(dont cry for me,) im in argentina!

i heard it called a 2nd world country and i suppose i can see where that comes from but mostly i have seen argentina as a cosmopolitan city of world class status.

faith and i are having a great time visiting this city. our hotel is european-the room is small but comfortable. the city. . .

to me the city seems bright and hopeful. it seems the cow is the national animal of argentina and i coudl not help but compare that to our beloved bald eagle. yes, ours may be cooler, but more interestingly, it is fitting. the bald eagle is a bird of prey. the cow, by contrast is a kinder animal, a provider, and argentina is certainly a place where one can get a good steak.

i especially enjoyed speaking to the people of buenos aires. i found virtually everyone i met to be friendly. they did their best to understand my broken spanish and they used whatever english they possessed and i was able to communicate and nothing could have been more rewarding about this trip than that.

i should preface all of this by saying it was our honeymoon and faith and i surely celebrated our love and our union, but here i mean to address this foreign land.

i am officially, and accidentally, a fanof the futbol club river plate. their are basically two club teams in argentina, river and boca juniors. i went hopingexpecting to embrace boca, if anything, but when i inquired about seeing a game i found boca had already won their league and the game they played on the sunday i was there would be meaningless. the major, (corporate sponser name here,) tournament going on had already seen boca's elimination but river plate was alive and doing well and playing libertad, a team from paraguay.

a local business called go futbol picked us up at our hotel and delivered us along with several other tourist futbol enthusiasts to a stadium filled to the gills with rabid fans. 80,000 people, according to my guide, were jammed into a stadium which has a capacity for 65,000. they do not sell alcoholic beverages at these games. (it would just be overkill, believe me.) no one ever left their seat from what i could tell. the fans light fireworks in the stands. their were huge homemade signs paying homage to the players all draped all over the edifice. they wore river's jersey and colors and waved flags and unfurled flags that covered entire portions of spectators. they sang at least five different songs that everyone in the stadium knew. and they lived and died with every rush into opposing territory, every crossing pass, every header in the zone. when something went bad, i never heard such free-spirited but thorough cursing of the play and players. (i have always been adept at the curse words in spanish. special thanks to my neighbor, mexico.)

especially intriguing was one section of the stadium in the upper part of the bowl and in the corner. it had abut a 10 foot high chain link fence around it with curled barbed wire adorning the top. in it were the fans of club libertad. the team from paraguay scored the game's first goal too. from the top of the goal box a libertad player got his foot on the ball and sent it high to the right side of the goal about 40 feet out on a 45 degree angle from the goal. the libertad striker caught it coming straight down out of the sky like a drop of rain in mid-air and sent it on a line past the goalie who dove but had no chance. it was an amazing kick and when it happened i gasped in admiration but also with some anger, (it was against my new favorite team.) the gasp was audible and everyone around me was silent. i thought i might be in trouble so i added a couple "damn!"s on the end of my gasp and turned to look at the libertad fans. they were jumping up and down in ecstasy as the scorer came to that corner of the field and pumped his fists in unison up towards them as if to thank them for cheering him to such heights. wow.

the game ended in a 2-2 draw and when the world cup is over, the tournament will continue with river plate travelling to paraguay to play libertad on their turf. i hope to be able to follow that outcome somewhere in my local press. i purchased a river plate jersey a couple of days later and will wear it proudly around monrovia and see if anyone recognizes it.

faith and i caught a tango show, (which included an excellent steak.) i got a tattoo at about one quarter of the price i would have paid for it here. i brought home some "special," cigars and felt good about contributing to the economy of the country from whence they came. we saw the casa rosada and took a lot of pictures, all the stuff you would expect from americans abroad, but that status notwithstanding, it was a great trip and a truly beautiful country. i'd recommend it to anyone.