Blog - Monday May 30th 2011

Location: ABH Hostel, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I attended a football match in the Bombonairo and survived! Am I now truly a man?!! Surly it must be up there with taking a hair from a lions head to prove manliness in an African tribe or more close to home taking a torn from your foot while running through a forest in the days of the Tuatha Dé Danann! Whatever it is attending a football game at the home of Boca Juniors is an experience..... a very very very loud, boisterous and intimidating one - especially if your sitting in the away fans section!!!


Its not that i planned to get a ticket to sit among the away fans and the riot police and dogs that accompanied them, it just worked out that way! Tickets for the home fans side of the stadium were selling for anything between 300 & 400 pesos ($75 - $100 US) and being a poor backpacker I really couldn't justify that no matter how much I wanted see the game. Eventually I came across a guy who was trying to sell a "Visitante" (away fans ticket) for 100 pesos, it had a face value of 40 pesos so i offered him that - after alot of waking away from me muttering things under his breath (just as-well I dont speak spanish) he gave in and sold it to me for face value. Heading to the away fans section didn't really bother me other than I was wearing a blue hoody - the colour of Boca and stood out like a sore thumb among the Newells fan who were clad in the Mt Leinster Rangers colours of Red & Black! and even every police man at each of the 4 security check points questioned if was in the right section.... eventually I took off the hoody.... if im going to get killed by a football hooligan I will at least wait until im in a country where I can understand what the clown is saying! Walking up into the stands reminded me of the scene in the movie Gladiator when they walk out into the coliseum - such was the voracity of noise from drums, music and screaming fans, one thing you cant take from the Latin Americans is their passion for sport and especially their football. The stadium was alive... literally I could feel it move! 40,000 thousand fans singing and shouting at the top of their voices and even though I couldn't understand a word they were saying i could tell there was a little more to it than just "the referee's a w**ker"! 


The first area we were hoarded too by the police turned out to be full to capacity and for a brief moment I had one of those "dude what have you gotten yourself into" moments when they started to physically push back the fans at the top of the entrance... there was no love lost between anyone! The scuffle didn't last long however as a side entrance was opened up and we were allowed into a adjoining part of the stadium which was great as there was lots of room in it, a great view also (see the pics above). The game itself was very fast paced and typical for South America was full of flair, Boca missed a penalty mid way through the first half much to the delight of the away fans sitting around me an it served as the catalyst for the chanting war to begin among the fans and it wasnt hard to work out that this was what most of them were actually there for! on and on it went and apparently it was very funny.... the odd word i understood..."punta" is pretty universal and apparently there was a lot of them among the home fans! It was at the start of the second half that beautiful looking woman caught my eye in the crowd below me, to be honest there wasent many lookers among the away fans, i guess an away match with Boca is more like war rather than a couples or family day out! Nevertheless there was one and to my pleasant surprise she and her two friends (a couple) came and took the seats beside me! I couldn't resist talking to the girl, turns out she was Mexican and a student of Architecture here in BA, she spoke perfect english as did her male friend who knew his soccer and was able to give me the full low down on Boca and South American football, turns out that as a kid he had even been to the Mexico V Ireland game at the 1994 world cup in Orlando Florida! He even new of Packie Bonner - impressive! Marie (my new mexican friend) also knew her football... there is nothing as sexy as a woman who knows football - esp if she talks with an accent - ive covered this topic before! Anyways being in-dept in conversation with her I actually missed the Boca goal! the game ended with a win 1-0 win for Boca and also a victory for me as I got the girls no. Ill be in town for a few days - watch this space!


Last night I went to see the Hangover 2 - an exceptionally good sequel in my opinion, go see it if you haven't already! Finally, two stories caught my eye on www.rte.ie this morning. The first is that over 40% of Kilkenny woman are "too posh to push" it seems with Kilkenny hospitals having the highest rate of c-sections in the country!!! I was born by c-section myself but that was only because even in the womb I was as stubborn as I am now! Secondly i read that the government is still on the fence about 3rd level grants..... in my opinion they should spend the money on a multi-stop round the world flight ticket for every student that completes the leaving cert - that way they can get a life education before a career orientated one and the country would be much better off for it.....


Toady I have a date with dead people in Buenos Aires famous La Recoleta cemetery.... until tomorrow.

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