More Buenos Aires

Argentines really love soccer and show it. Players in the Argentine league love to shoot. My expectations for Argentine steak may have been set too high.  If you order something randomly here, you'll get something with meat in it.  And Argentines love hot dogs.  Hot dog stands are like Starbuck's in Seattle.

Warning:  Long post.  I may edit it to make it shorter and more interesting.  But probably not.  At least I figured out how to break up the monotony with pictures!

Sunday I went to a futbol match, Boca Juniors v. Rosario Central.  I paid 250 pesos, which seems to be the going rate for tourists to go to a game.  It's probably much cheaper (~25 pesos?) to get a ticket without all the niceties.  But there were enough warnings about not doing it on your own for fear of getting shot and drawn and quartered for me to avoid that route.  For my 250 pesos, I was promised a ticket, transfer to the match a t-shirt raffle and a tour of the caminito district.  So the guy picked a bunch of us up in a van from our hostel and a few other groups from other hotels close to us.  Eugenio, our guide, gave us a little paper telling us what to expect.  On the English side of the piece of paper, it said, "Do not root for any team other than Boca.  It is a matter of life and death".  We had a nice chuckle about that.

We stopped at the caminito district which is apparently famous for having a picture on a postcard taken there.  That postcard was reproduced in spades on various items in the area.  I've also since noticed it elsewhere around BA.  Here's the first thing we saw when we got there.

From Buenos Aires

I thought we'd get to walk around, but Eugenio raced ahead and we tried to keep up with him while also taking in all the brightly colored buildings and the tango shows in the cafes.  Then we finally stopped at this one restaurant with a courtyard.  He explained something, but I was in the back so didn't hear.  By the time I passed him, he seemed to be tired of speaking English, and said, "just follow the others".  So I didn't really know what I was doing.  Apparently, no one else did either.  Anyways, after an hour or so, we finally made our way to the game.  When we made it to the stadium, it was empty and Boca was already playing Rosario. Eugenio wasn't really around, so we finally figured out that it was the reserves.

When the real players came on the field, the place ERUPTED.  Drums, cheering, singing, dancing.  It was amazing.  For you Sounders fans out there, imagine that one section with all the flags and the dancing.  Multiply their intensity by 10 and then fill all of Qwest with them.  Their passion was infectious and before long I was clapping and cheering and groaning.  Not quite singing though, because mi espanol is terrible.  Anyways, Boca seemed to be outmatched during the whole game, but finally blew it in the 80th minute or so when the goalie inexplicably went out to get a ball while the box was just full of people.  The ball got headed over to a Rosario forward and that's all she wrote.  This is towards the end of the game:

From Buenos Aires

After the game, as we knew from Eugenio's piece of paper, that being in GA, we would probably get in a fight with the visiting Rosario fans, so had to wait for half an hour before we could leave.  And I can see why. We were sitting under the Rosario section and as they descended, they were cheering and shouting things at us.  People in our section shouted back.  There was clearly no love lost.

Monday, I started class, and having had 4 days of spanish with Expanish, I can officially recommend against it for travelers.  I stupidly assumed that the class would be geared towards travelers, since the website was.  It was a Spanish class like in a school.  I learned  how to conjugate tener ("to have") and how to ask what someone's job is, but had to learn on my own things like, "can you help me?" and what different foods are.  But I met some people so that was fun.  Went to San Telmo for some steak.  Ordered it rare, even in English cuz the waiter would have none of my terrible Spanish.  And it came out between rare and medium-rare.  Tasty and big and cheap, but I've had better.  I'll wait to go to other cities before issuing a final verdict on steak though.

Took a Tango Class last night.  It was fun, despite me being singled out as the lone American who hadn't tangoed before.  An old guy named Manny, who I assume was frustrated with my complete lack of rhythm, came over and kept telling me to listen to the music.  It was very cute.  Old people dancing are cute.  Taking another one tonight.

Side notes: The people who work at the hostel love 90's music.  And they love to try to sing along to it despite not really knowing how to pronounce the words.  The Rio de la Plata is dirty.  People do their laundry there.  Went to a stand on the side of the road.  The items on the menu were hamburguesa and a bunch of other things i didn't understand.  I picked the first one, "bondiola", and ordered it, completa.  It ended up being a sandwich with some slices of beef (the bondiola part), and then ham and egg and cheese (the completa part).  It was muy delicioso!  Can't wait to order something else random from a dude on the side of the street.

From Buenos Aires

Future notes:  Goin to Iguazu falls tomorrow.  18 hour bus ride, woot woot!  Mostly, I'm just excited to get out of the city.  Away from the noise and the honking.  Not sure about after that, maybe Puerto Madryn (loooong bus ride...).  Maybe Cordoba.