Chivas! Chivas! 050806

**I promise pictures soon! Tonight Daniel and I are going to download everyone's.

Man, what a party! I know that if I don't write this e-mail immediately I will forget tons! And trust me… you don't want to miss this. **I started this e-mail Friday, but got really, really busy so I wrote some notes.
OK… so yesterday was a good day work wise. I got some things done. We got our jerseys, put them on and loaded up the van to go to the soccer game. Chivas (the goats) from Guadalajara were playing the Jaguares from Juarez. What a fun time in the van. We had lots of discussions on different pronunciations… This is fun… If you have any Mexican friends, get them to say the word for female dog and the word for the place with sand and sea… or bear, beer, bird… or sheet and well you know. So we gave pronunciation lessons. We talked about all kinds of fun things on our way across town… For instance, do you know that in cartoons like the Flintstones and the Smurfs all of the names were different?
OK… so the driver drops us off. All you could see all around the stadium was red and white stripes, vendors and people drinking beer everywhere. I know that I have said before that the people look different in Guadalajara and there are some that look much more European. Well I saw a guy that looks just like uncle Lou! Red beard and everything! It was kinda funny though. Some people drank beer from regular bottles but others had these "cups" that looked exactly like really cheap tupperware (the same kind that Chinese food soup comes in). The vendors were selling everything from Chiva wear to peanuts to potato chips. We bought some of the chips. Amazingly, they are EXACTLY like Herr's chips. I couldn't believe it. Claudia (she works for the company and is so super sweet. I really like her. She is around my age.) also got some lime and chili sauce to go with the chips. They weren't super picante, but it really added a nice flavor. We also got some chili flavored peanuts and peanuts that has been coated with something and fried. They were nice too. As we hadn't eaten al day as well, we went and got lonches (it is a type of sandwich.). We got piernas, which are the most popular chiva food… Don't worry, all goats were spared. These were pulled pork on a roll with celery, avocado, and mayonnaise. It was nice… like a pork salad.
We entered the stadium, which is fabricated entirely of concrete and is HUGE! We lumbered up flight after flight of stairs and arrived at our luxury box. Nice, huh? Jose Luis (He is the director of the entire Guadalajara site) was waiting for us with beer and soda and more chips. He is super nice. He is exactly the opposite of what everything thinks of Mexicans in the US. I'd say he is 50ish, extremely well educated, smart as a whip, very much an "executive", and always flawlessly put together.
So, we sat down in the luxury box. I was in the front and waited for the game to start. I figured that the stadium would be packed to capacity, but it wasn't. The nosebleeds were full, but not all of the boxes were taken. Interesting, eh? There was a huge cheering section at the end of the Chivas goal side. They had flags and sang songs and kept going the entire game. Chivas! Chivas! Chivas!
One interesting note, in the stadium, the food wasn't crazy expensive like in the US. You could buy hotdogs or pizza and Chiva cola. Chiva cola is a type of cola that is only sold in Chiva stadium during Chiva games. I bought one for Claron to try.
Well, everyplace you go here you are always learning something. What did I learn most at the Chivas game? I learned all of the things that you hope that your children never come home saying. The first thing we notices is every time the ref did something they didn't like, the entire stadium would start whistling. Hm… whistling! So, I asked Jose Luis (JL) about the whistling… Maybe I shouldn't have… What seemed fairly innocuous, was actually their way from saying FU you F'in A. Sorry. I racked my brain for a way to explain this part of the culture without subjecting everyone to all of the obscenity, but came up empty handed. JL said the words, then the whistle and yes, in fact it was true. Another thing we noticed quickly was when the other goalie was kicking the ball out, the entire stadium started saying something. Early in the game it wasn't too loud, but by the end, it was a ROAR. So… what would you think they would say… well it is another name for a cat. Whoa! I was really just floored. I guess in the US sometimes though when the crowd isn't happy with a ref call, they will shout "A-hole" in unison, but this was way worse!!! In my final "language lesson" the guy in the box next to us was yelling so loud… and yes, they were all in fact obscenities. JL teased me every time a new obscenity came up. I told him that I was going to tell my mom that he was teaching me such fowl language. So, Mom, JL was teaching me bad language (and no, I will not teach you them!).
The game itself was very exciting. In the first half, Chivas had about four attempts on goal that were unsuccessful. Chivas had the ball most of the time. Finally, before the end of the half ended, they scored. The stadium roared! The half time show was so hilarious. Beer girls came out in these teeny tiny outfits and danced around. Then professional wrestlers came out. They played a game where they would choose people to compete for 3000 pesos (300 USD). The person would have to get around all of these obstacles and the professional wresters and get on the stand with the beer girl. These poor guys were getting slammed like no other!! They would never be able to do this in the States for sure! There would be so many lawsuits. Finally, one guy who was really fast, dodged and bobbed his way to the beer girl. It was pretty funny!
The game started again. It seemed like Chivas was just tired. They kept the ball a lot, but they were just SLOW!! The Jaguares got the ball twice and scored both time. RRR! It was 2 to 1 and 6 minutes left, and Chivas scores… so it was 2-2! In the last minute, the Jaguares scored. The entire stadium got up and left. Poor chivas!
On the way out, we had an amazing view of the city. We took tons of pictures. JL said he had to prove to his wife that he was out with the auditors. He was joking though of course. We made our way to the van. I saw one guy selling these awesome Chiva hats. Basically it was like a stuff goat that wrapped around the back of your head and his arms met in the front. They were so cool!
We made our way home. Jose our driver, was actually a US citizen. He said he moved back to G-town b/c he couldn't stand Mexicans in the US. Funny, huh?
We got home super late and I instantly fell into bed. I am getting sick. Stupid sinuses!!! I stopped at Wal-mart and got some medicine though… so no worries!
I have so much to write. This was from Thursday. I promise to try to find some time this weekend.
Cheers,
Amanda
P.S. Chivas played the Jaguares again on Sunday and won! Go Chivas!