Like most days in the last couple of weeks, Justin woke up to watch World Cup matches.  He’d heard about a place called the Harp that is a famous fútbol bar, which was a short drive or Uber away, but he slept in and thus going there wasn’t an option.  It was for the best, because Uruguay (and hence Luis Suarez) won their match against Ghana (Justin was hoping for Ghana to exact its revenge to eliminate Uruguay).  But, in a sense, they also lost, since when Korea won their match, Uruguay was eliminated from their group.

We finished packing early this morning, as we’d done most of the packing the day or two before.  This was going to be the fourth time in five years we were taking the same sort of trip, so we were pretty confident in our packing - what to take and what not to take.  Even though we were going to be gone almost the entire month of December, we each packed only a single backpack, plus a tiny duffel for Crystal and a camera bag for Justin.  Having only a backpack makes getting around on the trains, getting to/from train stations, getting into and out of properties with no elevators, etc., much easier, especially because we can have one or both hands free for whatever.

Crystal was working in the morning, so Justin checked us in online with Lufthansa, and then a little after 10:00 he walked over to Princess Pub in Little Italy, where the Brazil-Cameroon and Serbia-Switzerland matches were going to start at 11:00.  This was his first time watching one of the matches at Princess Pub, but he expected it would be good.  He’d been trying all sorts of different places for watching matches, depending on the time of day and who was playing.  For example, he’d watched the two US matches at Nolita Hall in Little Italy and Shakespeare Pub in Middletown, an England match at Shakespeare Pub in Middletown, a Spain match at Costa Brava in Pacific Beach, Argentina matches at Puerto La Boca in Little Italy, Mexico matches at Nolita in Little Italy and Los Panchos in Hillcrest, and other random 07:00 matches at Waterfront in Little Italy or Los Panchos in Hillcrest (both of which have bars that open early).  

Today’s matches, the last of the group stage matches, were played simultaneously, and Princess Pub had the audio for Brazil-Cameroon in one room and the audio for Serbia-Switzerland in the other.  Justin was in the Brazil room.  The match didn’t matter to Brazil - they’d already won their group prior to the last round-robin match - but it potentially did to Cameroon.  Justin was watching the Arsenal players, Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli for Brazil and Granit Xhaka for Switzerland.  Martinelli played especially well (not surprising), Xhaka got in an altercation (definitely not surprising), and none of the players got hurt (at least today, as Gabriel Jesus got injured a couple days later).  Switzerland was ahead, and with a win Cameroon would be eliminated, so the last few minutes of Cameroon-Brazil really didn’t matter.  But a Cameroonian player scored a goal and got a yellow card (his second, and hence a disqualification) for taking off his shirt.  It seems like if you score against Brazil in the World Cup, you should be able to remove your shirt, put it back on, and remove it a second time, all without penalty.  Before leaving, at the head, one of the other patrons complimented Justin on his pissing prowess, a first for him; we suppose it's good to know he probably doesn’t have prostate cancer.

Justin got back to the house around 13:15.  Crystal hadn’t gone to lunch whilst Justin was out, as she wanted to stay with Lola, who was going “naked” (no diaper) in the morning in the hopes of drying out her tiny tail before the dogsitter showed up.  We left around 15:00, figuring Crystal could get something at the lounge at the airport.  A guy honked at, and almost hit, our Uber driver as he arrived to pick us up; we weren’t a fan of the auspicious start.  It was a very short trip to the airport, and we were seated at the bar at the lounge by 15:30.  Our plane showed up about 5 minutes after we got seated.  We had 3 rounds, plus some snacks, before heading to the gate.

On board we had a middle seat and an aisle seat in the middle of a 3-3-3 configuration.  Especially for flights where we have no desire to look out the window, we prefer these seats because we don’t have to bug anyone (besides each other) to get up, and no one bugs us either.  The leg room seemed less than usual, which made getting some sleep (particularly for Justin) even more difficult, but we were able to get some.