Road trip

Besides being exhausted each night, arriving back sometimes close to 12am, the internet connection here is ridiculous. My lap top is having issues and would not connect for the last 3 days. Don't know how long it will last!

So much has happened since the last time I wrote. I will start with my first road trip with a Barcelona team.

The day begins a little after 6am as we prepare to leave for Lujan, a city to the west I think.
When it is time to go a security guard opens a tiny door in the steel gate on the side wall of the complex, we duck our heads and 1 by 1 we board the bus. Having been in a number of taxis during the last few days I can only imagine what this will be like. The rules of the road are only suggestions! They drive as many cars wide as will fit in the road. Sometimes 4 wide in 2 lanes. Helmets for bicycles don't exist and helmets for motorcycles are worn, if at all, on top of the head to shade from the sun. Red lights mean sometimes stop, often slow a little or just honk your horn and go right through. I have watched buses of fans with police escorts driving down the highway with people sitting out the windows, doors open and people hanging on the sides! (Pictures to prove it)

As we head out of Buenos Aires across flat lands I can't help but think of the news stories of bus crashes in Central or South America. I got more worried after watching the bus driver buckle up as we entered a different road. Of course there were no seat belts for us. After an hour or so we came across an accident where a water truck plowed into another truck. At least it was not us!

The stadium was old and run down with water all over the field from the nights rain. We entered the dressing rooms and the coaches laid out the jerseys. Something about seeing the Barcelona jersey seems impressive. There were 20 players but only 16 shirts. To this point I had only really became close to one player from this team. His name was Leonardo and I hoped he would play because it is better to be in with the cool kids! As they started calling out numbers the players would come get their shirt. Numbers 1-11 were together and #12-#16 were separate with pinnies on top for the subs. They were at player #9 and still no Leonardo, then they called the #10 with the captains band and it was him. Here in Argentina the #10 means everything, you are always center mid and the leader of the attack. Leonardo grabbed his shirt, smiled at me and instantly made me part of the group.

Jorge asked me to stand back from the bench because it was an official match and I was not on the list. It took about 5 minutes for the police to see me and question my reason for being there. My spanish seemed to disappear at that moment as they escorted me away from the field towards the stands. I was left to myself to watch from the stands not knowing which fans belonged to which team.

The game was good, our team won quite easily and the crowd was rather calm. A single drummer and a little singing, overall a typical Saturday game in Victoria.

After the game I talked with Jorge and he asked me where did I go! We talked about the game and that the next match would be different....