Becoming an Ultra - Step Two

  When I stepped onto the pitch of La Bombonera back in August it made such an impression that I wrote an article about it (doesn't take much to do that I know), but it was only just a taste. It was just a small canapé of one of the most famous institutions in world football. From that moment, I wanted the full dish. I wanted to live one of my biggest footballing dreams and watch Boca Juniors play at La Bombonera.

  I have spent the last three months sniffing out every possible avenue that would lead me to the cancha. Getting Boca Juniors tickets is no easy feat I must add. Due to extreme popularity, only socios (members/season ticket holders) can get tickets for matches. There is no online or in-person box office and you get in via your contacts - however authentic or, more likely, dodgy they may be.  

Waiting For The Call Up

  I looked at extortionately-priced tour packages - aimed at tourists that had no other route into the stadium but via a chunk in their wallets - but couldn't bring myself to pay £130+ for a football match that wasn't against River Plate (the renowned Superclásico). I spoke to Boca fans and even some socios trying to weasel my way into a ticket offer. I even got a few but in a more casual 'I'll take you to see Boca before you leave' sort of way. None of them quite came to the fore. 

  So chances were looking bleak. Could I really forgive myself if I'd come to Argentina, and spent a huge amount of time in Buenos Aires, without seeing Boca Juniors play? Hm, unlikely. Luckily a power above acknowledged my dilemma and sent me a contact through a friend. A contact with the golden ticket. My Willy Wonka was called Christian and was a socio and all-round Boca fanatic. He even used to play for the youth teams and had a cousin in the system at the moment. I was put in touch and I quickly agreed to buy two tickets for a match against Rosario Central - I was in and the dream was very much alive. 

Becoming An Ultra - Step One

  At every camp I counsel at, at most classes at school, with almost every social occasion I've been in here I've been asked the same question by Argentineans...

"¿De cual equipo sos en Argentina? ¿Sos de Boca? ¿Sos de River?"

As a football fan myself, I understand the essentiality of this question, which makes it all the more embarrassing when I'm forced to become the person I hate. 

"Erm, I don't really have one..." 

  Oh no, I'm part of that brigade now. The type of person that would say they support England if asked what team they support back at home. As football is such a religion over here, it's even less acceptable to be a fence-sitter, and your credentials as a football fan are limited without pledging your allegiance. At camps I have half-heartedly claimed to be a fan of Boca Juniors, Independiente or Estudiantes de La Plata, yet without feeling a true sense of belonging or dedication to either. The situation was getting desperate and something had to be done. 

Into the Final Third

  As somebody who is on a mammoth trip abroad, and somebody with an Apple smartphone, its only predictable that I have an application on my phone dedicated to a countdown. You know, the ones that you track the approaching of big upcoming events with big exaggerated numbers of months/days/hours/seconds/mili-seconds and so on. I actually only downloaded mine a few weeks ago and I haven't really been paying it much attention, but today I decided to take a look at it...

Flight to Argentina - 114 days, 15 hours, 57 minutes since 12th July 2016. 

Homecoming (Flight Home to the UK) - 44 days, 8 hours, 3 mins until 18th December 2016. 

  So I'm a month and a half away from heading home and ending my Argentinean adventure, well into the final third of my first half of my year abroad (all the fractions). This revelation gives me a mixed bag of emotions. I'm inevitably excited to fly back to the UK into the depth of British Christmas, to see family and friends for the first time in half a year, to be home. Yet an equal sense of sadness and panic set in when I realise my time in this incredible country is nearly up. 

6 weeks left in this beautiful
place.

  I'll be the first to admit that on leaving the UK I never expected to feel so at home on the other side of the World as I have done. If you'd asked me to predict my sense of feeling on the 3rd November, I would have guessed that I would be eager for the last month and a half to pass so I could jump on the plane back to the comfort of the UK. Yet my current emotion is one of stark parallel. 

 I feel more comfortable and more integrated here than ever, with a host of new friends and acquaintances (English and Argentinean) that it'll be sad to leave behind. There's a list of things to do and places to visit in this country that I'm running out of time to plan. The 18th December is as much a deadline as anything. So I thought I'd write this little update piece to outline some of my plans for the next 6 weeks before I head home to England.  

The Wait

  6:47am - I leave the house and walk up to the entrance of my barrio. I take a seat on the grass. It's a beautiful early Monday morning (if such as thing exists) and the week dawned upon me with a crystal blue sky. I was awaiting a taxi that would come and pick me up and take me to Capilla del Señor to work as a councillor on another camp. The idea of a taxi picking me up and driving me directly to the camp location, as opposed to negotiating a number of local buses and their awkward timetables, was a complete luxury. Even the 6:10am wake up couldn't bring me down, and the fact I'd managed to get myself ready and out the house with time to spare was pat on the back moment.

  It was going well.

