Football Match, Boca Juniors

After a bit of back and forth, our flight and ferry tickets were finally delivered by the travel agency in the afternoon. They certainly weren't the fastest. We were starting to worry that they had scammed us since the tickets were supposed to be delivered in the morning. It took two phone calls before they finally got their act together! :o) This afternoon, we're off to a football match, the semifinals of what’s basically the European Cup. A ticket plus transport costs 70 pesos per person. It's the Argentine team Boca Juniors against a Chilean team. Rumor has it that Maradona is going to play a friendly match first... We had some time before the game started, so we took the metro to the "Once" area, where one of Argentina's most beautiful shopping centers is located. Strangely enough, the metro was free. We never quite figured out why... The shopping center was incredibly well-built and super modern inside. There were 200 shops, restaurants, a cinema, a play area for kids, and more. We mostly just window-shopped, so we haven't really bought any clothes yet. But we couldn't resist a trip to the hairdresser! :o) Honny got a wash and a haircut for 35 pesos. I treated myself to a French manicure for 18 pesos. By 4:30 PM, we needed to be at the hostel where we signed up for the football match, so around 3 PM, we headed back to freshen up, wanting to make sure we arrived at the hostel in good time so they wouldn’t leave without us. There were 20 of us heading to the match, and we took a public bus for transport. Around 4-5 PM, it was rush hour, just like in Denmark, so we couldn’t catch the first buses heading to Boca. Finally, we arrived in the Boca neighborhood, a poorer part of Buenos Aires, where we had to walk 7 blocks to get to the stadium. ;) As a group, we made it to our standing spots among the Boca fans. The stadium was packed, and the atmosphere was electric. The match was good, but as it went on, the chants between the Argentine and Chilean fans grew louder and louder. Some genius had decided to place the Chilean fans in the stands directly above the Argentine fans. Not the smartest move, as they started spitting and urinating down on the Boca fans... and us tourists. A few unfortunate souls in the crowd got wet, but we quickly found shelter under the stands. It didn’t seem to bother everyone, though; some just pulled their raincoats over their heads! :o) The match ended 2-2. After the game, we planned to get back to another hostel for an asado before 10 PM. On our way out of the stadium, we got separated from the others as people were pushing to get out. At one point, I started to panic, and Honny had to grab me and pull me down the stairs, or I would have been crushed. It was actually fine that we got separated from the group because we didn’t have time to wait for a bus that could fit all 20 of us at once. Instead, we dashed out to the street and hopped into a taxi that was stopped at a red light. We bribed the driver to take us. It was necessary to bribe him since there were so many people needing a taxi, and we wanted to skip the line. In the taxi, we took a look at our football ticket. It only cost 15 pesos, so 70 pesos for the public transport was a bit excessive! :o) By 10:15 PM, we arrived at the asado, where food and drinks were waiting for us, all for just 20 pesos per person. The food was delicious, and we just had to wave when we needed more wine, beer, or juice! :o) We had seen on the sign-up list that there were some people named Stinne and Søren who were also going to the party. That sounded very Danish, so during the party, we tried to shout their names since we couldn’t quite tell who looked like Danes. We hit the jackpot! Stinne and Søren were indeed from Denmark and had just started their 6-month trip. Even more surprisingly, the two English girls, Ashley and Lisa, from Salta were also at the party. It was really nice to celebrate with them again!