. Some bread pies with minced need inside. Garden salad. Potato chips. Just nothing really breakfasty. Though the bread pies were delicious, so literally filled up on those. All the Fanatics were having a whinge that there was no fruit or cereal.

    Went for a wander to suss out where the shuttles were to today’s game. Plenty of Aussies up and about early. A lot of people surprisingly headed to the game at 9am. Checked out the Kazan Mosque, which is quite the piece of art. I really love their grand architecture and design of the religious buildings and buildings of importance. Some really nice places around.

    Kazan itself is pretty much a one street wonder as far as I can see. Just one long mall type street with heaps of bars, karaoke and food, and people! I’m actually reasonably impressed and a little surprised, communicating here seems a lot easier than Moscow. Haven’t had many issues here at all compared to Moscow.

    Headed back and got ready for the game. Ticket, Fan ID, wallet, passport. Good to go! Walking back through the main street there was a lot more gold. It helps when we have one main colour, yellow, and it’s obvious as. French were all wearing white red or blue, so it’s not quite as impressive. I actually expected some kind of ordered line at the shuttle stop, however it was seemingly a jostle for position and then pack out the bus. Once it was packed we took off, and then tried to squeeze more people in from the fan fest. which was never gonna be a good idea, but not we were all squeezed up a little too close to eachother.
    We stopped in traffic and must’ve been close enough to the stop so driver just opened the doors and off we went.


    1.6km to the stadium, felt like 5km. The walk there was a sea of gold, looked so good. Was really happy to be a part of something like that. The close you get to the stadium the more excited you get. Locals were all on their balcony’s yelling out “welcome to kazan”. Passers by were saying welcome and Goodluck! Families were stopping to get pictures. Really amazing atmosphere and feel to this. Managed to get one of the volunteers with a megaphone to do an “Aussie Aussie Aussie” while her friends filmed her. They were genuinely pretty happy with that little moment.

    Got closer to the ground and another Aussie had gotten to the next girl, she was playing land down under on the megaphone through her phone.

    Was in Gate 6 which was literally the furthest gate from anywhere. Got there, got some beers and went through to the stadium. Pretty damn nice stadium! All look a treat and the view was pretty awesome. Everyone I spoke to said they had a good view of the game.

    Atmosphere felt pretty awesome pregame. Land down under rendition was good! There was a lot of noise and chants and everyone was pumped. Game was a bit of a surreal experience. Supporters were cheering every kick, every tackle, every save, hurling abuse at every dive or decision that went against us.
    My experience and thoughts on national team active support is that we really struggle because there’s no real structure to it, there’s no main organiser, it’s pockets of fans trying to start something and can often end up drowning each other out. There were a few great moments, unfortunately by the time a lot of people pick up on the chant and it gets going, it’s too late. But still, massive effort and at the ground it was a great atmosphere.

    Match details and opinions covered elsewhere.

    The whole team came and clapped and showed thanks to the obvious Australian sections of the crowd. Crowd game them a massive cheer.

    Headed to a pub to watch Iceland Argentina and bloody hell those Icelandic guys can scrap. And my goodness are Argentina impotent as ever. They seriously struggle.
    I’d be backing Iceland and Croatia through....

    Anyway, went To bed at 3am with no voice and happy have seen my first World Cup game!
    And dancing with some Russian girls and doing body shots was pretty fun too I guess.

  5. #45
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    That why it always wise to never book breakfast with your hotel room.
    If it comes as part of the deal ok

    But your insane paying for it.

    My favourite Thai hotel charges $15 for breakfast and it average

    I can get breakfast anywhere in town for $5/6 and it tastes better

  6. #46
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    Yeh it was included.
    Hate breakfast generally, so I would never pay for it haha.
    Although, I arrived in Nizhny via overnight train this morning and the cafe had no eggs, juice. Bread, bacon, sausages or fruit. Travesty.

    This whole city is completely overrun and overwhelmed at the moment.

  7. #47
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    Swedish

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    Day 7 - Sunday 17th June

    Woke up a few times and eventually wrestled myself out of bed. Feeling a little dusty, there wasn’t really much else to see in Kazan. Too myself for a wander off the Main Street and found pretty much nothing. Just offices and plain buildings. Headed up towards the Mosque again, (it’s the thing that comes up when you google Kazan, cause there’s not much else). Had some lunch at one of the cafes along the Main Street before getting a taxi to the train station. We wandered around a nice little promenade area before heading to the station for the train.
    There were a few other Aussies there, but not too many. We were lucky? Enough to have 2 other Australians in our cabin which made things a bit better, spoke about the game and their plans for anymore games.
    There’s a lot of Australian fans that didn’t get tickets to many games, but are here to see one game and seeing some random teams, so good on them.
    Eventually got to sleep for all of 30 minutes. Was a very on/off night of sleep, trains are rickety and you can literally feel every bump.
    The conductor Elena was a 120kg stereotypical babushka Russian lady. She came in and barged open the doors at 6am and yelled. Not a care given. Scared the sh** out of everyone else though.

