Episode 5: El Superclasico (and how Messi is so good)

Many of you will know what a football looks like. Most of you will have some faint affilitation to one team or another. Of these, the majority would probably only watch your team (or country) playing on TV - with the exception of other select matches that may take your interest. For example, I made a point yesterday of waking up slightly early to watch Everton vs Liverpool, one of the biggest derbies (local rivalries) in the UK. Coincidentally, there was another big match in the UK yesterday - Chelsea vs Manchester United, a derby by magnitude if not by location. Both matches ended up being a joy to watch, with some of the worlds best current players showcasing their skills and a total of 9 goals in the two matches. However, despite the Premier League being very popular here both matches went almost completely unnoticed out in Buenos Aires. Why? Because yesterday was the day of the Superclasico.

Buenos Aires currently holds the title of the most professional football teams in one city. The count is over 20 teams - but in reality, Boca Juniors and River Plate are by far the biggest. Due to the fact two seasons ago River were relegated, yesterday was the first competitive meeting between them for 2 years; below are a few things I picked up (for those not interested in football, miss out the parts in italics):

-Much is made in the UK of things being thrown on the pitch. Whilst I obviously do not approve of this, I think the Daily Mail et al perhaps need to look to the superclasico where after kick off you can barely see the green grass:










Right then.

- As it transpired, River were playing at home and scored after only 2 minutes. I was expecting an explosion of noise to eminate from my television, but it turned out to be quieter than i thought. Why, you ask? The television crew zoomed in on large sections of the crowd literally CRYING with joy that their team was winning, and therefore couldnt cheer. Amazing stuff.

-Fast forward to the end of the match and River were winning 2-1 when Boca equalised with the actual last kick of the game. Now cue the noise explosion, but not from the television - people in apartments around me were screaming and shouting, with many running outside to their cars just so they could beep their horns.

-Now to the match itself. It was quite a drab affair, with overall team quality really lacking. This was something I noticed in my couple of matches playing with the locals - pretty much everyone out here can dribble with the ball, but many lack a 'footballing brain'. What I mean by that is they barely ever pass and certainly can't defend. This, then, was the theme of the superclasico - two teams and many players with outstanding individual ability, but so little practice is dedicated to passing that a lot of them were misplaced during the match. On a national level, this is why Argentina lack a good defence and will struggle to win the world cup as when the come up against a team who will put their back line under pressure (spain, for example) they will not be able to utilise players like Messi or Aguero because they´ll be too busy conceeding goals. OK, thats over simplified but you get the point...

-On that note, though, HOW exactly is Messi so good? To answer this we should look not at the philosophy of Argentinian football, but that of Spain (where he moved at a young age). Spain will retain the vast majority of possession every match, but rarely try and dribble or shoot from range. Therefore, take a player with magical feet (Messi) and teach him how to pass and move - and you end up with a pintsized goalscoring machine.


Episode 6: Racism and Luis Suarez.

p.s. this was actually also covered on the bbc sports website today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/timvickery/2012/10/river_plate_v_boca_juniors_-_w.html

Episode 4: One Month In

A month ago I boarded a plane half way across the world, having only received my VISA that afternoon, knowing a grand total of 0 people in a country where the language was certainly not my mother tounge.

Sounds bad? Sounds exciting? Well, I wouldn't like to bore you with with details of everyday life, so just some bitesize chunks to maybe brighten up a dark day:

- It's getting hot (and muggy). Sunglasses in October, living the dream!

- It's hard to practice Spanish - at work it's a bit of a catch 22 situation with not being given much to do unless you're fluent but you cant get fluent without speaking/getting work. Fingers crossed!

- Having escaped the dreaded mosquitos thus far, I last night played football on grass. Next to a lake. Bad idea - although at least i now know the words in spanish for 'bitten to death', 'do mosquitos even have nests?!' and the classic 'removed at least the vast majority of my blood'. I wonder if they sell that Jungle Formula stuff out here...

