are you ready for some football?

buenos aires. a bit of a shock coming from the snowy mountain air to the heat of the capital city in the summer. i wasn’t sure what i expected buenos aires to be like… as usually, whatever vague images i was able to conjure up were influenced by snippets of hollywood movies. eva peron, tango, uhm… well, let’s just say my buenos aires information was sorely lacking.

i found a cute hostel in san telmo, an old bohemian part of town and a center for tango, and spent the rest of the day doing a wee bit of exploring. the next day there was a big football game on, boca vs. indepencia, so of course i really had to go to that. not only is argentina football crazy (and buenos aires is the place to see a game), but football, or, uh, soccer, is the one sport i actually know a little bit about. and by a little i mean that my six years of playing the sport gave me an understanding of the rules— but ask me anything about famous players or teams. i can name one professional player (…prepare to wince…) beckham, and that’s only because of that movie a few years ago that bore his name. oh, and i know the last world cup was in germany (but again, that’s only because i met a girl from germany who was working on something-something that was somehow related to the world cup). so, yeah, where was i before i went off on this? ah yes, so there was a big football game on that sunday. i spend the morning wandering around the antiques market at plaza dorrego with two girls i met in the hostel, katja and vicki. then it was off to the game with some other from the hostel.

going to see a game in boca is a big thing to do, but everyone makes a big thing about the safety of it all—i’m not sure if this is because of various incidences of tourists being robbed and harassed, or if it is all an elaborate ploy to pressure tourists to handing over their money and go with a group tour. in any case, i heard enough stories to make me leave my camera behind (it was painful, and i can’t help thinking, perhaps unnecessary). we were herded with thousands of other fans though various checkpoints and after some more milling around, it was time for the game. now the game was great, but i think the fans who really caught my attention. about as enthusiastic as fans at a japanese baseball game, but well, a completely different type of enthusiasm. my spanish, well, it sucks, but from what they others told me there was a whole lot of insults being flung from the boca fans to the indepencia one and vice versa. the boca people alluded that the indepencia fans were from bolivia, the indepencia ones retaliated with chants about the boca fans mothers. more racial taunts and derogatory innuendoes. if i understood it all, i’m sure i would have been scandalized. anyway, boca won and the locals were happy. we finished the day off with an argentinean steak—and by steak i mean steak, cause unless you order some side dishes, that is all you get on your plate. but at a couple dollars, it is definitely money well spent.