W O R L D C U P 2 0 1 8

P R A G U E

A retrospective blog is never ideal, but I left my laptop at home as I didn’t want to do work on this holiday. Not sure what to expect however listening to everyone’s opinions on Russia I decided to leave the Breitling at home too. Not sure where the opinions stem from however as I felt Russia was safe.

Sitting next to me on the flight was a man Fadl who was a consular official of Yemen. He was so nice, gave me his number should I have any issues in Prague. I didn’t. As soon as I landed and got to my hostel, it felt like I was in Bali. I was staying at a swish hostel with a pool, sauna and apparently every bogan Contiki and Busabout Aussie in town there.

I called an early-ish night after watching the games on TV and decided I’d do the walking tour the next morning. It was there waiting that I met a Kiwi guy Eddie and his mate Ali and the hotel socialiser (some American dude) who took us to a walking tour, which I had hoped it would be with my Aussie mate Matt that I met in Tel Aviv.  But the outrageous hostel socialiser had other ideas and took us to some other boring group. Enroute he was telling me how he was a Marine and I told him I also was obvs taking the piss. And then I said ‘where are your shit tattoos?’ and then he showed me ‘duh’ foot in mouth.

Anyway I managed to bring it back and after convening with Eddie and looking at the dull walking tour group and no potential hot things for Ed and Ali, we decided to bail and try to find my mates tour group instead of this one the dickhead marine socialiser had brought us to. So we took off with good intentions and joined the new walking tour. It was about the third destination that we realised Ali had disappeared and it was just Ed and I (and the tour group). Our tour was great, but we were starving, so half way through when we were given a break, we took off to find food. Our intention was to re-join but we got lost, and despite our intentions to re-join we ended up losing our tour group! So I decided as it was my second time in Prague, I had to see the castle this time so we set off for our self-guided castle tour. The next faux pas was skipping the queue and jumping in front of a Chinese tour group. It wasn’t until we were in the castle that we felt the wrath of our actions when a lady shook her head at us and goes  “that was not cool, NOT cool” ha-ha I laughed it off, I mean, how many times have I been pushed in front of by rude Chinese?  I think that’s karma. Whatever it is we had a massive day walking, and I was stuffed so had a nap at the hostel and chilled until the next footy match.  

 

I was sat outside of the bar when I got a message from Ed saying he was inside at the bar. He had managed to find two mates, Aidan the 20 year old that reminded me of Girthy (though due to his age and being unable to apply the half your age + 7 to this, I cannot confirm he is exactly like him, though he was from Canberra, had a Mo and a tattoo of Canberra on his back!!), and J the token loud American who I’m sure produced porn for a living. We sat separately hating on the rude Aussies (also the new short arse butt crack fashion when applied to 18 year old overweight girls is not nice to look at!) and watched the footy. We also committed to spending the whole next day together and got up the next day to find a breaky place. We didn’t entirely fail but we didn’t entirely succeed, i.e. we found a place that sold breakfast closest to what we Aussies were used to, but the breaky menu had finished, so we had to go somewhere else to eat, though the place we were had a massive paddle pool in the back and island chairs. So it was a natural progression (or regression) back to that place for Aperols upon completion of our breaky and beerskis were had until I was so drunk, we decided to go back to the hostel for a sauna and some travellers before my flight.

S A M A R A, R U S S I A

My flight to Samara was on the world’s oldest plane. It was made marginally better when I was upgraded to business, and then extremely much better when a tall hot top knotted Danish guy sat next to me – Bjorn, became the first person I fell in love with on this holiday. It was a miracle when we found out that we were on the same flight to Moscow after the Samara game and I was super excited when he and Anders (his mate who was the awkward third wheel wedged between us) told me they would message me and we could do dinner at a Top 100 restaurant in Moscow. I chose to ignore the fact that they met at some socialist camp and was a little bit crushed when I didn’t hear from them in Samara. 

