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Thread: Brem’s World Cup Diary

  1. #61
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    Quote Originally Posted by 380 View Post
    Still waiting for the Lady pics Brem, Don't let the team down please.
    How’d you like the pedestrian crossing?

  2. #62
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    6/10

  3. #63
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    Day 11 Thursday 21st
    Woke up at 9 and had breakfast at the hotel, only because the owner ushered us into a dining room on our way out and we thought it was rude after we already declined twice, to leave the heated rice porridge there. Wasn’t too bad, tasted like overcooked rice.

    We checked out and headed to the shuttle zone. Enroute we found a group of Aussies so we had a few drinks with them, did some shots, got a bit merry and ready for the game.
    Aussies proved a hit with everyone passing by. Many stopping to get pictures with the groups. The usual chants were all busted out, the drunken guys to the side started an increasing whoahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,.... ahhhhh when an attractive lady walked past and waved back at them, took a turn when some drunken guy decided to start a “we love big vaginas” chant. Left after that. Was becoming a little embarrassing.
    Took off towards the shuttle and hopped straight on and off we went. All the shuttles have been great. Can’t fault them getting everyone to the ground, and by “the ground” I mean within 5km.
    We walked up towards the stadium. Samara is a very visually impressive stadium. Very cool! Got a few beers and headed to our seats in the Australian supporters group. When I got there I thought a few of the other guys had had a big morning on the beverages as they were vomiting, however, turns out it was an not of food poisoning from the night before! No good.

    Again the prematch song “we came from the land down under” was belted our among the supporters. I hope it is actually as loud as it feels it is haha. Probably not though. Massive welcome to the boys. Atmosphere at these games is amazing. Everyone is there to sing and chant and have a good time.

    Most impressive for me was when we went down. The very first thing after the stunned silence was a massive “come on Aussie” chant that the whole Aussie contingent got behind and the next 5-10 minutes were constant chanting which is great encouragement. That impressed me. Often the loudest group is the one that scored, but I think it was us encouraging them on.

    Pretty much if the ref stops play to consult VAR, we are gonna get a pen. Everyone went crazy (which I don’t usually like to partake in until we score it). Jedinak cool as a cucumber slots it home. And I’m now covered in beer. The Russian row of supporters in the front row are having a cry cause they are covered in beer while all the Aussies jump around crazily.

    Match views are covered elsewhere.

    We left the stadium pretty quickly to grab our transport. My mate with me for the first part jetted off home and I hopped on my overnight train to Volgograd, sweaty, smelly and covered in beer. I tried my best to give myself a sponge bath and grabbed a new shirt, but, oops, apologies to those sharing my cabin haha.

  4. #64
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    Day 12 Friday 22nd
    After 17 hours on a train I arrived in Volgograd at 4:15 for the Nigeria vs Iceland game at 6. Cutting it fine I dumped my bags at the train station with a few other Aussies I met on the train and headed to the game. Got a shuttle fairly easy and was inside the ground 20 minutes before kickoff, happy days!
    Iceland had a host of chances and were seriously unlucky not to get something on any of them. Thought they played the better first half. The Icelandic clap was immense and the whole ground was trying their best to partake which looked amazing. Definite soft
    Spot for Scandinavian teams minus Denmark haha. They always have this underdog feel to them, much like Australia.
    Second half was all Nigeria and a great goal by Musa, put them in the box seat, could’ve been a lot more! Left as soon as full time flew and Bee lined for a shuttle. Got on one pretty quickly and retrieved my bag from station before the massive line started. Tried my best for 45minutes to get a taxi but they were all trying to rip me off so I kept trying to get a legit one through app. (The taxi app gives you a lock in price, and you can choose to accept that or pay by the meter). Fixed price is usually better in my experimentation.
    Jumped in cab and drove for an hour to the airport for my flight into Sochi. Arrived at airport at like 10pm for my 1am flight.

