Oh what a beautiful Sunday! I woke up around 10:30, took my shower, had my lovely breakfast of coffee, a banana, and little pieces of toast, then my house mother came back from church! I didn’t even know she went to church, but now that I know, I am going to ask to go with her next week. It was a pretty lazy morning. The email was not working and I almost had a freak-out moment when I realized that I didn’t know what time the futbol game was or where we were supposed to meet…I frantically sent out a facebook message to Thomas and he, luckily, read it and called me (on our house phone. Cell is still not working, but its Sunday so I couldn’t go and check on it as most businesses are closed.)
Well, later in the day (around three and after figuring out where my bus was going) I met Thomas in San Telmo, a pretty little neighborhood as long as you’re not there after dark. =) Our group didn’t have to meet until 4:30, we just decided to meet early so we’d have something to do and not just sit around our houses all day. In San Telmo (and apparently in every neighborhood) there was an artisan fair going on. It was a lot like the one Bridget and I saw in Recoleta yesterday. There were vendors selling everything you would imagine at a fair like this. There were all kinds of street performers as well: singers, dancers, puppeteers, bands, and even a man dancing (tangoing?) with a big doll that looked like a real woman when her back was to you, it was pretty funny. While we walked around, we stopped and got some Orange Juice…the reason why I mention this is because it was REAL orange juice. And when I say real, I mean this lady had a pile of oranges and she squeezed the juice out in front of us! That’s as real as you can get. It was so delicious too!
Moving along, we met up with our group, which I then found out wasn’t the Expanish group, but a group that Expanish works with for futbol games. They are called Juancho Futbol, and they take you to a restaurant (bar? pub? type place…) and feed you pizza and cervesa before the game. (Yes, I tried the cervesa…and it was nasty!) They try and teach you a Boca fight song (the team we went and saw, which is now the team I call my own, ha ha, was Boca Juniors) and you just eat and hang out and have a good time. Then they drop you off at the game, but there are group leaders who stay with you, so you know where you are going at all times and you’re not just running around lost.
Okay…here we get to the FUN part of the day. Oh yes, I don’t know what any of you have heard about Argentine Soccer… its CRAZY! There are so many fans and they are just the craziest people you will ever meet. At La Boca, there is a large group of fans who are called “Jugador 12” (Player 12). In soccer, there are eleven players on each team, in Boca, they consider their fans player #12 because they are there at every game (home or away) cheering the team on. And they do way more than just cheer. Right before the game starts, as the players run onto the field, the fans start throwing confetti and paper (it looked like toilet paper from where we were sitting) and who knows what all else, onto the field. My first thought was, “this would never happen in the US!” Little did I know, that was not the first time I would think that. Once the game started, the fans started singing and some were playing instruments. From what it sounded like, there are at least three or four fight songs that the fans sing/chant during the game…and what’s crazy is that they don’t stop. For the entire 45+ minutes of each half, the fans are singing and chanting. It never ever dies down. I was amazed at how they just kept it up for so so long.
OH! And before I forget… the highest seats are reserved for the visiting team’s fans. And the fans do NOT get along. I learned this when, as the other fans threw down a flag over the edge of where they were sitting (they held on to one end and let the other just lay over the edge) one of Boca’s fans somehow threw a lighter (or something with fire) up at the flag and it caught on fire! Then, when their team scored a goal, their fans started throwing stuff down at our fans (I wasn’t sitting close enough to get anything thrown on me, no worries!) Some people were even throwing cups full of coke! I heard someone say, “Be careful you don’t get peed on.” =O I don’t know if anyone would have done it, or if it was a normal happening at these games, but at this point, it wouldn’t surprise me.
So, in the middle of the second half, when I thought I had seen all there was to see at a Boca futbol game, Player 12 started shooting off Roman Candles… It started with maybe ten-ish, but just continued to where there were hundreds of Roman Candles being shot off into the sky. What’s even crazier (and this was crazy because no one was allowed to bring lighters into the stadium, so I don’t know how all those people brought in fireworks!) was that people on our side had them too, and started shooting them up at the other team’s fans! It was pretty funny, but could be really scary I would think, having fireworks shot at me…no thank you.
Well, I know you are all curious, but no…Boca did not win. I was so sad for them! They lost by one point (and I don’t know soccer very well, but someone said Boca wasn’t playing very good…). However, it was still a great experience! (Even if a bit scary, what with their fans banging on the walls and the entire stadium shaking…this is not an exaggeration… it shakes!)
After the game, we got back on the bus and the group started dropping us off in our neighborhoods; however, in the process, the bus got pulled over. No one really knows why. I mean, all the drivers here drive like crazy people, so I don’t really know why this particular officer decided to pull our bus over. Then, a police man gets on the bus and starts telling us we need to have our documents out to show that we are allowed to be in Buenos Aires. I’m not going to lie; I was pretty scared for a minute. But then, after he only looked at one passport, he got off the bus. After about a ten minute wait, we were able to continue on our way. I still don’t know why our bus got pulled over, but one of the group leaders said that the police were just doing “their job” because they had nothing else to do… so hmm…I guess it will continue to be a mystery!
Well, that’s really all for the exciting times of B.A. today! School starts tomorrow bright and early (at 10:30 ha ha)! Thanks for reading, more stories to come I’m sure!!!!
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Ha! I didn't know the bus got pulled over before I left. Was it still packed like sardines? I'm sure we were breaking some sort of law code, even for Buenos Aires.
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