It was a late 3:40am arrival and 38 degrees in Samara – so was super relieved that everything was super organised at the airport. Had money, a 5£ unlimited data mobile sim card and my driver there in no time. The most stressful part arriving to the hostel at half 4 and the lady photocopying every stamped page of my passport, which is nearly every page in my Aussie passport!!

Mathilde and her brother Kristoffer had arrived before and kindly made and left me the bottom bunk. The next day we took in the sights of Samara … which meant the local shopping centre McDonalds, before seeing some history (a WW2 memorial tanker with the dates 1941-1944 lol) and then we

headed to the game.

Walking in to the Stadium the atmosphere was incredible. I quickly met up with Whitey and his mates from Dubai and Oz, and randomly saw some of Sammy’s mates from London. We frantically searched for an Aussie Jersey for me to no avail as the whole country had sold out. I had so many beers before the game, I think we were all very cut by the time the game started, I actually heard rumours we drank the stadium out of beer.

The draw was the best result we hoped to get. I suppose I would have loved to win, but I appreciate how awesome the Dane’s are and was just grateful we didn’t make a fool of ourselves. (That obviously was to come in Sochi). After the game, we got the team bus to the fan zone and partied till the early hours this itself wasn't without drama when suddenly there was a mad rush to evacuate. I suspected the Canadian chick that was holding it in couldn't hold it in anymore, so when i actually realised the bus engine had blown up, I also cottoned on to scurry off in a hurry (this and the fact the driver came up with a pocket knife to the smokey engine and was like "I can fix this" sure you can buddy! We unsuccessfully tried to catch up with Pags, but caught up with Whitey and his mates, Dimi who looks like an Arab, long haired Jason, dorky Dave (who is mates with my mate Walshy!) and some other non-descript dudes drinking vodka shots till the early morning. The UBER back was painful, the chatty driver talking to Dave about what we thought of Samara. Dave, was so patient, "oh, it’s beautiful", we inside chuckled as our group WhatsApp earlier that day was something along the lines of “you guys are lucky you didn’t come here early, this place is a shit hole!

When we got back though the hostel lady had water for us (I had a cheeky vomit from the god awful food!) and stole 3 hours sleep before our rude airport awakening where I said bye to Mathilde and Kristoffer who headed back to Denmark and hello to the airport bean bags and the hot top knot Dane man.  

M O S C O W

Unfortunately unlike my Dane friends, I was not upgraded this time so we were separated and I’ve never heard from Bjorn since. When I boarded the plane however I was not too fussed as I thought the other plane was the world’s oldest, I was wrong, this Utair flight was most definitely the oldest almost shittest plane I’d been on (albeit Lao Air and a short flight to BVI from Miami.) I was glad to be so tired I slept through most of it and was greeted at the airport upon landing with two things – a text message from Bec’s German mate Benny telling me he was in Moscow, and my driver – Vlad

(he was very Russian, so this name I’m just guessing!)

Lots of traffic and heat was what I first noticed, the other thing I noticed was that the women were smoking hot, but the men were fugly. It was an hour in when Vlad got out to have a dart in the middle of the highway. Thankfully I was too tired to really care a great deal and again relieved to arrive at the hostel and able to check in early so I could have a kip before exploring. When I woke up I walked in to Moscow town and had a look around. It seemed like a really cool place, everywhere was buzzing and the Tunisians were chanting. For some reason Putin had closed the Red Square and the too many crowd was condensed in to a small area so it was also quite claustrophobic. I was so tired though so decided to head back for another snooze.

Upon waking I had a message from my old favourite temporary Kiwi housemate Timmy that they

were heading to the fan zone. So I decided to bite the bullet and catch public transport for the first time. Man I was happy I did so. The tube station was beautiful; the train was stunning and clean and even had phone coverage and a TV showing football!

