Dan Simpson's Brazil Experience - Aug. 12

Our excellent tour guide, Fernando, rented us surf boards and took us to the nicest beach I have ever seen. He explained to us that the low tide created a path to an island and consequently created another beach. It was neat having ocean in front of us and behind us. So we crossed the path to the island to climb up a hill, which we all expected to be easy. Come to find out, it had steep slippery rocks and wet dirty paths. I thought for sure one of us was going to wipe out, thankfully no one did. A couple courageous individuals (myself not included) kept venturing to the other side of the hill. The hill allowed us to see the city we were staying in and a breathtaking vantage point on the ocean.

To cap off the night we played at a gym in the city of Cubàtoa. Outside of the building there was a banner advertising for the game with Penn State Behrend E.U.A on it. It was neat to see, and we knew we were going to have a fun environment. The second biggest television station filmed our game and conducted interviews with coach and some players. All throughout the game there were kids and even adults lined up behind our bench asking for our names. We didn't know if we should talk to them or not for fear that coach wouldn't approve it during a game. Once the game ended, we spent the next thirty minutes being swarmed by kids. Justin has been a crowd favorite (maybe because he handed out silly bands). During that time I approached a player on the other team and he wanted to trade me a futbol jersey for one of my Behrend shirts. I was shocked he wanted to do so, but I made the trade.

We won the game, but the atmosphere made the experience something we will never forget. Fernando (our guide) thanked us and told us how thankful the city is to have us play and impact them in a positive way.