Two Beers and a Pretzel

I had a great night last night with the Brazilians.  We had to wait on the girls, but we still got to the club before 2 am.  Once there, it was a pretty typical euro-style disco playing mostly Argentinean & Latin dance music.  A beautiful Argentine girl started talking to me.  About a half hour later she told me how old she was….  20 years younger than me.  I’m not used to clubs where girls that young are allowed in.

I made it back to the pack of Brazilians for a while.  There was also a cute girl from North Carolina that somehow ended up partying with us all night.

We all danced for a while.  Then the club completely stopped around 4 am.  A curtain opened up, and there was a 1/2 hour runway modeling lingere show.  Since my grandpa is having heart trouble right now, he should not watch this video….

Directly opposing my mugging experience, almost every Argentinean in this club was interested in where I was from and how much I liked Buenos Aires.  I can’t even tell you how many people I met.

We left the club around 6:30 am during daybreak.  I hadn’t done that since Acapulco in 2000.

FUTBOL!!!

I slept until noon, then got up to get ready for the futbol game.  Boca (the team with the stadium I saw yesterday) and San Lorenzo.  Major crosstown rivals.  The hostel booked us on the Boca side of the stadium, which was a mixed blessing.  Boca won 3-1, but we got there 3 hours before the game and had to stand the whole time.  It was unpleasantly like being in a mosh pit tilted at 45 degrees for 6 straight hours.  I’m exhausted.

I thought it would be OK, but just before the game started, 20 shirtless guys showed up and pressed their way around me.  They all had tattoos of Jesus, and the Boca team logo.  I was not allowed to bring my sunscreen in with me (you get frisked 3 times before you can enter), but these guys collectively had about half a pound of weed.  You can see the Fidel Casto looking guy toking in this pic.

Don’t I look happy?!?!

I’m not sure what this says about this guy, but you have to really like a movie pretty badly to do this…

Other things they apparently did not check for at the gate were massive banners, fireworks and smoke bombs.  People were setting them off constantly.  In team colors, of course…

The oddest part for a North American at an event like this is getting used to the total lack of personal space.  I might as well have become best friends with the six people immediately surrounding me.  Their sweat is all over my shirt.  There are no seats or railings.  Each time Boca scored, the crowed pushed forward - forcing you to jump down 2-3 steps with everyone else.

They cheer and wave their arms all game.  I got nailed in the head with an elbow a few times by the guy behind me.  I decided to teach these guys the Canadian martial arts of shoulder checking and high sticking.  They still leaned on me after that, but no one elbowed me anymore.

The best part was just before the game started and at halftime when the fire department came in and hosed down the crowd for 10 minutes.

The fans here put American Football fans to shame.  They bring their own drums to play the whole time while everybody sings and yells for the entire pre-game, game, halftime, and post-game.  Six hours.   And that’s without serving alcohol in the stadium.  No seats (not even bleachers), no concessions - just a few vendors selling popsicle’s before the game started.  The fact that there seem to be no rules other than “don’t bring knives, guns, or sunscreen” may contribute to the madness.

As far as stadium experiences go, this makes my top 10 - just barely, but it’s in there…

#1 - being 20 ft from Sam Wyche at the Bengals-Seahawks game in the late 90’s when he grabbed the stadium mic and yelled “You’re not from Cleveland” to the unruly crowd.

#2 - Watching Kirk Gibson jack one out of old Tiger Stadium back in the 80’s.

#3 - Seeing “The Great One” in “The Joe” when he played for the Oilers (again, in the 80’s).

#4 - UC Beats a ranked Wisconsin team in Football.  We rushed the field and tore down the goal posts.

#5 - UC Bearcat Basketball season tickets during Kenyon Martin’s senior year.  Bummer about the broken leg in the post season - we could have won the NCAA championship that year.

#6 - Being the first to do the Icky Shuffle on the field at halftime the week after it was banned from the NFL.

#7 - Green Bay in sub-zero temps with girls in Bikinis and drunk, shirtless guys.

#8 - Yankees at Indians.  Some lady sitting in front of me was waving across the stadium and on her cell phone telling whomever it was “no, over here”.  I stood up behind here and did the “spank the booty” dance.  Whoever was on the phone laughed loud enough for us to hear it.  She turned around just after I sat back down.  Ask Steve - that’s true!!

#9 - Luxury suite at the Blue Jacket’s for Joe’s 30th birthday - then skating on the ice after the game.

#10 - The 6 hour mosh-pit of Boca vs San Lorenzo.  I wouldn’t do it again, but it was worth doing once.