I pretty much arrived when the boys wearily hungover decided to boot for dinner. But not before trying my luck to get an Aussie jersey as they had completely sold out of Samara and I didn’t fancy my chances of seeing any in Sochi. There were three Smalls left in the shop so £70 later we got the tube again, the wrong way though, so after the slight hitch, we headed back in to the Red Square. We finally found a place to eat and watch football, a Turkish place and had a hearty dins before we made plans for the walking tour the next AM and parted ways.

The next morning was a particularly hard one to awaken to even though I’d set my alarm for 9am. Every day so far i’d been up by 6am and not asleep before 2am so was literally living off adrenalin. I caught the tube back to town and met the again weary but good looking boys for the walking tour.

Moscow is stunning. I expected ugly communist buildings, but they have re-built many of the intricate decorative buildings destroyed during the communist era and the place was buzzing.

We booted the walking tour this time deliberately at half time as the boys had to get to the Belgium game and I wanted to go try the modern restaurant place near my hostel called ‘Little White’. It may be the best idea for a venue and definitely the most suitable for me ever in

Benny & I

existence. Their motto simply reads ‘Breakfast and Wine Bar’. Inside I had the best food and next to my loner table was a table full of hot Brazilians. WIN. One of them, Sandro used to live in Oz (for two months on the Gold Coast LOLS), gave me his number to catch up after the game. He was the second person I fell in love with on the trip (I say second as obvs didn’t have to fall in love with old housemate Timmy, as still held a strong torch after all those amazing smoothies he used to make me for breaky, our fun tube trips to work together and the fact he meets all my criteria except the blue eye one which I’ve become lenient on). I sort of even forgot that Brazilian women are mental because the men all treat them like shit and make them that way. I didn’t care. I went back to the hostel for some chill time and then back across the road for an early dinner met Benny boy there for a feed and some Aperols. We then made the world’s worst decision to head in to the Red Square to watch the Germany game. Again in the Red Square Mr Putin had called for the square to be closed off. Benny and I missed the first half before we found a bunker craft beer café televising it. It was really cool inside but temperature wise reflected a sauna. I felt like after the game and the stress of the late Germany 94 minute mark goal I’d sweated off a few KGs and I was most certainly drunk. Unfortunately the Portuguese and English barrier meant that Sandro clicked rather late that this night was my last one. He was in the Red Square when I was back in bed (circa 1am), waiting for my 4am wake up to get to my half 6am flight to Sochi. The UBER to Moscow airport was one of the most memorable and scary UBER trips of my life but I was sort of too tired to care. The guy was Uzbekistani Ali G type guy, quite rudely dressed but his car was quite neat. I sat in the (no word of a lie) shag pile carpeted and cushioned backseat. Probably one of the best decisions I’ve made in my

life. He drove on the highway like he was keeping the tyres warm of an F1 car- so the kms felt to go particularly slow. He then decided he wanted a cigarette, so wound down the window and had a dart. I wanted to sleep but had to stay awake to ensure I wouldn’t end up in Kazakhstan. I also was messaging my Aussie mates I was meeting in Sochi as V had jetlag and was awake at the ungodly hour and gave her a rolling commentary of what was happening. Then the guy asks me what time my flight is. I showed him. He looked and looked particularly like he thought we didn’t have much time. So nearing an hour to go until my flight you could notice my surprise when he gets off the freeway and enters a petrol station, leaving me in the car...

The next fun experience was the Moscow airport as it was the first time I noticed how rude some Russians could be. I suppose as it was the first time other than the ladies toilets where the hot Russian chick had shockingly failed to wash her hands and the hotel check out that I had actually interacted with Russians. Not one smile, but I didn’t really mind, I just wanted on the flight so I could sleep so the one hour delay was particularly unhelpful in this instance. That and the fact our flight was full of Peruvians. I sat next to one from Chicago. He told me they sung the song for the whole duration of his 8hr flight. Some had sold their houses to come to this world cup = absolutely, unbelievable.