  9. #49
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    Day 8 - Monday 18th June
    Arrived in at Nizhniy Novgorod train station at 0800 and the place was overflowing with people already. Mostly Swedes rocking their yellow! I’ve always loved the Swedish kit, the yellow and blue always looks really nice and they keep their kits reasonably simple.
    After waiting 20 minutes for a taxi, and many “taxi” operators offering us a ridiculous price of 2000 ($40) rubles to take us to hotel, which was all of 6 kilometres away. (We paid 2,200 rubles to drive for 2.5 hours across Russia).

    We definitely got a guided tour of the place. The taxi took about 5-6 turns up barricaded or closed streets for the game. The whole city was in absolute meltdown. The place was practically at a stand still. Really showed me how having an event in Moscow is all well and good, but when 45,000 people descend on a place like Nizhniy, hell breaks lose.

    We got to hotel and it was clear they don’t like people checking in early here. We headed down the Main Street and grabbed some breakfast. We got a place with a few Swedes in it drinking already and we grabbed some menus. Pretty typical breakfast menu. Ordered the omelette, “no omelette”, wanted some eggs, no eggs, no bacon, wanted an orange juice, no juice. Wtf do you have?
    I ordered a chicken sandwich. And she showed me some drink that she mentioned juice in, so I got that. This little cafe had 3 girls working there. They were absolutely smashed the whole time. So flustered. Anyway, I got my orange juice and syrup and sparkling water juice, and a salmon sandwich. They got confused when I said I ordered chicken. So I just swapped with my mate.

    We ran into the other Australian guys from the train in the Main Street and decided to grab some beers. They’ve put bans on grocery stores selling alcohol on game days it seems. They’ve roped it all off. So we headed to the pub that was packed out full of Swedes. Walked in and they have a beer on table, bottle of vodka. Shot and chase it down with some beer. Didn’t quite expect that from Sweden. They’d give most aussies a run for their money. We finally got to the front. No beers. So we grabbed 4 shots each and took off to the next place. Grabbed few more rounds of drinks and took off towards the stadium.

    Transport to games has been pretty good. Pretty centralised/easy options to get to the ground. It’s a pain in the ass when you leave though. End up virtually walking back to wherever you came from.

    Also, the volunteers have been absolutely unreal! Lots of high school students I assume that are incredibly helpful and polite and enthusiastic and eager about helping people out. Cannot commend them enough. I daresay
    They have made this World Cup so much easier.

    Had seats close to the Swedish fans so it was a pretty good atmosphere for me! Seats behind the goal where penalty was scored. Interesting. As soon as tackle came in, I called penalty and knew they’d surely have to call it back. The Swedish played with their arms in the air for the next 30 seconds or so. Anyway, pen was awarded and away we go.

    Bit of a lacklustre game. It’s funny how the draw can completely change a teams approach. If Sweden played Mexico or Germany, I reckon they lose (based on Mexico’s performance). But now they’ve pinched 3 points. And basically could feel happy to scrounge 2 draws or at least one and roll the dice.

    Getting back into town was a screw around. Walked for like 3 kilometres at least. Made our way to the train station. Somebody told us to go to the station in front of us and blah blah. No luck, they were intercity trains.
    We eventually found the right place to be after much confusion.
    I prefer to take the approach of follow the crowd. Because 90% of the people/Swedish and Koreans would be headed for the main tourist/hotel/CBD area.
    Went back to the hotel and had a quick nap as I was absolutely wrecked from the train trip. Very minimal sleep.
    Woke up and went to a pub and watched the England game. Man, if there’s ever an underperforming nation, it’s them. Probably because their domestic league is focussed on developing other superstars from other nations. Anyway. Bit of a drab game.
    Lots of Swedes still doing shots at 11:30pm. Crazy! What a party though. They are incredibly nice people and have very good looking women.

  10. #50
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    Your bang on about Swedish women
    Lovely as

    Dont know why blokes on here are big on Russian women

    See plenty of them in Thailand and they very masculine women that for sure.


