Tricolor! Tricolor! Tricolor!

I was actually planning on continuing with my Semana Santa series of travelogues today.. And then life kind of got in the way. But that's the beauty of it, so here we go with a post  on a completely unrelated topic: Soccer!

Now you are probably thinking "Again?!". And I can't blame you because I just blogged about that topic two posts ago. But then again it IS a very important subject here in Uruguay. 

And I haven't simply been to another soccer game. I was part of a new World Record! 

Now, here in Montevideo it seems that there are only two options for soccer clubs to support: Nacional or Peñarol. And since I have visited the stadium of Nacional with Pablo before, I kind of got directed into that direction of fandom. Additionally, I don't like the idea of suppporting a Club that has the colors black and yellow because it reminds me of the one German soccer club I like the least. And since I find Peñarol fans slightly too aggressive for my liking. So I decided for myself that I would go for Nacional. Go Tricolor! (another nickname as their colors are red, white and blue)

Even the sky showed Nacionals colors red and blue

And let me tell you, the Uruguay vs. Paraguay game was pretty much boring compared to the great atmosphere I experienced when Nacional played against Toluca, a team from Mexico in the Copa Libertadores. The South American version of the Champions League that is. 

First off, Pablo who was taking me to the game with his family and some friends picked me up at my place. Now normally that would be like a 20 min detour because Nacional's home stadium is close to my university here. But since the Nacional fans were planning to set a record that day, the game took place in Estadio Centenario which is bigger and more suitable for the record that they wanted to break. And it is pretty much right next to my place so no detours.

Of course for such an occasion I couldn't go without any fan gear. And luckily Pablo and his Family are like the biggest Nacional fans which means he had some spare jerseys, one of which I could wear to the game so that I was properly dressed up to be part of a world record in the making.

Tricolor!

Now, what was this world record about? 

For about one and a half years Nacionals fans crafted a giant fan banner that they were going to unfold and that was going to cover almost all the fans. So for that purpose it wasn't just big, it was gigantic! The official measurements are 600x50 meters but I suppose you can't picture how big that really is. I'll try to give you a mental picture because the helicopter that was supposed to fly over the stadium and take pictures of the whole thing got sabotaged and couldn't take off. So picture this: the flag came all the way down the tribunes and went all the way round three quarters of the stadium. Only one tribune out of four was not covered by  the flag. And we're talking about Uruguay's biggest soccer stadium that holds about 65,000 people. And that is only slightly less than what fits into stadiums like Munich's Allianz Arena!

Check out this website for more infos and pictures.

 And my personal favorite -  the 360 degree interactive picture of the fans (without banner). Can you spot me? 

Now the unfolding happened twice, once before the game to greet the players when they entered the field, and once during the halftime. And both times it was a lot of fun! And in between there was of course the game which I think was pretty good as well.

This (smallest) tribune was the only part of the stadium that was not covered by the banner..

...but all of this was covered with the flag

...as was this part

(which looks empty because the picture was taken pretty early on)

...and of course we were covered as well!

Obviously, Nacional had a pretty good motivation to give their all since they have the most amazing fans who spent one and a half years crafting a gigantic flag. So unsurprisingly they won. And they didn't just win barely. They scored four times and ended with a result of 4:0! Quite impressive I'd say.

Penalty and  GOOOOOOL!!

And the atmosphere was just overwhelming and there were a lot of fun different fan chants. My favorite was "Poropopo poropopo el que no salta es de Peñarol!". Which translates to "Poropopo poropopo  the one who doesn't jump is from Peñarol!". Which is practically the worst thing to be. And so while singing that you have to jump. Because obviously you don't want to be associated with Peñarol.

And my absolute highlight was a little boy who sat in front of us. He was completely into the game and his facial expressions just cracked me up everytime. So hilarious and so expressionate. Unfortunately it was impossible to catch with the camera so a back-view must do.

This little man pretty much made my day

Altogether the game was pretty spectacular and I did not for one minute regret skipping class in order to go to the game. But at least I wasn't the only one because Pablos's sister missed her class as well. I'd say it's a matter of priorities and Lucía and I definitely have ours straight.

The truants

Martes Madness

or: Children at Heart

Tuesday, some of the exchange students went to an “Espectaculo Uruguayo” with some Uruguayan students who kind of served as guides. Of course I didn’t wanna miss out on that and since Becci would have sat at home all alone and bored I decided to invite her. Actually, she’s not that bad a charity case but since she is doing her practical semester at the German school in Montevideo and the school year hasn’t started yet she didn’t know that many people yet. To be fair, neither did I until I started my language class on Monday. Anyway, we decided to join the fun and go check out Uruguayan Carnaval.

