On the third day in Buenos Aires, the six of us went to a soccer match between River Plate, one of Buenos Aires’ two main soccer clubs, and Racing Club, another Argentinian team. Latin Americans have long been known for their passion for soccer, but having been to a multitude of college and professional athletic events around the US – all with pretty intense fanbases – I wasn’t expecting to be too impressed. I was.
- Fans are separated from the field by a high chain-link/barbed wire fence (think NASCAR fencing).
- Not a drop of alcohol is served throughout the stadium. For safety reasons.
- There is zero cohabitation of seats between fans of different teams. Its not uncommon to see opposing team fans sitting in your section here in the US, but that would never happen in Argentina. The home team gets nearly the entire stadium and the away team fans sit in a small section, again separated by high chain-link fences and barbed wire.
- We were not allowed to go anywhere without our guide accompanying us.
- Although many people seemed like pretty normal citizens, there were a ton of people that were a little intimidating to be near. Like the 50% of the stadium not wearing a shirt, or the guy sporting the tri-hawk/ponytail combo. Dude had gelled up three mohawks into his head (front view looked like this \|/ ), and then threw in a pony tail with the mullet in the back of his head!
- After the game, the home team’s fans have sit in their seats for 30-45 minutes. Not because they’re hanging back to celebrate or anything, but because they are physically not allowed to leave. In order to prevent any violence between rivals, the away team’s fans leave first, get the hell out of the area, and then the cops let the home team out.
- In general, the fans are apeshit passionate for a full 90 minutes and never stop cheering or singing songs. I’ve sat in the student section at Michigan and while I do think we can get rowdy, our chants and cheers are event-driven (i.e. after big plays and touchdowns) as opposed to a continuous chorus throughout the game. And let’s be honest, sometimes we’re jingling our fucking keys. These Argentinians were singing songs and banging drums non stop, and at times they got so loud that I got chills. And the game we went to happened to be scoreless. It was sad to have not witnessed the scoring of a goal. I’d imagine the place turns into a shitshow.
(Note: The soccer pic above is from Sachin’s point-and-shoot, since I was told it would be a good idea to leave my camera at home.)
The house game for the duration of our trip was Perudo (a.k.a. Liar’s Dice). This wasn’t an Argentina thing – we actually brought the game from home. Its the game played in one of the Pirate’s of the Carribean movies (I think Dead Man’s Chest). Every player has a set of dice which they roll and keep hidden, and they take turns bidding on how many dice of a given value they think are on the table. Eventually someone challenges the bid that came before him, all the dice are revealed, and the incorrect person (either the bidder or challenger) has to give up one of their die. Last person with dice left wins. Its an amazing game that combines the strategy of poker with the blatant bluffing of ‘Bullshit’.
We played this game constantly throughout our trip, before heading out for the day, during afternoon breaks, and while pre-partying in the evening. For the latter, we added an additional rule. Anytime someone lost a die, they had to take a shot.
On one of the last night’s of the trip, Rishi made yet another stop motion / time lapse video of us playing the game.
There was one additional game that was played during our trip. Needing to get up early the next day for a boat trip, the six of us had gone out to a low key bar one night. We sat in a circle on the quiet roof of the bar, and having spent the last 4 days with each other, had run out of things to talk about and decided to start playing Buzz. The rules are simple – the players go around the circle counting off numbers, and anytime a number containing a 7 or a multiple of 7 or 11 is reached, the number is replaced with the word “buzz” and the direction of the count is reversed. We started the game with standard rules – if you screw up, you drink, and you start the next count – but then added a unique (highly questionable) twist.
If anyone screwed up, not only did they have to drink, they had to undo a button on their clothing or remove something else they were wearing.
I was hesitant to tell this story. Being a part of six guys who let their Tuesday night devolve into Strip Buzz is not something you really go around telling people. But the hilarity of this situation isn’t in the rules we instituted, but rather how lopsided the game became. One of the guys in the group, Pujan, could not seem to grasp the concept of the game. The 20-buzz-buzz-23 combo was particularly tricky (at one point, out of nowhere, he shouted out “40!” to dropped jaws), and while the other five of us lost at most two buttons on our shirts, he managed to lose his flip flops, necklace, watch, polo, and jeans (button fly, mind you).
There we were, sitting on the roof of a bar, 5 of us fully clothed and one scrawny Indian kid in nothing but his boxers. Sadly, I was not allowed to post pictures of this game, but trust me, they would’ve made for a great stop motion video.
