every walk is a sort of crusade
Jen, Jesus, Brandon, Paul, and I are heading out for another 16 hour bus ride, this time to Mendoza in the west. Wine country. (Drew is sticking around to continue his Spanish classes.) Hoping that maybe this bus ride will show the original Mision Explosiva. Fingers crossed.
We’ll be back on Wednesday….
This is the polar opposite of favorite. Fernet and coke is a popular drink here for both men and women. It tastes like….death. Mixed with coke. But, our new Argentinian friends (below) were all about it and bought me one…so I had to pretend to like it. Don’t ever get one, no matter what the locals tell you.
…and then we were 6. Welcome Jen!
I don’t know why I didn’t look here first before getting my hair cut.
Brandon arrived yesterday, looking suave. We are so happy to have him!
Argentina’s second game was at 8:30am local time today (Thursday). For a country that generally doesn’t get rolling before 10 or 11, being woken up at 8am with honking horns and vuvuzelas in the street was weird. Paul and I went down the street to a cafe for the first half (Jesus watched from the couch). The cafe was packed, we sat down, and I ran upstairs to the bathroom real quick (you can guess where this is going.) Of course, as soon as I settle in in the stall, the cafe freaks out…GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL! Son of a…
Fortunately, within the next 10 minutes, they scored again. At half time (score: 2-1), Paul and I decided to make our way down to Plaza San Martin, which was paaaaaacked.
When we got here I kind of expected every game to be a huge party, considering all the celebration beforehand. In reality, watching the game is a pretty intense experience. Until there is a goal, or a run on the goal, everything is pretty silent. Not a lot of chit chat, people are concentrating. Intense watching. Anyway, in the second half, Argentina scored two more times. Huge celebration. The announcers are beside themselves. Maradona is a genius. Messi is amazing. Argentina is on its way to the championship. All is right in the world.
A chopp is what they call a half liter of beer here…which isn’t really applicable to what I’m about to say, but maybe it subconsciously inspired me.
The other day, Jesus and I went to Club Creativo, a gay-friendly salon for a trim. On a whim, I decided to chop off my hair.
We’ve committed ourselves to watching at least one Argentine movie a week (along with a few Gael Garcia Bernal films, because he is hot) on nights we don’t go out.
(I realize now that Brigada Explosiva: Mision Pirata was also an Argentine movie, so this technically should be our second film. But we’re just going to pretend that Brigada Explosiva never happened.)
First (real) film: El Secreto de Sus Ojos (The Secret of Their Eyes)
This movie, based off a book (La Pregunta de Sus Ojos), and directed by Juan Jose Campanella, won the Oscar for best foreign film in 2010. It is awesome. It’s a drama, mystery, thriller, love story…really fantastic. Go rent it.
Argentina’s first World Cup match. Under grey skies, Paul, Jesus, Drew, and I dragged ourselves out of bed to get down to the Plaza San Martin by 11 to watch the match on the big screen they set up. We were running a little bit behind schedule, and while Jesus and Drew were in line at a cafe on a main street outside our apartment to get coffee, all of a sudden the whole block exploded, horns honking and screams of GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL! while confetti came streaming down from the surrounding apartments. Argentina scored in the 6th minute. And we missed it.
Long story short, our plan was to take the subway but get off a few stops early because we thought it would be faster to walk (which turned out to be completely wrong.) So we got off the subway and started wandering through the streets, which were completely empty. Guess why?
After about 5 minutes of walking, with no plaza in sight, people in the group started getting a little anxious. We tried to get a cab, no luck, asked for directions to make sure we weren’t going the wrong direction, got nothing, ended up walking for like another 20 minutes or so and finally got to the plaza, in the middle of the pouring rain, just before…half time.
We gave up on standing in the middle of a field in a downpour with no rain gear and decided to watch the rest of the game in a cafe with other drenched spectators. Much better plan. Lots of table banging and horn blowing (yes, in the cafe). And we befriended the waiter, who was wearing a Messi jersey (along with half the country) to counter Jesus, who was sporting a Maradona jersey (along with the other half of the country.) The waiter was awesome.
So, on a personal level, game #1 was kind of a big fail. In the grander scheme of things, much relief over the win. If Argentina had lost the first game I was seriously concerned that the entire country would have collectively fallen into a deep depression. Next game: South Korea on the 17th.
Viva la Argentina!
Rambulatory Ambulatory 