Sunday was one of the best days of my trip. I know that I keep saying that, but considering it was the first day of my last week here I feel like I can say that with quite a bit of certainty. I woke up and went to mass at the cathedral and it was really nice. For some reason el Obispo, or the Bishop, was saying mass, which made it really special. Although it will probably be more informative to start attending mass in English again, I am going to miss my Sunday mornings among such elaborate surroundings! Afterwards I walked back to the apartment in order to start getting ready to go to Vicky’s, and at 11:30 the whole town was already setting up for the fútbol game that was scheduled to start at 3:30 in the afternoon! Even Zulema and Hugo were preparing the house for Zulema’s family that was coming over by cooking, moving furniture around, and placing an Argentina flag underneath the TV. At 1:00 Vicky and her mom picked me up and then we headed across town to pick up Alba, another international student from Spain who is a classmate of Vicky’s. The four of us then drove out to the suburbs of Córdoba and headed toward the Murphys’ home. The house looked very nice, but when we arrived we went straight to the little building set off from the house that was situated back and to the left. We went inside and it was very interesting: the entire purpose of the building was for entertaining people at asados! It had a big, flat-screen TV on one end, a big dining table in the middle, and the whole other end was the barbecue area. When we walked in Vicky’s dad and older brother, Esteban, were already hard at work on the food. We met these final two members of the family, dropped off our stuff, and then went and sat at a table outside to talk and have appetizers of cheese, bread, and salami. The three of us girls had such a great time talking! Since Vicky’s English is so good I usually cheat and don’t use much Spanish around her; however, with Alba there I got in a lot of Spanish listening and speaking practice. Also, with all three of us being from different parts of the world, it was really fun talking about the differences between the three countries. After a while Carlos arrived, and then Esteban came out and brought choripan and both guys stayed and talked with us. Finally Mr. Murphy called us all inside and we began the feast. The sides were minimal (as usual here in Argentina), but consisted of bread, some potato dish, and a little salad. However the meat was ridiculous (in an absolutely wonderful way)! First, Mr. Murphy served everyone blood sausage. Since I have never been able to get past the name, I had actually never even tried it before; therefore, they told me to just take a little to see if I liked it, and if I didn’t then I didn’t have to eat it. However, I actually ended up liking it A LOT, but still didn’t have the nerve to ask anyone exactly what it was that I was eating. After that, round two was the beef, which of course was wonderful, and then in the end we finished the feast with ribs. An interesting thing to note is that we ate on wooden plates. We each had our own rectangle block of wood that we served ourselves on. I wouldn’t have said anything, but they asked me if we ever used them in the United States and I told them no, not that I knew of. They were all very interested with my reply, and Vicky told me that wooden plates are extremely common for asados here. Anyways, the pre-game show for the Argentina vs. Ghana fútbol game had been playing since we had arrived, and the game finally started just as Mrs. Murphy was bringing out dessert. Dessert was very interesting; we each got a slice of dulce de patata (something like congealed sweet potato) with a slice of cream cheese on top. Vicky had told me about this extremely common Argentine dessert a few weeks ago, and when I told her that I’d never had it she said that she’d make sure that that’s what we had at the asado (her parents have been wanting to cook for me pretty much since the day we met). When she had described it to me I wasn’t really sure what to think, but after tasting it I can confidently say that it’s great! As the game started a few of Vicky’s close friends (some of the ones I had hung out with on Tuesday as well as some new ones) came over to watch, and we ended with a pretty good-sized group of spectators. It was a lot of fun watching the game with some die-hard fans like Mr. Murphy, Carlos, and Esteban. During entretiempo the whole group of girls went outside to sit in the sun and chat. I didn’t do much talking, but it was fun listening to all of the girls discuss different ways to say things in Spain Spanish and Argentine Spanish. After that we went back in and watched the second half of the game and it was very exciting that Argentina won! For not having been a fan whatsoever when I arrived in this country, I have begun to really get into the competitive spirit of the World Cup! Almost immediately after the game we had to say our good-byes, and unfortunately I had to leave my new favorite Argentine family. Mrs. Murphy drove Alba and I back to the city, and the celebrations were absolutely wild. Just when I think that they can’t get any bigger or crazier I have to think again. Cars were honking, every kid on the street was either blowing on a coroneta or banging pots and pans, and when we finally got back to my street in the central area of the city, newspaper confetti littered the road and sidewalks. I went up to my room to put my stuff down and, contrary to Zulema’s warnings, I then decided to brave the craziness and just go observe what was happening near Patio Olmos. When I got there the game had been over for almost two hours but the people were absolutely crazy. The mob located in the city center had to have consisted of thousands of people; the streets were so full it was difficult to move. I am pretty sure that I heard someone say that they broadcast the game on a screen there, so in order to feed the hungry masses choripan vendors had set up their grills all over the place. I saw a crossing light that was broken and hanging by wires; masses of young people were throwing glass bottles, as well as other projectiles, at each other which resulted in a line of police with shields (think S.W.A.T. team-like) advancing on them; additionally, on my way back home I saw a man on his knees with his face shoved into a wall being arrested. When I say that the people were crazy I mean that in every literal sense of the word! Although I could have just people-watched for hours, the police started chasing people out of the Patio Olmos area and I wasn’t about to stick around. I went back home and, after a wonderful weekend, finally sat down to work on my homework and prepare for my final week of classes here in Córdoba.
