La Navidad, 10-9

A continuacion.....Christmas in Buenos Aires started out with sleep......I finally got to bed at about 5am after a long night of chatting with two Swedish guys, a Brit, and a Dutch guy about comparisons between soccer and religion. I don't want to get into this topic because I don't think it's worth a blog entry, but I will say that when someone truly loves something and is invested in it, it's hard to get them to see any other viewpoint. So convinced was one of the Swedes that soccer is equivalent to religion that he almost came to shouting when I told him that his argument was seriously flawed. It was much like trying to persuade an evangelical Christian that other viewpoints of Christianity exist or that certainty is impossible or that one has to accept some very hard to swallow ideas and contradictions in order to be Christian in the way that evangelicals practice.

Anyhow, the discussion ended amicably and while the Swedes and the Brits left to find a club in which to dance, the Dutch guy and I went home to our respective apartments and slept. On Christmas Day, I slept in until about 12:30, skyped with my parents for a while, and then returned to bed to read the New Yorker in the semi-dark with the fan on me the entire time (these days it's always 90 or so degrees here. I ain't complainin). At 2:30pm, I received a call from Guillermo, my former host dad, inviting me over for Christmas Day lunch at 3pm. I should have realized that 3 meant at least 4. Most Argentine's will tell you to come an hour or two before they actually mean it. After 9 months total in the country I still haven't figured this out. I got there at 3 and no one else had arrived yet. I was more or less the first.

So, for about an hour or so, I hung out, doing what I could to help with setting the table and chatting with the foreign houseguests as well as Argelia and Guillermo. The food on the table was leftovers from the previous evening. Nothing new except for some empanadas that had been pulled from the freezer. I was concerned about the safety of some of the mayo filled salads that had been sitting in the heat for so long before being refrigerated the previous evening, but they still smelled ok. However, being the obsessed foodie that I am, I was a little let down that there would be no new food on Christmas Day. Christmas day was more or less sloppy seconds, leftovers and people tired and groggy from Christmas Eve, the big celebration in Argentina. We unenthusiastically scooped down some sustenance and the real treat was when the British woman staying at the house brought out two English Luxury Puddings, Mincemeat in a Jar, and some type of vegemite type nasty yeast spread supposedly high in B-Vitamins. My day old cookies were also brought out.

After lunch, the Swedes came up with the idea of playing soccer in the adjacent school park that actually has a somewhat nice, albeit concrete, football arena. Having nothing better to do and intrigued by the idea of playing soccer on Christmas in Argentina, I joined.

What began with a friendly game of kicking a ball around turned into a full field high energy game against 5 Argentine guys. Being the most tenderfoot and more or less completely in the dark about the rules and techniques of soccer, I played goalie. I did know how to sacrifice my body and follow the ball and throw it or pass it to an open teammate. The rest of the team consisted of the two Swedes (who had played on an amateur team together and won a national championship), the Dutch guy, and the British guy. It must be very important in Europe to know what you're doing with a soccer ball. All of these European guys seemed to have a strong basic grasp of the game. And it was a good thing, because the middle aged Argentine guys were also very good, looked as if they'd been playing their entire lives.

The game got off to a bad start, for us. I was being scored on left and right and we couldn't get close to the goal. At that point, my European friends found their strides and scored a series of goals to bring us within a few points of winning (10 goals). At around the same time, I realized that it was better to watch the ball the entire time than to avert and shield my eyes like a wimp when the ball was kicked on me. What I'm trying to say is that I got better as the game went on.

In the end, I was able to save 3 attempts on our goal and then one of the Swedes scored and we triumphed over the Middle-Aged Argentines, 10-9. We shook hands and then took pictures of each other in our moment of triumph. Argentina may have won soccer in the olympics, but by God, we beat a few middle-aged guys on Medrano Street on Christmas Day-Barely.

After the game, I returned home to try to skype my family once more before the day was done. This was about 8 or 9 pm, but 3 hours earlier back home. I should have predicted that in the moment when I most wanted to talk with my family, my internet would be down. Of course it was. Internet and services in Buenos Aires are....how to put it...unreliable. In any case, I enjoyed a leisurely end to Navidad here by reading up a bit on the internet and cooking up some desert.

All in all, Christmas here was easily anticlimatic and maybe even a bit boring, save the soccer game. As I said before, it's not so much a big deal here. Christmas Eve steals the show and Christmas Day, like the food served on it, is leftovers.