Day 3: April 19

Today was a busy day to say the least. Started off with me checking out of my Hostel, backpacking through the supte and ending at my new dormitory with fellow classmates. The new digs are pretty reasonable. Good people, plenty of space and again, Wi Fi..which is great. Still many English speaking people which is bugging me..I want to speak spanish and its fun..I am remembering words that I forgot I knew. Ok, back to the day.....I had managed to meet two other backpackers from Holland who were going to the Superclasico between Boca Juniors and River Plate. The bad part was that they spoke less spanish than I. We were not worried about our lack of experience or knowledge. We shed all of our valuables, cut cash to minimum, bought a disposable camera and put on nuetral colors. We walked two miles to the stadium, got bad directions from two policia (I think they didn't like touristas), saw a man getting his ass kicked litterally..the kind of fight where no one breaks it up and it goes until one man can't get up, then gets one more punch, and finally ended up near our section about 1 hour before the game...not nearly early enough. We were in a section with no seats and the entire section was already full. We were left to standing at the top along the rail and looking between people. Luckily portenos are fairly short so we could still see the game very well. It was amazing. They have so much passion for futbol. Here are the highlights: No bathrooms, people peed from the deck onto the bottom deck and in all the ramps...it reeked of urine. I saw several people get peed on. No one leaves their place. The game started with an amazing display of fireworks and I have no idea how much confetti and ribbons thrown from fans. When the crowd was rocking, the deck above litterally looked like it would crack off and fall...it had serious movement and as an engineer I was concerned. The home team scored first with a sharp shot and the same potenos who I had been trading elbows with for an hour were suddenly hugging me and jumping up and down. Next River Plate evened up the score with a well placed direct kick. All of a sudden it seemed like someone pushed a mute button...the entire stadium went silent..no one booed, I didn't even hear the opposing fans...either they were scared or they were not there. It was weird watching the plate players run around celebrating with no crowd noise. The game ended in a draw. I got the feeling that after the score was evened up, they both were happy with the draw..that way not as many people get beat up after the game???? We walked home through the historic san telmo neighborhoods of cobbled streets, street music and markets. We had a beer and called it a night. Now I have to drum up some energy to make friends in my new home. Classes start tomorrow. P....Out