S O C H I

My biggest regret leaving Moscow was not buying a Putin babushka. Never again did I see the one as beautiful as the one I had seen in Moscow. Sochi was described to me as the Russian med, and a place that Russians went to holiday. This time I didn’t have a transfer so used an Uber to get to the hotel in Adler. The lady on the desk was a particularly dropped pie faced sour bitch. She wouldn’t let me check in. So tired beyond words I went for a wander along the sea front and found an almost Parisian restaurant aptly named ‘La Parus’ to charge the phone battery. Ordered my fav holiday dish ‘eggs bene’ and took in the ambience until I could check in and enjoy the stifling hot weather poolside until my friends joined me. That is exactly what I did upon check in, and as the Swedes had not yet checked out, it was fair to say I thoroughly enjoyed the view. I chose the vacant pool deck chair that was next to the world’s hottest man who didn’t look dissimilar to Jamie Redknapp (now the world’s equal hottest man). When the sun went down and I was almost positive that V and Andrew’s flight had landed I head inside, again for a nap. I know you probably think I nap a lot but again 2am to 6am for 8 days running had def taken its toll. That and i was running low of antihistamines and was dying of hay fever.

My token Russian Aussie friend V and her Hubby the 2M tall Andrew came in and I was well overdue for a feed so after our awesome reunion we headed to a place I’d Trip Advisored called Pizza Fisht for dins. It wasn’t amazing, because we were plonked in the kids’ corner but we were all celebrating our reunion, so after a few cocktails we left for an early-ish night.

Next morning we headed to Parus for breakie, and stopped enroute at the coffee shop I had also discovered earlier, for a roadie. Again Parus did not disappoint and we stayed there until we decided to UBER to Sochi and check it out. By now I was accustomed to the stinky UBER drivers (it was like being back in Oz with the Indian and Pakis), but at least he had half decent music taste and we got to listen to Roxette’s Joyride album the whole way which kept me happy as it reminds me of my sister. Andrew and I were getting V to ask if the Uber driver could take us to Georgia, noticing it was only 14kms from where we were staying. It was strange when he said that just across the border from Sochi was a different country and they had their own passports. Andrew and I were zooming in on google maps going ‘yeah it’s Georgia’ but this guy was adamant it was not Georgia. Having since completed some research, and mindful I would like to return to Russia, I will leave this with you:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abkhazia. 

Sochi was a cool place, and naturally wanting some respite from the sun again we found a wine bar for some tapas and Strawberry daiquiris. We caught a cab back to Adler and went to Parus for pre-game dinner. Enroute we saw (and heard) thousands of Peruvians outside a hotel singing their repetitive Peru fan song (equal parts as annoying as England’s ‘It’s Coming Home’). It gave me chills and we instantly felt the presence of the Peruvians which had waited as long as the Geelong football club premiership in 2007 to get to the world cup.

Walking in Parus we realised that all the staff from this morning were still there, in fact they were doing 15 hour days. So it was quite embarrassing when the CEO of football Australia’s David Gallops table guest was a complete arsehole to the staff having waited (as we did) for an hour to eat. Apparently he thought he was the only one that had to wait and was very vocal in doing so by slapping away the complementary bottle offered to him and storming off just as the food arrived. I believe David looked rightfully embarrassed by his guest but I especially was grateful they left hungry.

I left Parus with the intent of meeting Whiteys group and the elusive Pags at Vinograd to see Stafford Bros when I received a call from Pags a little bit pissed, telling me he had arrived and should asking me if we should go to Abkhazia on our way home! On our way back to the hotel however we doubled back passed the hotel and it was when we heard the chants again that we suddenly worried that the Peruvians were out the front of the Aussie hotel keeping them awake before the game. Andrew and i were ready for a fight but we were assured by three different groups that it was the Peru hotel and we carried on our way (BTW we were told it went on till 4am!) I was in an UBER enroute on my own at 11pm and my driver got pulled over by police. At first, I was fine I was sitting there hoping it would all hurry up so I could get to the concert. But too much was going on in my head and as I was sat there a good 20 minutes unsure what they were saying in Russian, everything went through my head, including that recent murder in Carlton. I decided, as I could still see my hotel that I would politely get out and go back and wait for Whitey to grab me enroute. When Whitey told me it was 100 Russian Yams out of his way and he was going straight there Dimi/ Arab knight in shiny armour offered to come get me, but I was well tired and called it once I was safely inside.  

