Thursday of week fourteen was my last day of school. After school, I talked to our class advisor one last time and he wished me "feliz vacaciones." Then some classmates asked me if I liked to shoot pool and I said yeah and we headed to the pool hall down the block. When we were finished I returned home and while I was on the bus I realized that it was Thanksgiving. What's Turkey-Day without turkey? I guess it's the first day of summer vacation.
Saturday was my 18th birthday. I told my family here that I didn't want a party or anything big. All I really wanted when Saturday came around was to teleport home for 24 hours. Skype was the next best thing, and it was nice talking to my whole family at once. I introduced my host family to my real one... what a trip that was! I was able to translate the little thoughts that each end was able to come up with. That evening, Lucas came by to wish me a happy birthday. He told me to come over to his house the next day, so I did.
Lucas greeted me at the door with a 2006 Racing Club jersey, signed by all of the players from that season's team. What an awesome gift, right? It was a long time coming, but the signed jersey placed my fandom in the corner of Racing Club de Avelleneda. Our neighborhood friend and fellow Racing supporter, Dante, was also at Lucas' house. Dante is the craziest fan I have ever met. When questioned "illness on a family member or a championship season for Racing," he chooses Racing. During games, he holds a lucky spoon in his hand and waves it at the TV screen when the other team is attacking. It's awesome.
On thursday, Lucas came over to see what I was up to. I had no plans, and he told me that Dante was acting in a show at 9 and suggested we go see it. We went over to Tobias' house to get Tobias and headed off to the theater. The play was called "La Fiaca." It was about a guy who just won't go to work, not because he has a stomach ache, or a fever, but because he has "fiaca." It was pretty hard to follow the dialogue but I got the larger picture and Dante was very funny and very natural on stage. After the show ended we greeted him and told him that he had to come with us to see Racing the next day. It didn't matter if he didn't have the money for the ticket, we would pay for him.
The next day I threw on my Racing jersey after lunch and headed over to Lucas' house. From there we got Dante and walked to the train station. We arrived in Avelleneda at around 6 and walked the 8 blocks to the stadium. We got there about 3 hours early because we wanted to be sure to be able to get our tickets. We bought our tickets and headed out to find something to eat. Then we returned to the stadium and waited for them to open the gate. At around 7:30, they opened it and we went through the security check and looked around for a spot with a good view. We settled on a spot and sat and waited for kickoff.
The stadium slowly filled with people and I could feel the anticipation building in the air. I turn to Dante and he is very nervous, almost shaking. At around 8:45, 30 minutes til kickoff, the stadium is full and everyone is singing. I look around and people in the upper sections are hanging up their flags. Above us, people were preparing the giant flag that is a tradition in Racing's stadium. I mean GIANT flag: http://sp3.fotolog.com/photo/3/45/68/tecomolaboca_09/1256309287483_f.jpg
With about 5 minutes until kickoff, the giant flag starts cascading, people helping it down on it's way. It covers us up for a few minutes until they pull it back up just in time for us to see Racing take the field. When this happened, confetti machines around the field filled the air with blue and white. People shot off the fire works they managed to sneak through the security check. We watched the players take their spots on the field through the blue haze caused by people's smoke machines.
Some 15 minutes into the game I experienced my first professional goal. The stadium errupted. Lucas hugged me and then Dante and then the people in front of us. We were screaming, jumping with joy. Dante let out a shout of what must have been relief. A few minutes into the second half, Racing scored again. It was on the other end of the stadium but we saw it perfectly. The two goal lead didn't stop Dante from throwing up his devil horns at every corner kick that the other team had. With about 2 minutes left in the game, the giant flag came down once more and people were going nuts underneath it. They pulled it back up just in time for us to hear the final whistle and we sang one more song and applauded our team.
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