Gooooooooooooooooolllllll

Ok, so I lied. I have another thing to write about before I leave for Brazil [in 3 days!!!!!!!!!!].

Everyone knows that in Latin American countries, fútbol is a really big deal. No, don't call it soccer. It's fútbol. Since it's so popular, my friends and I naturally decided that we wanted to follow a Chilean team and try to go to a game. A few months ago I did some major research on the two teams I was most interested in [Universidad de Chile and Colo-Colo] in order to decide which one I liked more. Just for references sake I'm going to call Universidad de Chile by its nickname "La U" because it's shorter. Also, even though La U is named after the university, it hasn't been connected to the actual university since the Pinochet dictatorship.

Francisco Prieto

After many hours on the team websites and wikipedia, I made my decision and chose Colo-Colo despite the fact that it's the most flaite [sketchy, ghetto] one. I just feel like Colo-Colo is the soul of the pueblo and I don't care that they've been losing lately or that the fans are crazy and start huge fights. Also, "Colo-Colo" is just a fun word to say. A couple cool facts about my team are that it is named after the Mapuche leader Colo-Colo and that's why their emblem has the warrior on it. [The Mapuche are the indigenous people from Chile and they are the only tribe who successfully resisted Spanish conquest during the Arauco War in the 1500s.] One of the founders of the team, David Arellano, died the day after a match in Europe where he was badly injured. The black bar above the crest symbolizes his early death and honors him. Another cool thing is that they are the most successful Chilean team internationally and have won the Copa Liberatores, Recopa Sudamericana, and the Copa Interamericana. Ok just one more fact: in 2009 the IFFS [International Federation of Football History and Statistics] rated Colo-Colo as Chile's #1 club team of the 20th century and in the top 20 teams of South America. I also think that the goalie, Francisco Prieto is super hot, but maybe that's because he's one of the few Chileans who are over 6' tall.

La U and Colo-Colo are intense rivals and this Sunday they played against each other in the game known as the "Superclásico". My friend Natalie worked out getting us the tickets through her friend Carlos who works as a manager of the Starbucks that she practically lives at her [lol]. So Carlos, Natalie, Rachael, Julian, Meredith and I got to go and I was stoked for my first South American fútbol game! Rae and I are the only ones who support Colo-Colo and earlier in the semester we got jerseys to rep them, but we couldn't wear them to this game because our tickets were in La U's section so we would've probably been beat up. It was kind of awkward sitting in the opposing team's section;                Rae and I had to keep ourselves from cheering whenever Colo-Colo did something good, which unfortunately wasn't often because we got slaughtered by La U [4-0]. Even though we lost, it was still a super exciting experience. Fans snuck flares into the stadium and lit them off whenever a goal was scored and it was hilarious listening to all the yelling and chants like, "Conchatumare" and "Él que no salta es maricón". I'm not gonna post the translation for those though cause they're pretty profane. Another interesting thing was that no fans for La U were allowed close to the Colo-Colo section. You can tell in one of the photos that the stands on both sides of them are empty in order to prevent fights [my tandem partner told me that people used to die at every one of the games from getting into fights with the rival team's fans]. Also, there was a trench/ditch between the stands and field preventing anyone from rushing the field or jumping the fences as well as carabineros [police] standing around everywhere.

The closest I have ever been to Francisco

I'm SO SO SO happy that I got to go to a game before leaving Chile--even though Colo-Colo got a slap in the face and I have a cold, it was totally worth it! And afterwards, me, Rae, Mer, and Jewels went to dinner in Bellavista and I had my last lomo a lo pobre.
Now I'm completely done writing my finals and only have packing and running a few errands between me and Rio! Yippeeeee!!!