-Despite the aforementioned issue of getting lost by getting the wrong bus (http://www.abritinba.blogspot.com.ar/2012/10/interlude-two-lost.html), it's more comfortable (and i get to sleep). However, one morning this week the bus took half an hour to come. This may not sound like a long time, but buses are everywhere out here - during that time, 37 buses passed our stop with not one of them bothering to pull over (because obviously at 8.30 AM everyone wants the only bus going into town). This includes EIGHT number 160's. Can you imagine the conversation at the bus station? "OK guys, heres todays schedule - you 8 take the 160 which noone cares about, and the other 29 choose whatever you want but just leave out the most popular bus. Don't worry, I know Sanchez Domingo Juan Fernandez Pereirra Jose Peron Fernandez Di Maria Fernandez takes the only number 10 (my one) and is always late (yep, thats another thing - everyone here has at least 18 middle names) but our economy's screwed up enough anyway so the businesses will just have to wait'"

-Finally, it appears I have found a way around the problem of only being served annoyingly small coffees in cafés; it looks like they are the same price for whatever size coffee you want - so i asked for the biggest one they could make. It came in a pint glass. Boom.


Episode 5: el superclasico

Chau

Interlude Two: Lost

Last night, a colleague suggested I take the bus home from work. Having not done this yet (the subway, although boiling hot, is quite quick and direct) I thought I would try it just for comforts sake. I guess I must take full blame for taking the bus in the wrong direction (although the driver did nod when I asked if it was going my way - in retrospect he was about as helpful as a ham sandwich at White Hart Lane)

My aforementioned colleague had said it takes about half an hour, so when that time had elapsed and we had just crossed a large river (since when do I live near a river, I thought) I decided to whip out the normally useless maps on the iphone (raising some eyebrows and maybe readying some sly hands on the bus) - only to be told I am now very far south of where I need to be. So, I got off the bus into what can only be described as a neighbourhood so dodgy I'm quite sure I saw Al Capone himself. Any taxis I could find gave me a funny look and refused to take me the 10 or so miles up north. Not one of them even had their 'free' light on.

So there I was - lost in a downtrodden area with my suit, laptop and iphone and only my hoodie to help me blend in., and then my headphones decided to break after 2 years of service - wonderful. A couple of wrong turns later, and I'm outside the deserted Racing football stadium; need I mention it was thundering and pouring with rain?

An hour later, I'd made it home (after a taxi driver rant on the price of bicycles, of all things) with something oddly approaching a smile on my face. OK, I'd lost most of my evening, but I'd also managed to see some real Buenos Aires life - it's moments like those which get the heart beating a bit faster and make you appreciate what you have a bit more (i.e. that I dont live there). Things could have been much worse - I could have been at home watching two Americans embarrass themselves with cheap jibes on TV.

Until next time.

C. Columbus.

Episode 3: The Foreign Workplace

Episode 3: The Foreign Workplace.

Many of you reading this will have in at least some way experienced the workplace in your country of origin. Personally I worked for about a year in the London office of the company I am working for out in Argentina - and its not quite what I'm used to:

-Contract says: Arrive at 9.00. Reality - everybody arrives at 9.30 or later. In london, it's almost the opposite with half the office arriving early!

-Contract says: 4500 ARG pesos per month. Reality - pay raise to 5500 pesos before i'd even started due to 25% inflation. Score?

-Contract says: Joe. (official) Reality - Jose. Or John. Or Jerry. Pronounced Shon, or Sherry, obviously.

In seriousness, though, it's actually a great place to work. Yes, you get paid between a third and a quarter of what you do in London, but the atmosphere is friendly and relaxed. All the staff are sat close together and the office chat is punctuated with funky ringtones that would be viewed as awkward elsewhere - but out here silent mode isn't really common practice. In fact, sometimes there are so many tunes I feel the office floor is about to burst into Glee mode, but nevermind. The best bit, naturally, is the free cinema-style fizzy drinks dispenser.

As for the working language, I can't say that after almost a month here it's especially easy. I've found listening to podcasts (mainly reverting to my economist roots) helps the most as you can rewind once and again until you understand whats being said. Its mostly a case of training the ears to recognise what the words you know sound like when said at double speed (and with half the letters missing. Think a Liverpudlian on Pro Plus and you'll get the idea...)

Finally, and unfortunately, the university system here works differently. What I mean by this is that if you want to be a lawyer, you study law at uni and that's it (no law school, GDL etc). In London, then, if you want to be an accountant it doesnt matter what you studied because you're sent to college anyway. Therefore, everyone in the office is completely qualified - and I am not. So not only am I learning the language (seems like 5 years of 2/3 hours of lessons a week maybe isn't intense enough) but technically am vastly underqualified.

Alas, all is not so bad - off for what must be my 18th cup of diet coke (although if you look closely, you can see them dispense water into it aswell. Scumbags.)

