Anyway, things are going really well for me here. It finally legitimately feels like summer and has been sunny and about 70 degrees this whole past week. It’s going to be really weird/terrible to go back into US winter when I fly home in December.
This past week I experienced one of the most amazing convergences of lucky events in my recent memory. My friend Katherine and I had wanted to go to the Chile vs. Argentina soccer game (HUGE rivalry) since September but hadn’t gotten our act together soon enough to buy tickets within our price range. A few weeks before we almost splurged on $100 tickets but then we decided to save our money for something else and accepted the fact that we weren’t going to the game.
Last Wednesday after Spanish class, we decided to walk to the National Stadium about 2 hours before the game started and see if we could find a ticket scalper. I live about 15 minutes away from the Stadium so it was an easy trip. With basically no expectations of actually finding tickets, we practiced what we were going to say to haggle with the scalpers during our walk, and decided that $40 was our limit per ticket. The first scalper we met said that they would each cost only $14! I don’t think we even knew how to respond because it was so much cheaper than we expected. Feeling empowered, we decided to shop around some more, and immediately were flagged down by in his car who offered us tickets for $5 each!! In retrospect, they were probably fake tickets because they were so inexpensive, but at least good fakes because we got into the stadium without any problems.
We finally got into the stadium and randomly found the only 2 empty seats in the bleachers in the midst of all the crazy Chilean fans. Completely by coincidence, one of our friends who went with her Chilean boyfriend to the g
ame was in our section, out of the entire stadium! Chile doesn’t have a very good soccer team but Argentina does, so the game was supposed to be a blowout. However, somehow Chile miraculously scored on Argentina for the second time in HISTORY before the end of the first half and then proceeded to win! For the FIRST TIME ever!! And we were there!! The crowd was absolutely going insane and I can’t believe we were able to be there. Pictures don’t quite do it justice but these give an idea. The second picture is us in front of the stadium after the win, with two random Chilean fans who we didn't know but who wanted to be in the picture (order: fan 1, fan 2, me, Katherine, Laura)In summary, the lucky events were:
I randomly live next to the stadium so we could walk there, we found $5 tickets 20 minutes before the game, we found seats when people were sitting in the aisles because there were none left, my friend was randomly in the same section as us, and Chile won even though they suck… for the first time in History. Muy vacan (cool in Chile).
Other headlines from my life:
- I am very excited about the election and hope that Obama can pull it off – it’s looking pretty good for now.
- I feel like the world is about to end after reading so much about the economic crisis on the news
- I’m going to a desert called San Pedro de Atacama next Wednesday for 5 days
- I had my first real test… I think I get it back this week so I’ll see how that went. Hopefully well.
- I’m seeing 50 Cent in concert in 2 weeks in Santiago because tickets are cheap, I want a concert T-shirt, and I would never actually pay to see 50 Cent in the US. I doubt that there will be more than 5 black people there, should be a very atypical 50 Cent concert.
- 2 weeks ago my friends got the chance to rent out a club for free in Santiago and we had a big party for their birthdays. We were high rollers for the evening – it was pretty awesome.
- Everything else is going well and I’m still having a great time. I miss everyone at home lots and I can’t wait to see you all in December (I’m back the 14th), but I also can’t believe how quickly time flies here.
Over and out.
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