Vélez vs River Plate

I definitely didn´t think when I left the Residencia at 9 am this morning to go our seminar at U of San Martin that I´d just be getting home. But what an amazing day.

So we grabbed some lunch after 3 hours in class and Evan, Melissa, Annika, and I decided to scope out tickets for a soccer game tonight. Purely exploratory, no real plans. We got the number of the bus we needed to take from our waiter, paid the 40 cents, and ended up... somewhere. As we got off the bus near the stadium, we met Silvia, a die hard Vélez fan who was going to the game later. She explained that there had been some fights between the fans of River and Vélez in the past, so they were playing in a neutral stadium tonight. Tickets were 14 pesos ($4.75) and Silvia assured us she would save us seats on the ¨fan bus¨ that was leaving in a few hours. We killed some time in a Wal-mart like store, bought some sweet blue gloves to fit in, and met up with Silvia and her family near the buses.

An hour or so on the bus, three police pat-downs, and one hamburguesa later we were in the Vélez section learning the songs and getting ready. They went down 2-0 after the first half, but had two quick goals at the start of the second that were calmly celebrated by the well-mannered Vélez fans. River had a nice goal in about the 75th minute and won 3-2. But a great game.

Our epic journey continued with a packed bus ride home. Well, packed until people started yelling for the driver to stop at each interstate exit and would walk down the exit ramp. No big deal. Transferred from the bus of fans to a regular city collectivo (I really have no idea where we were), got off when we started recognizing street names, and had some empanadas. our cab ride home from there saw me trying to sing the Vélez fight song for our cab driver, then him explaining that I was making up Spanish words and singing a generic fight song for any soccer team. Damn.

But what a ridiculous experience. I´ll write on Sunday after my favorites from BA before we move on to Montevideo, Uruguay on Monday on the 8 am ferry.

dz