In other news, the Zoo here is rubbish. And the gates are so bad that half the animals (including the racoons) just walk around with the visitors.

Next up - Episode 4: One Month In.

¡Chau!

Interlude one: Standing in someone else's shoes.

Out here, in a bid to try and get my spanish up slightly to office standard (the next blog will be about the workplace), I am watching the news in Spanish. As many of you will know, the population of America will soon take to the polls in what admittedly is quite a big worldwide event. Of course, I am used to the viewpoint of the UK Press - but here, it's all different. They call it Voto Latino 12 - i.e. where the American Hispanics will cast their vote. Not that it even makes that big a difference to Argentina (and i will write a piece about what is happening to their economy at a later date; think Cuba but in reverse - it's quite bizzare!) but even so it's always the leading story

Nevertheless, that got me thinking. Often it's hard to see a situation from someone elses point of view - in this case, all of the issues i'm used to hearing so much about are marginalised and more specific foreign policy (including immigration) is discussed in much greater detail. A lesson worth learning...

In other news, a couple of nights back i had my first experience of Argentina on an international football match day. The country basically stops and watches - even if only against chile. But then again, us brits would probably do the same if we had Messi up front. And having listened to the commentary of England vs Poland, I can conclude that we are closer to a cardboard cut out of the little man.

Ho Hum.

Episode Two: How to survive in the deep end

Episode Two: How to survive in the deep end.

Well, introductions out the way. After two weeks, i feel relatively settled - and so this next short post is a step by step guide of important things to do when dropped in a foreign country knowing a grand total of 0 people. I guess if many of you compiled a list of things to do at some point in life, living abroad could well be one of them - so who knows, it could come in useful one day:

1) Make friends - and quick! Its sort of like freshers week all over again. Go to parties, take classes (i've tried my hand a couple of times at salsa!), do whatever you can to meet people and quickly you'll settle on friends. If you don't, you'll go crazy! A quick shout out, then, to everyone whose made my transition so comfortable!

2)Get lost. (in your surroundings, obviously). I found that there's no better way to get to grips with the local area than to be scanning your map standing at an intersection and thinking how the hell did i get so far away from my flat! Chances are, you'll find lots of cool stuff around that google maps just doesn't show.

3) I suggest sorting out accommodation beforehand, eases the stress of arriving. But make sure you look around and don't get screwed over. OK, google maps might come in handy this time.

4) It might sound wierd, but you normally get a much better exchange rate IN the country you're going to - so I suggest only taking a small amount of money and (as long as your bank assure you there are no crazy ATM charges) taking out money in an airport cash machine. Here in Argentina you get a MUCH better rate if you bring currency and change it on the street (with dollars, for example, you get 40% more this way)

5) Immerse. It's easy to pick and choose the people you speak to as those who are fluent in the same language, but you really need to do what you came to do and learn! Oh, and you will probably make more mistakes than an Argentinian taking a driving test, but that's the best way to learn.

That's all for now. Next episode - Working in a foreign language.

Episode one: first impressions

Two weeks ago today I left my (admittedly comfortable) life back in London to come to Argentina for the year. For the next 7 months I will be writing short, bitesize blogs with maybe the occasional inspirational story thrown in. Alas, not today - but welcome to my 'breakfast' blog episode one.

First impressions:
- Cross a road at your peril. Much like in Rome, zebra crossings and sometimes even traffic lights are pretty much for show.

-Despite most people casually hating the British for the Falkland Island's (here 'las malvinas'), people here love Polo, Rugby and many speak/want to be English. In fact, the local's are so angry with their own government and economic woe's that the Falklands barely ever come up in conversation.

-Jibberish. Or that's what it felt like everyone was speaking for the first few days until I started to get used to their unique dialect of spanish (here, castellano).

-If you have a world map handy, take a quick glance. Yep, it really is right in the corner of the world and extremely out the way - and the people here know it!

-It's common to see roads with no dividing lines at all. So the cars pretty much make it up, swerving left and right.

-Looks like i'll have to spend all my pesos (7 pesos to the pound) before I leave as the government recently introduced a law almost totally banning converting the currency. This essentially means that if a product is imported, it is done so through the black market and so for example an iPhone out here will equate to way over £500.

-In fact, the only saving grace is that public transport is dirt (!) cheap (about 20p per train journey).

- Although I was told it would be to the contrary, on the whole it's no Nottingham (if you know what i mean...)

OK - all for now. Episode 2 to follow - 'how to survive in the deep end'