So Far South: Buenos Aires

Or as the tee-shirts here say ¨Buenos F·$%&/" Aires¨ For the first week in the city I lived with a woman that the Spanish school set me up with. I had my own bedroom and bathroom in the nice part of the city. In the city that never sleeps. Thats one of its nicknames. And there was little sleep. Its uncool to go to the clubs before 2 or 3 in the morning. Dont even bother going cause noone will be there. And when you leave you will need sunglasses because the sun could very well be up.

So every day in the afternoon for the two weeks I took spanish classes . At night I would go out and practice with the locals. Waiting in Line for concerts which I never got ticked to cause they always sold out fifty people in front of me. One night I went to an outdoor techno rave cause I couldnt get tickets to any other concert. Why not? 4000 other people went. For the second week I moved into a hostel and ran into some people I had met in Bolivia and others from northen Argentina.

We went to two futbol matches. Every team has about 5 songs and chants and they sing them over and over again. Forty minutes before the game the fanatics pile into the staduim. A complete band with about 15 bass drums equiped with cymbos , 10 snares drummers and a complete horn section start playing half an hour before gametime and finish half and hour after. and they dont stop for any breaks. If you sit in the home teams section you cant even leave the stadium untill half an hour after the game. So you might as well play songs and cheer.They give the visiting teams fans a half hour head start to get out of the home teams neighborhood. Then the home team is released. The two teams fans arent even allowed to sit with each other. The visitors have their own section to sit in. And they dont serve beer at these games. And for four hours before the game no restaurant or store will sell any booze with in a 2 kilometer radius of the stadium. People are roudy enough at the match.