Our Ama Foundation Board Member Suyesh Karki was lucky enough to achieve something all soccer fans – including the Ama Ghar kids – dream of… a trip to the World Cup! Here’s how he tells his story:
“Attending a World Cup football game in person was certainly on my bucket list – and I was fortunate enough to be able to check that item off my list when I got a chance to go to Brazil for World Cup 2014!
My wife Sirish and I had applied for tickets to the World Cup quarterfinals game on the FIFA website and were lucky to get selected via lottery, so off we went to Rio di Janeiro and Brasilia, the capital city of Brazil, to attend the World Cup quarterfinal games.
Suyesh and Sirish at Estádio Nacional Mané Garrincha – they can’t believe they’re really there!
We were stunned by the natural beauty of Rio di Janeiro. While we were in Rio, we found time for some tourist activities such as visiting Christ the Redeemer and relaxing on the world famous Copacabana beach. We also took a trip to the Sugar Loaf Mountain and saw the amazing view of the city from atop that mountain. Another great trip we took was to the Favelas or “slums of Rio” which was an eye opening experience. A lot of those houses in the Favelas resembled the ones back home in Nepal and we were nostalgic. It was certainly one of the highlights of our trip.
Brasilia, on the other hand, is a completely modern city and is also known as one of the world’s most well planned cities. It was apparent in the huge sprawling roads, buildings and a great public transportation system – it
felt like we were in some huge city in the US when we were out there.
FIFA Fan Fest was a blast!
In addition to attending the actual games, which was certainly out of this world experience in terms of noise, passion and entertainment, we also attended the FIFA Fan Fests when were in Rio and Brasilia and that was incredible! We found out first hand that people in that part of the world really love their football, especially Brazilians and Argentinians. Their rivalry in football was fun and very entertaining to watch. We also enjoyed our time with the Colombian and Mexican fans who were a very fun loving bunch of people.
Those Argentina fans were crazy but fun…