The game.
*** let me start by confessing that I wrote a very detail, beautiful, the best post ever, and, in a moment ‘stupidness” I decided to add more photos and refreshed the browser; I shut it down… lost everything… 3 pages of Pulitzer prize worth materials – gone with the wind ***
My friend Nate asked me if I’m going to go to the game. I asked: ‘what game?’ Argentina vs Columbia, it’s going to be in Buenos Aires and while we’re here – why not.
Personal confession: I’m seriously missing a male gene that has a sports-fan-code in it. I have a genuine envy to all those wearing my favorite player/team jersey, face painted and die-hard, screaming fans of a team – never had that in my life. A while back ago, I was privileged to attend a Georgia game with a couple of friends and one of them got us ‘inside the hedges’. For some of you, uneducated, that’s the holiest of the holy. That’s being on the field. Seeing almost hundred thousand fans cheering is the coolest thing, but I still wish I had that gene. Some photos from that game (ref: Georgia vs Ol’ Miss):
Back to Buenos Aires. Checked out some of the Argentian sites, but they were all in Spanish and my Spanish is slightly better than my Mongolian (is it still a country or has it been canceled? Louisa always tells me: can you believe that there is nothing on Mongolia? On the news you hear about every damn country from big like Canada to a small country like Armenia, but nothing about Mongolia – what’s up with that?!). So I referred to one of my trusted sites here in Buenos Aires: http://landingpadba.com/tickets-and-tours/argentina-national-team/. Spoke with Jed, a really cool guy from North Carolina, who’s been hear from over 8 years and he told me that if I want to take my family – this is the game to go, since there aren’t any futbol hooligans and there is ton of police.
Side note: local hooligans here called: barra bravas and some can be quiet “unfriendly” to their rival clubs. The Argentina national game was at the stadium of a local club (largest?) called River Plate. Our bilingual tour guides were both fans of Independente FC and they were telling me that they’ll need to be completely segregated at that game.
So, we were suppose to meet outside of this dodgy-looking hostel. Frankly, I don’t even quiet know what the hell is a hostel. The only other time I came across the word hostel was from the movie, called a Hostel (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450278/). I saw a couple of lost-looking souls, like me, wondering around, I asked them if they were looking for landingpadba gathering. The answer was ‘yes’. We met, there were about half a dozen of us. All Americans, mostly students. We were led down the stairs by this Argentinian dude, who later turned out a great guy and our bilingual guide (one of them), called Andres, but at that moment I was thinking of movie Hostel and desperately missing my H&K 45. Down, in the bat, we were pleasantly surprised by a free beer – nice touch – wasn’t part of the price or offering. Then more people started coming in. At first, I tried to meet some, introduce myself to others, but in an hour or so, there was over 100 people – way the f more than I expected (I was thinking 8-10?).
Mostly young kids, drinking beer and chatting. Some know each other, some new. There was a gal from Chicago. She kept trying to talk to me in Spanish. There was a dude from Texas who sounded half Mexican half Mongolian, claiming to be a Texan.
After a few rounds, we were led to our buses. Our tour guide, Andres, told us some of the do’s and the other. Taught us some of the songs and chants at the stadium. One was funny about needing to jump and if not – you’re English. English is a curse-word in Argentina after that little conflict over a Falkland (Malvinas?) Islands. Chilli’s support to Brits didn’t help their future relationship with Argentina either.
*** After my fiasco from two days ago, I’m going to publish this and continue in a follow up***
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