Aussie behind enemy lines

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Well, well well merry christmas to all those who didn´t get my message which is all of you cause my phone dosn´t work out here haha....it´s been a busy week in Montevideo which to be honest is in my opinion a bit of an under rated city.

the week kicked off with a trip behind enemy lines to the Venue which staged the first ever world cup final but more importantly the birthplace of Australia´s 2006 world cup qualification. I met a brazilian guy equally interested in my desire to visit the stadium (rafael...sorry about the spelling) and headed out there in gale force winds and buckets of rain. we arrived at the stadium and managed to sneak in at gate 11 for some photo ops of the field. Although as the rain had not eased up we sort refuge in a near by office room were we met one of the Uruguayan ground staff....and after strick instructions to rafael not to inform anyone that i was Australian, he intrduced me as the aussie guy that has come to see where australia qualified for the world cup...luckly what followed was joking banter and a few praises for Gus´s coaching skills. anyway after the happy snaps we headed back to the hostel soaking wet but full of pride.

another day of drinking and checking out the local markets..not much else to say really...

then the next day was christmas eve which through some locals we were told to head down to the port area for a day party as it would get pretty wild.

basically this involved a massive drinking party in the street where everyone in town was drinking this alchoholic cidar in a square and any girl that walked past was champagne style sprayed with the cidar. classic guy mentallity for a party ´lets all get real wasted jump up and down soccer celabration style for like 4 hours with drums and the like and if any female walks past give her a hug/kiss and soak her in cidar. then when your finished with your bottle randomly chuck the plastic bottle into the crowd at people.´i was in heaven.

actually at one point one of the locals tried to climb on the roof of this food stall so he could sit above the crowd and he was absolutely pelted with pastic bottles for his efforts...at any one time there was a shower of at least 100 bottles in what seemed like a modern day stone-ing...he fell off and i am sure he was injured but it was absolutely hilarious. I wish i had pics but almost everything u take in there get stolen so i didn´t take my camera... actually my mate got his wallet stolen!!

but everyone had a good time and no one was spared being soaked in beer, cidar or water... even the little local kids were having a field day returning everyones empty beer bottles for them so as to collect the 10 peso deposit which equates to about 50 cents back home.

anyways after the day party me and rafeal set out for food as we hadn´t eaten since lunch the day before and must have drunk 10 litres of beer between us... although in our seach we got distracted and played soccer with some local uruguaians for 2 hours then walked an hour through the city with beer soaked shirts to find nothing open...and for the record drunk soccer on christmas eve still has priority over looking for food and don´t anyone tell you different.

we did manage to finally get to a super market which stocked pringles which tied us over till christmas dinner at the hostel...traditional uruguayan pasta.

christmas night was back to the awesome pub scene which in my opinion kills the Buenos Aires pubs because of the pub crawl ability...possibly the night clubs don´t quite compare although i can´t really comment as i didn´t get a chance to check it out. but i think montevideo is worth a look for a few days just to hit the pub scene.

my last day here has been spent at the beach which has been ok but supposedly get better the further out of town you go...lets hope so!!

anyways good bye montevideo definatly a christmas i will never forget.

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Photos

Stadium 1
This is where it all began

Stadium 2
boo ya -- for Jay!

Hostel Inn
The cool dudes at the Hostel Inn Montevideo Ciudad Veiha (bad spelling)