I went home and I called home because I knew that my grandma was not well. Sadly I was told that my grandma was not doing good. It was one of the toughest days here, but I hope it stays that way. Things could be tougher, but I hope this is as tough as it gets. I just hope to see my grandma when I get home for Christmas.
After lunch I asked Yonseili to go with me to the post office. After that we stopped by a mini mall which we'd never been to. We cruised it, got a snack, then we headed out. We looked forward to the Liga soccer game.
All we needed to do was wait for Juan Jose to go to sleep so that Yonseili and I can go with Adriana. At around 7:15pm, the grandma and Alex (Carlos' nephew) showed up. She was here to babysit Juan-Jo and he had a car in which we'd all be going in and meet my host dad there.
The drive there was good, my host mom and I won a bet we made with Yonseili. We assured her she'd gone to eat at Federer on Eloy Alfargo already, but she insisted we didn't even after telling her when, what she ate, and who we were there with. We danced and sung to a few songs, passed by buses filled with people heading to the game.
Alex parked in a lot where my host dad was waiting for us. We got our tickets near the gate and got in line. WOW, the line was loooong and very crowded. This line, of course, wasn't one person behind another. It was more of a blog trying to be a line. People were shortcutting, including us... and it was scary. Right when we got to the line we saw some people try to shortcut and other people immediately started calling them out and called over a cop to get them out. So, when my host parents and Alex told us to do so, we were so nervous. They did it smoothly. I knew we had to do it, so when I saw some people walking in front of us I just smoothly walked into the line as well. There were people everywhere so it's not that hard to do so. Thankfully no one behind called me out. I looked back and saw Yonseili had stayed in place. Eventually she came because the line was moving. That line was a situation.
Our first time on the bus does not compare to this chaotic scene. As opposed to our bus ride, it was dark, people were shortcutting, pushing and shoving to get to the front. I'm sure we stepped on pee, and we in fact stepped on trash, bottles, other stuff... We were squished. I don't know how to explain it any better. I would have taken a picture but I didn't want it to get robbed. So I got this from the internet:
Uhm... so somewhat like this, except we weren't this happy and it was at night... and we weren't on a train. We did have to watch ourselves and our belongings. I prayed to God I didn't feel any hands anywhere. The only ones I felt were Yonseili's but that was because we needed to stay together. As soon as we got the chance we pushed through people to get against the wall. The line was still for the longest time so we were all very happy when it started moving. The masses were pushing, therefore I didn't have to make an effort to walk. Just had to go with the flow.
Passed the first and second gate. We scanned the bleachers we sat at last time, but there was no good view so we went up to the second 'floor.' We got a good view, too bad there had to be smokers everywhere. I'm not familiar with the smell, but apparently someone was smoking marijuana near us. There were people of all ages. The stadium was almost full when we got there and we still needed to wait an hour and a half before the game started at 9:30pm. Yes, this was better than Bungalow 6.
What a spectacle it was when the game was about to start and the Liga team was walking on to the field. The fireworks were great, the white smoke was abundant, the recycled and shredded confetti paper was okay. There were people with sparklers, including the guy next to us. We had to make distance from him while it was on. Below, on the first floor, many youngins and probably young men and older men were climbing the fence. I see so many things here that would NEVER fly in the U.S.. To our right at the far end of the floor, all of the Argentinians were cheering for their team, Newell's Old Boys (NOB).
The game was good. I got to see the Liga really play this time. It was funny to see the man in front of us side-hug his wife every time the Liga did something good. Almost as if they were on a romantic date or something. Many soccer fanatics here for sure, have seen too many Liga tattoos. I heard, again, plenty of "hijo'ep*ta" and other names. Also...
I could say that our bleachers section from the front all the way to the back was divided in half. The front half was standing, which we were a part of, and half in the back was complaining the entire game that we sit down. You see, even if we wanted to sit down, we couldn't watch the game. There were a few arguments face to face, and people in the back were throwing trash to the front. We just ignored them as best we could.
The Liga won, 1-0. We headed out as quickly as possible and went toward the parking lot. We stopped by one of the knock-off jerseys 'stands' and got myself a red one. So... here comes the highlight of the day... although not good, it is a 'highlight'...
Highlight of the day: I wanted to pick up my hair and felt something that didn't belong. I immediately knew it was gum. During the shouting of the "sientense/sentase/sit down!" I hoped they wouldn't throw gum at us. I didn't put on my hoodie until later, though. FORTUNATELY the gum was small, like one chiclet, and since it was cold, it was easy to take out. Geeze, people are nasty. By the way, the gum was white.
Alex was driving a white standard car. To reach the top of the hill faster, he passed all the traffic. When we were at the top, my host mom, Yonseili and I had a good few seconds of scare when the car started going back. Yeah, he needs a little more practice.
I got home and I showered. I smelled like cigarette smoke.
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| Yonseili, Carlos, Adriana and me |
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| 1-0 |
this story will be worth telling for years to come. caught with the masses to watch a soccer game from the cheap seats...and still have fun. cutting in line, driving against the traffic, gum in hair...yep, that's a 'war story'.
ReplyDeletem.