The Olympic Flame Comes to Porto Alegre, Brazil

Brazil certainly has its problems at the moment. Between the political trouble, economic trouble, the zika virus and the mess that is their national football team, things haven't been going great for the country.

For the next couple of months the eyes of the world are going to be focused on Brazil even more than usual, with the Rio 2016 Olympics now less than a month away. Now these games could go either way. It could become a force to unite the country and push towards a great spectacle as it did in 2014 with the World Cup with similar dire warnings beforehand. Or, it could be a catalyst for the complete collapse of the country. More than likely it will be somewhere in the middle, with a half hearted effort to keep things together until the world moves on to something else – like the US elections.

As someone who loves big events, I'm choosing to see the coming Olympics optimistically, and was very excited by the Olympic Flame coming through Porto Alegre last Thursday. I'd missed out on a couple of attempts to see the Olympic flame in other countries in the past, so I wanted to make sure I made the most of this chance.

Along with a few thousand other people, we crammed into Parcão (Moinhos de Vento Park) to wait for the flame to arrive. And we waited, and we waited - true to Brazilian style. Even the Olympic flame, which had travelled all the way from Greece on a tight schedule, couldn't get Brazilians to make something run on time.

As is usual at these kinds of things a local politician got up and spoke about himself and all of his colleagues as if any of them had any real impact on what was happening on the day. And because it is Brazil, there was a small but spirited group of protesters, calling for the ousting of current 'caretaker' president, Temer. But even they got bored and left before the flame arrived.

Finally, after over two hours waiting, the flame arrived and it was chaos. The small security team were pretty over-matched by dozens of photographers and other spectators ignoring their instructions to stay back. This meant for the most part we could only see the top of the flame as it poked out the top of the media scrum. But it was there.

As the flame bearer began to re start the journey the craziness continued. Hundreds of people followed the runner along with a convoy of officials and runners in at least a dozen cars and buses.

While the scenes were very typical of Brazil – they love a street party here – it was good to feel that people were actually excited about flame and the Olympic Games it represents. At times it can feel like the negative can overpower the positive here, so its good to see at least I'm not the only one trying to enjoy this.

Bring on the Olympics!