Ok, so I hit up another Futbol game...I couldn't help myself. I had so much fun the first time I didn't think I could match it but it turned out to almost be better. I need to set the stage at little. The game was the Boca Juniors vs a club team from Venezuela to decide one of the finalists in the South American cup. It wasn't really a highly anticipated match which was actually a good thing for our safety. I was wearing a newly acquired Boca jersey. We had to buy tickets from a scalper. The people I was with wanted a good time but not too intense so when the scalper offered muy tranquillo seats they jumped on them. We entered the stadium similar to the last game except this time a policia stops me and shoves a gray box in my face. He then mumbles some fast spanish that I didn't understand. Then he made a blowing sound and I realized that he was giving me a breathalizer....I passed. The beard must make me look like a drunk too??? So we get up to our seats and this time I see the bathrooms but I still smell pee everywhere. We had arrived much earlier this time so there were plenty of seats. There was tons of room right behind the goal so picked a spot a little off to one side. There were all of these banners strung both across and up and down the seats but they were just kind of rolled up and laying there. We settled in at one of the many railings throughout the area (just a 3" round tubular bar) and waited for the game to start. All of a sudden drums started beating, the singing started and the area in which we were sitting was stormed by the hard core blue collar crowd that makes Boca famous. They all immediately climbed on top of all the railings using the banners to hold on, and worked hard to unfurl them. They literally ran us off our railing. For the remainder of the game every railing was full of standing people (not even watching the game) balancing only with one hand on a banner that is also being used by people the entire length and height of the stadium, leading the songs, staring down people not singing, waving flags and generally carousing. The singing did not stop the entire game and we basically couldn't see anything on the field because most of our viewing area was blocked by banners and flags. This is where I truly saw the passion of their fans. Everyone there knew the songs..except for us and some people were definitely annoyed with us...if it had been a bigger game, I would have been worried for our safety. We certainly did not match the hard core blue collar motif being displayed in our seating area. We had a blast but in a way I felt very fortunate that we were able to be in that area and have a good experience. Boca won, 3-0 with a bicycle kick goal for #2. After the game, I had a mild heart attack when a rough looking Argentine ran up and grabbed me and started saying things loudly. My friend told after that he said that he was so happy I had chosen Boca...it was a happy garb. It really rounded out the complete Argentina futbol experience.
Last night we took it easy with an all you can eat steak and past dinner for $8!!! Today, was a national holiday so most of the shops were closed. We took a train along the coast to a samll town call San Isidro. It was nice to get out of the city and this particular place was very nice and relaxed. It felt great. We had the intention of catching one more train to the beach but ran out of time and headed back. Tomorrow I might be heading to Uruguay for a weekend jaunt and to see the country. I will be taking a water ferry across the bay for a few hours and just spend one night in Montevideo. I might not take my laptop so it might be a day or two until my next post. For now, I hope the video I embedded works.
No comments:
Post a Comment