  The taxi was due to pick me up at 6:50am. I wasn't stupid though, I knew that could mean anything between 6:50am and an undetermined hour (or number of hours) later. They're not exactly renowned for their punctuality here. Ever since I arrived in Argentina it has been something that has prodded and poked at my typically British obsession with being on time or worrying about something that is not. We are the class swat and they are the lazy kid at the back teasing us, dragging us into their ways. Either way, it meant I wasn't particularly phased as the minutes passed without the arrival of my horse and carriage.

Turn Down For What Now?

  As a 21 year old, I am currently sitting in a state of limbo between youth and adulthood. Whilst I am on the point of becoming a 'proper grown up', I still see my playground days as a recent memory and therefore I would have counted myself as pretty intact with the trends of the youth of 2016. Having worked here as a teacher and a camp councillor, as well as staying with families that have children between the ages of 6 and 19, my exposure to the interests, jokes and loves of today's tomorrow has been intense. It's something that's been a big part of my time here and has shocked and amused me enough to justify an article #LetsDoThis. 

  Before I start on the content of this kind of 'case-study', it's worth saying that this isn't just a couple of kids in class that exhibit this stuff. It's universal. I would say a decent 80% of kids between 5 and 15 that I've encountered over here (which is a lot of kids believe me) have showcased some of this stuff that I'm going to talk about. That's what strikes me most. If one snotty kid flips a bottle and dabs when celebrating its landing, it's not just a small entourage that appreciates it - but everyone. The cool kids, the sporty kids, the clever kids, the boys, the girls. It's quite the epidemic.  

  As you walk through a school playground here, I could easily make a bingo card of things you would see or hear - and you'd be guaranteed a quick-fire full house...

  I won't go through all of these, but just the key players. The songs for example (bar one) are just in trend at the moment and they'll pass as all pop music does; although the hysteria/addiction of the kids here for the latest tunes is really something. However the bits I do talk about in a bit more detail have been in it for the long run and their longevity is as impressive as their simplicity and popularity. 

Meet the Parents

  "So Jack, what do you know about dead bodies?" This was the kind of occasion when a year abroad comes into it's own. It was hardly the category of question that I had been faced with across my 7 years of classroom Spanish interactions. I was sat with the father of Carlos (the Dad of the family I am staying with) in the corner of a post-Baptism family celebration. He reminded me instantly of Robert De Niro's character in the Meet the Parents series. The head of the family with a fascinating history of stories to tell. He took a shine to me, and we had a really in-depth chat about his trip to London and the DNA of serial killers. But not before I mistook him for a stripper.

Honoured to be a temporary member of
this fantastic family 

*Background Information*  Ever since arriving in Argentina, I have presented myself as 'Jack' (or 'Shack' as it is now) and frequently been responded to with a jubilant cry of 'Jack El Destripador'. Primarily I assumed they meant 'Jack the Ripper'; however after experiencing some hysterical laughing with the phrase, a part of me convinced myself that 'Destripador' ('D' sounds almost silent) might mean 'Jack the Stripper'. I'd never heard of any such thing but I guessed it might be a thing here. Anyway that was what I was now going with (with a weird half-hearted stripping charade to match).

  So here I was. I presented myself as 'Shack' and the grandfather laughed as he bellowed 'Shack El Destripador', before saying that he himself used to be a 'Destripador'. I nervously chuckled a long as he already struck me as a joker and I thought he was pulling my leg. This was until he invited me to come and look at his car, in which there was a captain-like hat sitting on the dashboard - you know, the kind a stripper might wear as part of a costume. At this point I was a bit more shocked and he continued to say he did it for a bit of cash here and there. I even asked some questions (that now seem transferable between both a stripper and his actual job) and got answers. It was only when he asked me about the dead bodies that I realised that 'destripador' does in fact mean somebody who deals with dead bodies (and 'Ripper') and not 'stripper'.

 Complete and utter 'vergüenza'.

All Black Everything

  A Bucket List is one of things that everyone has, whether they know it or not. Whether they call it a bucket list or a list of things to do before they die, it's an almost constant factor of our DNA. Whether you're watching natural phenomenons on TV, tweeting about your dreams or liking Instagram pictures of paradise locations, it all accumulates towards the hypothetical holy grail of your own personal 'Bucket List'.

Just like watching Uni Varsity...

  Before coming to South America I identified a few items of my personal Bucket List that would be achievable across my Year Abroad. We're talking things like visiting Christ the Redeemer, seeing a glacier, watching a South American football match and witnessing Iguazu Falls (see Chasing Waterfalls to see how that went). There were other items on my list that were put aside for a later time in life, considered unrealistic whilst in this corner of the World: run a marathon, see the Northern Lights, watching the Haka performed live by the New Zealand rugby team.

  Little did I know that, fast forward only a couple of months into my adventure, and I would be standing front row of the local crowd watching the All Blacks line up to perform their enigmatic war cry. We were up against the gated fencing that lines Argentinean stadiums and listened to the autonomous hush of the audience, as an incredible aura of respect circulated around the Estadio de José Almafitani. The black uniforms lined up and the Haka was performed in a way that - predictably - triggered the emotion of awe and admiration that comes when witnessing the elite.

  See the All Blacks perform the Haka live - Tick.