Seems plain and simple then, watch the games all day, then settle in for Uncle Ron's call of the Dawgs at 4.45. Trick #1: Last year I really wanted to catch a Cal game over at Berkeley but never made it. This year I have an open invitation to go with my buddy A10 and his fellow die-hard Cal fans. They host Minnesota on the 9th, which is an appealing game to me. The trick is that the game is at 5 p.m. Trick #2: A Tribe Called Quest, one of my favorite "bands" ever, is playing in Berkeley on the 9th at 8 p.m. (I'm sure they won't go on until 10). WTF? I had no idea they were even back together - what was it 1999 when they broke up after The Love Movement? It would be great to see them in concert, and I could literally walk from the Cal game to the show. Trick #3: Another local band that I really like but have never seen called Vinyl is playing at the Boom Boom Room in SF at 8 p.m.
So I kicked it around for a while and finally settled on watching the USC-Georgia game and then walking down to the Boom Boom Room and checking out the Vinyl show afterwards. I'll go to either Cal-Arizona State or more likely Cal-UCLA later in the year, and Tribe will just have to wait (the fact that tickets are $50 and it's part of some video game tour certainly helps).
Tribe: losing out on Kanu's discretionary income.
Well now that is all out the window, because...
...I'm going to Argentina.
On Friday.
Long story short, the legendary Chris Smith is down in Buenos Aires for a while, so I have a free place to stay -when else will I have that again in my life? Since my favorite thing bar none is travelling & exploring new places, it's on, even though it means missing the 1st two weeks of the CFB season. CFB is only a week out and the juices are really starting to flow (chatted with a Buckeye at my soccer match today who is going to Austin, and later went to a musuem with a girl who can't wait to watch ND beat the shit out of Tech), but shit, man - this is Argentina.
"The Paris of South America".
Population: 12 million.
My flight out of BA leaves Saturday the 9th at like 10 p.m. (they are an hour ahead of EST), so I am hoping against hope that at the airport, somewhere, there will be ESPN and I can catch the first quarter. It's much more likely that instead it will be ESPN International and they 'll have on some Bolivian 2nd division soccer match. My fantasy would be that my Delta 767 is one of the old Song jets that is kitted out with live TV like the JetBlue planes and that I can watch it En Vivo! But at this point I'll just be happy for a plane that doesn't crash and kill me. I land in ATL on Sunday the 10th and have a 6 hour layover, so hopefully Mom & Dad can pull off the *set the VCR and get it to actually record what you are trying to record* trick, and I can get a tape of the game when they come meet me and I make them take me to The Flying Biscuit for brunch. I'd also like to see that new ATL Aquarium too, but we would have to Clark W. Griswold-at-the-Louvre the shit out of it in about 30 minutes.
El Monumental
One cool thing is that futbol is going on down there right now. I'm trying to work out a trip to La Bombonera (home of Boca Juniors) or El Monumental (home of River Plate, 1978 World Cup final), and Montievedo, Uruguay is just a fery ride across River Plate - it would be awesome to see Penarol or Nacional play in El Centenario stadium, which was built in 1930 for the first World Cup and hosted the 1930 World Cup Final in which Uruguay beat their neighbors Argentina 4-2.
La Bombonera
Another cool-ass thing is that Argentina and Brasil play a friendly match the day after I arrive at none other than Arsenal's new Emirates Stadium. And since it is in Europe, both teams will field their best teams since all the best players are already over there. You think that match will be on a TV anywhere in Buenos Aires?
If anyone knows how I can become
4 comments:
Well, if you were going to Madrid, you could probably get by with "Hola, guapa," so long as you only said it to the ladies. I'm not sure though, sometimes in South America they do it differently.
You also might be surprised to learn that most of your Spanish-language curse words you've likely picked up over the years--cabron, vendejo, etc.--aren't operative in South America (only in Mexico and parts of Central America), so you'll have to stick to something like "hijopueta" if someone pisses you off.
They'd probably also be pissed if you said something along the lines of "Pele es mas mejor que Maradona," or "Maradona es un gordo y el quiere muchos drogas."
Keep in mind that people have a history of "disappearing" down there, so use such comments with extreme caution.
Enjoyed the headline much more after reading the post
A friend of mine spends about three weeks in Buenos Aires every year and loves it. One of these days when I'm not completely broke I plan on joining him.
Depending on when you get into Atlanta on the 10th, CSS replays all Saturday college football games on Sundays. I think they show Gamecock(my squad) games at 3, and I'm not sure about Bulldog games or what they'll do since they are playing each other. Might be something to look into.
--Robert
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