    One lot that I found great was the Iranian women in Brazil.
    Many with out the muslim attire one would expect just wearing TShirts and shorts etc

    Some absolute honeys from Iran

  11. #51
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    Scandinavian in general are amazing.

    Agree with the Iranian sentiment. Know a few Persian girls and they are absolutely amazing. Whole extended family was good looking.

    Trying to post photos from my phone but once I add from camera roll, it won’t let me hit okay.

  12. #52
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    can you host them somewhere and link?

    there are number and size limits on how many photos you can attach on the forum - I'll look into it

  13. #53
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    Was just trialling the site with these. Will add more later.
    Kazan: https://ibb.co/jjT7LJ
    My fave pedestrian crossing in Kazan https://ibb.co/dZ4a7y
    Nizhniy Novgorod https://ibb.co/dqg57y
    Kazan photo op https://ibb.co/fwhj0J

  14. #54
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    really only one photo of value haha
    Amigos Aarau

  15. #55
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    In my experience, Iranian women have disturbingly large heads, and short, fat fingers and toes.

  16. #56
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    Quote Originally Posted by Couscous View Post
    In my experience, Iranian women have disturbingly large heads, and short, fat fingers and toes.
    Couscous

    You dont look at the mantlepiece whilst stoking the fire do you??

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    Day 9- Tuesday 19th June

    Woke up today and went for a wander down to the Nizhniy Kremlin, they also kind of have a few war memorials and exhibits inside and a heap of nice gardens. Their political and military stuff is idolised here.

    We caught got in a massive storm that brought torrential downpour for a good 90 minutes before the sun came out again! Stopped into a little cafe and had an acai bowl. Which was essentially berry blended yoghurt with a few flakes of muesli, but still not bad for 200 ruble, $4. We have noticed that nothing happens quickly here, waiters don’t serve attentively, food doesn’t come out quickly, and getting the bill/paying takes just long. You’d be hard pressed to get out of anywhere within 60-90 minutes.

    Had an afternoon train at 4pm so we endeavoured to find a taxi but whenever they came to get us, they all gave up and canceled due to the road closures and traffic, so we had to catch a train which probably was a little easier in the first instance, but he station was a good 1.5km up hill.

    We splurged the extra $10 and got first class cabins which is basically 2 beds instead of 4 I a Room. No other benefits really, other than a doona instead of a blanket. We had a babe of a conductor this time. 2 of them in fact that, when everyone was in the food cart/beer cart having a bit of a party, they came in in their civilian clothes and took pics with all the supporters, pretty cool for them and us to be able to do that.

    Got to sleep eventually and woke up in Samara at 9am local time

  18. #58
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    Day 10 Wednesday 20th

    Arrived in Samara at 9am local time and headed to our accommodation. Thankfully this one was within walking distance so we didn’t need to deal with the shitfight of getting a cab. Deadset, I thought people were overreacting when they said there’s heaps of people offering taxi rides outside stations and airports, but bloody hell, these guys are everywhere. Would never get in one unless I was desperate as all hell. Idk how they get people gullible enough. I guess their inflated prices are still cheaper than Australian taxis.
    Headed to the hotel and we found the pub part. We were lucky the owner was there early doing some stuff because he took us about 300 metres across the road and down a driveway, I thought that’s where it was gonna end. And turns out they have a pub whose address they give, and just direct everyone to the hotel. Anyway, they didn’t speak a word of English but were incredibly friendly and tried with google translate to communicate with us. I was rather impressed.
    Ventured out into Samara and soon realised there was sweet F all to do there. They had a nice embankment near the river that is equivalent of like Nobbies Breakwall or Warner’s bay. Few stalls and games for kids along there. But there was maybe 1-2 pubs in the whole place. And every second building was run down.
    We found a restaurant to have some food and watch the evening game. Service is pretty lax. Literally wait so long, despite waving them over. They bring everything out as it’s ready though. So often leads to one person having their meal for a good 20 minutes before the other person. Anyway.

    Headed off to fanfest because there was literally no place that was going off or even had games on as far as we could tell, asked another group of guys on the other side of samara and they had nothing their way.
    There were mostly Aussies drinking at the back of the fan fest, a group of Australians were showing their class doing shoeys and thong-eys.
    Russian girls were in abundance and wearing a good jersey meant you at least got 5 pictures I reckon. Spain v Iran was a bit dire and it was getting cold so we bailed home to watch second half.

  19. #59
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    Getting behind. Last 72 hours have been frantic.

  20. #60
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    Still waiting for the Lady pics Brem, Don't let the team down please.

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