    My flight was from terminal A apparently. So I got out of cab and looked and there was terminal C, Terminal B and another building along from it. I headed over there and the lady refused my entry. So I showed my ticket and she waved me off. The airport has like 3 names and each has a different location on google maps, ever so slightly, so I asked a few more people, and I was literally going around in circles. My flight wasn’t on the board yet which made me a bit nervous but after 30 minutes it popped up and all was good. Turns out Terminal B is actually A, and B. Anyway.

    Got chatting to an English guy that works in the press. He wouldn’t tell me who for. But my god he gets around. He knew an awful lot about Newcastle and the A-League and asked how our new owner is doing. Said he came for Asian cup and loved newcastle, always goes to African Cup of nations, euro, Asian cup, he said he came to Australia for a week and caught 10 games of rugby league and AFL before heading home. And he was trying to see 16 games this World Cup. I thought my 72 hours was pretty jam packed but his was massive. He had a hostel booked for 3 nights and the rest was trains and flights. He had 6 tickets, 3 from his mate that he was using and will buy the rest at the grounds. To good effect so far.

  5. #65
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    Day 13 Saturday 23rd
    Anyway, my flight was delayed to 1:45 and got into Moscow at 3am. Went to get my boarding pass for next flight and I had misplaced my baggage sticker which idk, has never ever been used in any circumstance I’ve flown in, my bags have all turned up. For some reason this was a massive big deal. My bags were being sent straight to Sochi from Volgograd, I just needed a new boarding pass for flight 2. Anyway, I was there for 25 minutes trying to explain and understand why they needed it. The best they could give me other than “ you need it” was “we need to know how much it weighs”. Anyway after 4 supervisors came over and chatted in Russian, she gave me my boarding pass that she printed off originally. So I’m a tad puzzled why it was so complicated. I’m assuming I could’ve made life easier and they just wanted to register the bag or something but surely my baggage number is linked to my ticket when they scanned it the first time.... anyway. I was in Moscow airport again and had 5 hours to kill before next fight. Charged my phone and killed some time at he airport and boarded my flight into sochi.

    Moscow was packed with Germans and Mexicans today. Surprising a lot of people leave it to gameday to travel, something I wouldn’t do for Australia games, as that’s pretty much the sole purpose.

    Got a cab to Sochi hotel which took 45 minutes for 1000 rubles or $20.
    Checked in and the owners were super helpful through google translate and very kind. I was absolutely wrecked and needed to sleep so badly but I didn’t think I’d get up, so headed to fanfest to meet another group of friends and joined them for some beers during the Belgium game. Then half the group had tickets so we all headed back to Adler to the stadium via 40 minute shuttle. Massive walk to the stadium again, this was the longest one so far!
    Got there with 30 minutes to spare and settled in near the German supporters.

    This game was immense. Massive game. Sweden literally played pretty well. They were so structured in defence and made some crucial last ditch tackles and their keeper had a blinder minus last goal. But I had to few sorry for them. They jagged a great goal, and defended so well. Germany were peppering then all game. Sweden will rue their missed chances in the second half, so many 2 v 1 opportunities where they should have done better and put the game to bed. But alas not.
    Don’t know how to feel about result, I wanna watch the Germans play because they are a good team, but they are struggling right now and would’ve loved to see Sweden knock them off and progress. Interesting scenarios on their last day if SWeden and Germany both gets wins. 3 teams on 6 points. Gonna be heartbreaking for one team to be knocked out after getting 6 points.
    Got back to hotel at 1:30am as it was pouring rain in Sochi. Jumped into bed and collapsed. What a 72 hours.

  6. #66
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    Travelling on game days done that plenty of times in Brazil

    Got screwed once

    Fog

    Who wuld have predicted it on a day it was 30C plus ???

  7. #67
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    Lov'n the updates Brem. Appreciate you finding the time to do it, been great following this thread.

    Keep up the great work champion.

  8. #68
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    I'm tired just reading about your last72 hours

  9. #69
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    Yeah I can relate to the long distances... Rostov had to walk around the whole stadium east to west outside to then walk inside west to east for our seats...
    Amigos Aarau

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