Little Match Girl

Things just keep getting stranger and stranger. What a day I've had! If you had told me a year ago that today I would do what I've done, I would have wondered who you were talking about. Yet, here I am!

Sile and I didn't end up going out for long last night. We were both knackered (and I was a bit sunburnt, as I discovered later) and ended up just going for a lovely meal and then heading home. I ended up getting a random, free impromptu tour of the Palermo and San Telmo districts by my taxi driver, who was keen to show me a bit more of the city. It was fascinating. The city never stops, and at 2 in the morning it was still hoaching with people and traffic. I was just sorry that I wasn't able to make the most (or disfrutar, as the Argentines say) of what the city had to offer as I was so tired.

I had to get up early, though, as Sile and I had arranged to meet at her hostel at 10.15 the next day. She had talked me in to going on her hostel's pre-arranged trip to the Buenos Aires football derby. Now, as many of you will know, I had never been to a football match and was nervous about the idea of going. I had a preconceived notion of what it would be like and wasn't sure I wanted to be part of it. However, the temptation to go to such a prestigious match was too much... the idea of going to a River-Boca Derby as my first football match? Well, how cool is that?

So, this morning I found myself at the stadium of Club Atlético River Plate, section WD, in the second from top row. I had an amazing view of the stadium and enjoyed how high up we were. I had decided a few weeks earlier that I favoured underdogs River, with their white, red and occasionally black strip, to Boca's navy and yellow ubiquity. I was so pleased that we were in the River stadium in the home end, and the atmosphere of the home fans was amazing.

While we had been waiting at the hostel for the transfer bus to the stadium, I thought I heard a Scottish accent, and right enough, there was a Scottish guy waitng to go to the game too. He was Andrew, from Dundee, and we were both glad to have finally met a Scottish person after a month in Argentina. We were both particularly pleased about the prospect of the Scotland vs Argentina rugby match, which was due to take place immediately after the football.

The theatrics of the River fans was quite something. Before the game started, they unrolled banners from the edge of the top deck that displayed the colours of River - a red stripe between 2 white ones. Then they all suddenly had white or red balloons, according to the section they were in, to make up the red stripe on the white background. When the players came on, they released thousands of squares of newspaper into the wind and strips of paper at half time. It was all made even more breathtaking by the low flying planes that kept appearing just over the stadium, heading into the landing strip at the airport just beyond.

The game was highly entertaining, with a penalty, an injury resulting in a substitution, 2 goals (River!), some stunning footwork and a sending-off. Being in the thick of a host of River fans cheering and jumping when River scored was brilliant, and at several points I thought about the complete randomness of the situation I was in - and yet how much I loved it.

The game ended at 5 past 4, which was just after the kick-off of the rugby. In a very cool move, the stadium put the match on the big screen. This turned my situation into something even more random - here I was, watching Scotland play Argentina at rugby in a football stadium in Buenos Aires. I was gutted that I missed "O Flower of Scotland", though, as that would have been a classic moment to enjoy in the situation.

I got told to shut up when I cheered when Scotland scored first, but I didn't have to worry much as before long our fortunes had turned. Annoyingly, we had to leave the stadium just before the end of the first half and we were still on the bus home at the final whistle, which was broadcast over the radio. Andrew and I were both gutted. I'm sure if I had been watching, we would have won!

Back at Sile's hostel, Pepe, the guy who was in charge of the football trip, bought us some beers to commiserate Scotland's loss. Sile and I met Pippa, a girl who had just arrived in BA. She is here for 11 months, and it was a real privilege to help her settle in on the first night. When Pepe learned that it was my 2nd last night in Argentina, he suggested that we have a "celebration" at the hostel tomorrow night (which seems a bit strange seeing as I'm not even staying there, but I'm going to go with it) so that should be fun.

We ended up staying in the hostel until about an hour ago, watching the highlights of the River-Boca game on the TV. The highlights were very poor, showing more of the fans' reactions to the goals than any shots of the goals themselves.

Tomorrow there has been something of a change of plans - instead of going to Montevideo as planned, Sile and I are going to go to Colonia, which is much closer and it won't take up as much of the day to travel there. We will still get the Uruguay stamps on our passports, though!

Will tell all tomorrow. One more full day left. I can' t believe it.