In order to get to the place of the Espectaculo, we all met at the main entrance of the university and from there we all went together to the “Velodromo” which is a bike track in the park next to where I live. On our way there we passed a lot of people wearing black-and-yellow, which are the colors of Peñarol, one of Montevideo’s main soccer clubs. Apparently there was a game that night and, as Becci fittingly described them,  they seemed like swarms of bees buzzing around their “beehive”, a.k.a. the Estadio Centenario.  But let’s continue with the actual story: the Espectaculo Uruguayo.

Some of us with two of the Carnaval artists

Upon arrival at the velodromo we found that the Espectaculo was some sort of “Carnaval” thing. Unfortunately we didn’t really understand much of what the people on stage were talking/singin about and that’s why it was mostly a night of getting to know some people and having fun. The show was really colorful but it wasn’t like you imagine for example the carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Not at all. But as I mentioned before we didn’t actually pay too much attention to the show.

How do you say "Cheese" in Spanish? (Hint: it's not Queso)

When we got there we first took the obligatory group picture. After that a lot of us decided to have something to eat. They had some typical Uruguayan/Latinamerican foods which all looked pretty delicious. Becci and I shared some “Empanadas” which is some sort of pastry with different fillings. We tried Carne (beef),  Jamón y Queso (ham and cheese) and Queso y Langzanita (Cheese and some sort of peperoni). I gotta say I have fallen for Empanadas really bad and so far my favorite is with Carne.

After that we shared some fun conversations with the Uruguayan students where we learned some interesting expressions. And of course we taught them some German ones that they have probably forgotten about by now. But for everyones enjoyment, I recorded them saying a drinking toast in German.

One for the boys...

...and one for the girls!

After that I really wanted to go “sledding”. Of course there was no snow involved since we had really nice weather. But when we first got to the velodromo, I was amazed by some children going down the slopes of the bik track on cardboard and naturally the child in me wanted to try it. So we went over to the kids and asked if they would let us use their pieces of cardboard for a bit and down the slope we went.

First attempt (note the little boy in the back)

Smooth landing

After a first try, a little boy (you can see him in the first picture) came up to us and straight up told us that we were going too slow because we are too heavy. Big laugh here.

Becci got stuck...

...so Augustín had to help out

But we didn’t let that kid discourage us and tried again and got some practice. And oh the fun we had! At some point a little girl came up to us and told us that it is even more fun if you sit on an empty plastic bottle because that way you go a lot faster. Of course we had to try that as well and believe it or not it was even more awesome. Or “salado” as a Uruguayan fella named Pablo told me is the expression for “great” or “awesome”. Not sure if I can trust him on that but I guess I’ll find out at some point. Anyway, I enjoyed our sledding experience a lot. 

Maxime and I going Pro

Speed accelerator: the Plastic Bottle!

It’s incredible how much fun you can have with such cheap means. Who needs toys if you got a plastic bottle and a bike track?!   

After our sledding experience we sat down and had some more conversations and enjoyed some “churros” (sweet fried pastry). Those are also very delicious just like all the other Uruguayan food. And just in case you haven’t noticed, I do enjoy the food here a lot and I am probably going to gain a bit of weight but it’s definitely worth every pound.

In the end, when we decided to head home we had our first “how do we get home?” experience. We have heard from all kinds of people that girls shouldn’t walk home alone at night because “es muy peligroso!” (translation: it’s very dangerous!). However, Becci and I don’t live very far from the velodromo. To be exact we really only had to get out of the park, cross a street and turn right. And normally I would have walked home.

But as I have mentioned earlier, that night there had been a soccer game in the Estadio Centenario which is pretty much right next to the velodromo. Now, if Peñarol is playing that isn’t just any soccer game. Of course not. Uruguayans are nuts about soccer and one of their favorite teams is Peñarol. That is probably why Peñarol fans are of the most extreme kind.  And it just so happens that they had lost the game earlier that night. Accordingly, they were in a very bad mood and felt the need to express their anger. It just so happened, that when we got out of the velodromo, the buses of the rivaling team went by. Bottles were thrown and one of the reputable gentleman of Peñarol division grabbed his man parts to show them what he thinks of them.

We realized that the insistent warnings not to go home alone that night at all were probably not made up out of thin air. Luckily, our Uruguayan friends were very helpful here. Some of them had their cars parked nearby and so we waited for them to get the cars and got a ride. Down the street, two turns and back home we were. Safe and sound and with lots of good memories.



P.S.: And the answer to what Uruguayans say instead of "Cheese" when taking a picture: Whiskey!