We couldn’t book pre-game at Parus, the closest place to the ground so instead went to the second closest - Pizza Fisht for 15 or the WhatsApp group consisting of Whitey and his mates, Robbie Gore’s group and us lot. We arrived to a stressed staff member informing us there was a problem and a restaurant full of no necked Peruvians (V pointed this out and then I couldn’t unnotice it). I realised that they would leave to get to the game early (as Pags did) so we chilled and had cocktails while we waited for them to clear. They did, then the staff put 4 tables together for our group then I anxiously sat there with V and Andy stressing no one would show up for 30 mins until Dimi put his head through the door and Robbie and his mates come, soon there were 16 of us and we had taken over the whole restaurant. We got some travellers after a feed and headed for the game.

 

We didn’t leave near enough time to get right around the other side of the ground – God knows why they couldn’t just let us in at the gate closest and we had to walk around, but it was at this time that Robbie told me he was robbed in St Petersburg and they had skimmed his account clean. I was quite shocked by this as I had felt Russia to be really safe comparable to anywhere else I’ve been, I was sympathetic I think but I was also drunk and Sette was stressing we wouldn’t make it in time for the anthem, I was stressed I wouldn’t get a pre-game beer so we joined forces and sprinted in.

Not having enough time to get beer, I was grateful Andrew had sorted me out. I sat down near the no necked Peruvians who were everywhere and all we could hear was their song resonating, vibrating through the stadium.       

The game itself was quite hard; it was quite dejecting letting a goal through despite having a lot of the possession. The sound was piercing, I knew what had happened even though I was at the bar getting beerskies. I was quite angry at the blonde headed black man (who I didn’t know even existed until I saw Geelong debut our new player Narkle who IS my fav player already) who scored the goal as he was one of those players like Neymar that loved to roll around. Then I realised there were two blonde headed black guys and I got really confused and I was quite drunk and the only excitement for the game for me was when Timmy Cahill came on… then Peru scored again and their song by now was giving me the shits so as soon as the whistle chimed post game we legged it (at a slightly slower cripple pace due to Andrew’s bung knee) and headed to our meeting place Parus. 30 thousand Aperol Spritz’s later and a three course meal we settled the $45k Rouble bill and went our separate ways. I had a small vomit in the garden and walked home.

The next day came and we went and chilled at Vino Grad. Dimi cancelled our previously planned date from the night before and instead offered me a night out in Fulham for our first Premier League home game to which I was happy to take up. By now my body was starting to give way, so I ordered a soup despite the temperature being 100 degrees outside. We had dinner local and were re-iterated that my decision to leave the UBER the other night was a good one when we met two Peruvians who were taken out bush and robbed of their money by a taxi driver when their phones had gone dead in the celebrations the night before. My flight out the next morning was a stupid o clock 4am one to Sofia Bulgaria.   

Well in to page 6 of my longest Blog to date, I’m not going to even write about Bulgaria. Apart from the decent food (I had Indian and Spanish), the weather was crap and the country reminded me of Romania (probably because my borrowed umbrella was flogged at the store) a little boring and the world’s worst 4 star hotel. The business class flight home on the world’s worst business class airline British Airways, and me being drunk before the take-off (as we were tarmac bound for an hour in) becoming mates with the old guy next to me which I kissed goodbye at the baggage carousel – it was all very boring and non-descript! Russia 5/5 spuds, and probably up there with one of my favourite ever holidays!