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Published: March 29th 2009
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Entering to our seats
From left to right, Hans, Tom, Heather, Ayla and Chris. Somehow I've gotten sucked in. Through numerous amounts of goading-often from my British friends, it's begun to be called football. But it's a good time. The week of football really started on Wednesday. We traveled to River Plate Stadium to get tickets for the game on Saturday. The lines were set up based on what tickets you wanted to buy. We went for the 130 peso tickets, which were the second most expensive, but by far the longest line. Hans had been to the stadium before and said that these would be good, so we waited for roughly an hour and a half to two hours, but left with our tickets. The security seemed overzealous making us stand with our backs to the wall until it was time to go buy our tickets, but in the end we left with tickets.
Wednesday continued in the football manner, when Hans, Tom, Chris and I went to play football in a park. We went over to a park near parque 3 de febrero to play. Normally porteños would be playing, but this time to start it was just us. Eventually we were joined by a passing porteño and played 2 v 2 with
Game action
You can see how we had a great view of the whole field. one goalie, constantly switching. I learned quickly that I didn't know how to do much, being my first time ever playing. I did however score a goal. Eventually the sun went down and the first day of football was done.
Thursday and Friday were actually a brief hiatus from football activities, but still enjoyable. Thursday night-because everyone ends up craving asian food after about a week of being down here-we went to a Vietnamese restaurant. Our group was 11, which meant the only table we could sit at was on the ground on the second floor, overlooking the rest of the restaurant. The food was good, but we were only supplied with chopsticks, which, at least for me, made eating a little more difficult. Afterward it was off to Acabar, which is a massive artsy bar. Since it was Thursday it wasn't packed, and we were able to use some of the games that they have out. Mainly it was a large Jenga game, which always fell way to close to drinks.
Friday night I went off to watch the flower sculpture close. There's not much else to this besides the pictures, so I'll put those up and get to
Flag
An interesting flag the people had. It's an argentine middle finger bursting through the British flag. We think it's because they heard Tom and Chris were coming. It's a little folded but I think you can tell what it says. Saturday.
Saturday before the game we met at the local football bar to watch England play Slovakia. We got there at 2, and many of the places tvs were just a shot of the river plate stadium, even though it was over 5 hours before the start of the game. While we were there, it was mostly empty, but by the time we left to go to the game, it was starting to fill up. We took the subte down by the stadium, where it's a about a 20 minute walk. As it got closer, there started to be a mob of people dressed in light blue and white. We passed armored police cars with hoses on the top, but the strangest part was as you get closer to the stadium you can hear gun shots. These come from a police target range directly across from the stadium, but walking up to this mob of people and hearing gun shots going off was pretty out there.
At the gate we had to separate between men and women. Security was there, but not frisking everyone. For some reason all of us gringos got frisked, but made it in. It was only
once we made our way up the steps to where our seats were that we met back up with the girls. Things got a little dicey here, because I realized my ticket was nowhere near any of the rest of my friends-it was actually closer. I went off to find it, but came up empty. I asked a couple of cops where the seat was and they just looked at me and shook their head no. All of this is made more difficult, because not only are the aisles minuscule, but many people sit in them to watch the games. I eventually went back by my friends and saw there was an open seat near them so I sat in that, and was fine for the rest of the game. Getting to the seat is nearly impossible. When sitting in my seat, my feet took up the entire aisle, so scooting past 30-40 people like that, is something that is hard to get used to.
Our seats were great though. You'll see from the pictures how it looked. Off to our right was the cheap seats sections which is surrounded by barbed wire. The people in there are constantly jumping
Plane
One of them that weren't as close. The ones landing would come in from the left. and singing "vamos vamos vamos argentina." They have drums in there somewhere that keep the constant beat. Often times the rest of the stadium joins in, or begins singing other songs. Before the game the entire crowd stood and jumped up and down while singing. Before the game both flags are brought out and displayed, and instead of someone singing the national anthem, the entire crowd sings it.
Much the same as our sports venues there are vendors walking around, but with no where for them to go. Somehow they squeeze through the crowd, but often block your view.
Within the first three minutes of the game Argentine scored a goal that was disallowed, but we all got pretty excited hoping that was the way it would go for the rest of the game. It wasn't far off as Argentina would ended up winning 4-0. Every time Argentina would get the ball close everyone would stand and gasp. After the first goal was one of the most intense experiences I've ever had, with everyone jumping and yelling before breaking out into song. Once they had the lead the crowd quieted somewhat, but the drums never stopped.
At times when something
jumbotron
This is the side that had the flag, and where the planes would fly close to. happened that the fans disagreed with, they would all do a high pitched whistle, which was ear piercing. I didn't really know anything about the rules, but figured out when to look frustrated. The other thing that was odd, was probably 15 or so planes flew over the game at various points. We must've been near the airport, because they were often insanely close. I only managed to get a picture of one of the farther away ones, but a lot of times it looked like they were going to clip the top.
After the game we hopped back on the subte-which was just letting people in free and then stopping arbitrarily. Most of us got in free, and it was surprisingly not packed. Some people are talking about going to the boca v river game that's coming up in April, but it may end up being too rich for my taste. I move into my new apartment Tuesday and will get up pictures of that at some point.
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Mike
non-member comment
Wow, good update. I've been lax in keeping up, but this was really cool. Glad you could get your sports fix, even when abroad. I've always wanted to go to a football game; I imagine them being like a punk show, but maybe that's just my american bias. also keep calling it soccer. eventually the rest of the world will realize your right!