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Life of a football fan



Saturday, 10th October 

Today is a big day for Ecuador. Today the national team receive Uruguay for the 2010 World cup qualification. The whole nation future is at stake. Since few days, numerous national team TShirts are coloring the streets in yellow, showing their faith to whoever is doubting. We couldn't miss such an important date in Ecuador history!

The match is at 5pm. We will leave at 10am...the best seats couldn't wait... This morning we can feel the city febrility.
Our first task is to buy a last minute ticket at sky high price. Thanksfully my new american friend speaks spanish fluently and will be able to bargain a bit. Let's look around to identify possible last minute sellers... An old and fat woman is sitting near the gate. We got one!
A flood of people are converging with us to the stadium like turtles to the sea...

We are finally at the door of the stadium at 11am. People are already queuing at each entrance of the stadium, forming like tentacles to this big circle.. Hundreds of vendors are dancing between the tentacles "Who wants something to drink?" "something to eat?" "chewing gums?" "playing cards?"...One has to be very inventive to be able to survive in this jungle.
11:30am, we are standing in line since half an hour, already tired and...sunburnt... Suddenly one guy comes to us. He has nothing to sell this one.. Hmmm...strange.. And he asks us very nicely if he could join us and thus cut the queue.. What?.. No way!!... He's not even handsome....
12pm, the doors open finally. Soon we will be able to sit! After 20 min and a fake security check, here we are, sitting on the concrete bench. Only 4 more hours to wait in the sun...
What a difficult life to be a football fan!..

Finally, the match starts. We look like shrimps who have seen boiling water... But here comes the fun! It's insane. We loose our voice screaming and cheering the team up. I also learn my first spanish words: "Hijo de puta" (well... should I translate...: "son of a bitch"...). Very useful for later... :) We will yell it at each action of the Uruguayan team...
After 90mins, this story ends sadly, we lost in the last 3 minutes and the beautiful yellow Tshirts come back home crying.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello,
Heureux que tu t'amuses ! C'est cool que tu découvres enfin un stade de foot ! Bon, j'aurais pu t'emmener dans un super stade un peu moins loin...
Je déduis de tes récits que tout s'est bien passé depuis ton départ et que tu fais ce que tu voulais, c'est-à-dire découvrir les lieux et les cultures.
Profite bien !
A bientôt. Bizzz
Mich

Oxymoron. said...

Hey Ly-Ly!

I may not know spanish, but i do at least learn the 'bad' stuff living in two places that mostly speak spanish as a second language, and 'hijo de puta' is close to 'son of a bitch' but literally translates to 'son of a whore' but whatever, no biggie, you're just pointing out the closest phrase in english...huh...I wonder, is this also read in french to those not in the US?

anywho, mucho grande dinero love (joke about american's bad spanish, thinking it's actually a fantastic way to speak spanish...)

Emily

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About me

About me

Travelling to learn, learning to travel.