Varsity Blues

Well boy howdy that was a weekend to be remembered! Last night especially was amaaazing (apparently "amaaazing" is something Australians say a lot).

Karen, a girl from Canberra/Spanish school who reminds me of Joan Cusack when she´s sober and Joan Cusack being drunk in School of Rock when she's drunk, invited us to go to a Britney Spears tribute show on Saturday. Daniel, a charming German gentleman also from school and our hostel also invited us to go to see an band at the Bibliocafè, a kind of hip restaurant/café just round the corner. We weren't quite sure what they were going to be like but Daniel had heard that they were an oi band - hi Mum and Dad, "oi" is a type of punk music that skinheads like. Both seemed deeply appealing so we rejoiced to discover that Britney was on at 7 and the band not until midnight.

Britney was disappointing. I can not pretend otherwise. It was not so much a ¨tribute show¨ as ¨a bunch of jerks dancing around to Britney songs.¨ I would have liked a singer or at least a little bit of mime. But it was still a rocking good time in the old Auditorio Pachamama.

One quite funny thing was that, before the gig, Karen and Ro each bought a bottle of Coke from an old women at a kiosk stall. She stressed that she would like them to return the bottle once they had finished drinking. They recycle glass bottles a lot here, which is of course great. "Certainly," they said. She stressed this sentiment three more times. "Of course," they said uneasily. Then we went into the show and halfway through a woman who appeared to be working at the venue came up to us. Did we have any Coke bottles, she asked, there was a little old lady waiting outside desperate to get them back. I have no idea how she found us ("FIND ME THE GRINGAS" I imagine she demanded) what she was planning to do with them.

After that we headed to the Bibliocafé for food and music, but not before stopping in at little sports stadium on the way to watch the end of a game of futsal between a couple of universities. Kind of like Uni Games. Futsal is just indoor football really. Which is just indoor soccer really, if you're Australian. There were only two minutes left of the game though.

The band was pretty boring to be honest. It turns out that they were not actually oi punk, but were called "Oi." In fact I think they might have been called "Oil." They were sort of like Karnivool only with a couple of guys switching between reed flutes, pan pipes, African drums and didgeridoos. They were not unskilled on the didgeridoo, I have to say. The rest of the band were relatively dull though. One amusing thing, though, was that Ro ordered a Café Moca. Which is evidently just a mocha. What they brought her, however, was a coffee with vodka. Black and instant. After she told the waiter and got her mocha, though, he had the audacity to charge us for this ridiculous International Roast con Vodka concoction, which was as violently foul as you might have predicted. It cost 20 big Bolivianos too! I felt obliged to attempt to drink some of it after that, but I didn't get far.

Sunday night was less of a blowout. We were completely exhausted and decided to have an early night. At 8.30 we were sitting around in the hostel and I was just getting ready to make myself a pre-bed Milo (they have Milo here! In Chile too. It's not quite the same, though), but then a nice Australian gent called Tommy came along and we got chatting about the futsal game we'd seen last night and decided to go see if there was anything else on at the stadium. We'd stay for 20 minutes or so, we thought. So we checked out the end of a men's basketball game, which wasn't overly interesting. Next was the women's basketball. We noticed a strange buzz in the stadium, and found ourselves seated next to the most hyperactive, excited group of students in the WORLD. They were chanting, yelling, jumping and dancing, taking their shirts off, waving flags, banging balloons and bottles together and drumming their feet on the ground to make noise. They had come from Santa Cruz and I absolutely could not fault their devotion to the Santa Cruz women's basketball team. As Tommy said, "I cannot believe that this is happening at a women's basketball game on a Sunday night."

At first there were about 20 of them but by the end of the game the numbers had swelled to around 35, and that didn't include us as we were swept into Mexican waves and chants of "Viva Santa Cruz". I've never felt such devotion to a sporting team before. It was completely awesome and I'm pleased to announce that our girls played a magnificent game, completely crushing Tarija or whoever the other team was. When the final buzzer went, the guys flooded the court and swept the girls into an embrace and they jumped around the court for a good ten minutes.

The really cool thing is that, just before the end of the match, Ro was befriended by a Santa Cruz gentleman who was sitting next to her, and he invited us to come hang out at the after party. And it was amazing! It was held in a big sporting yard... kind of thing... in the open air, with concrete bleachers all around, and there was a stage set up with a band playing, and men and women outside selling pizzas and fried food and this crazy drink in plastic cups made of vodka, milk and cinnamon and served hot. Which sounds awful but we decided to try just a cup and it was incredibly tasty.

Then we danced with our new friend Pierre and one of the girls from the basketball team came and dragged us over into the circle where all the Santa Cruz kids were dancing. And then Pierre pushed me into the circle to dance with this enormous guy who seemed to be, I don't know, Sports Captain or something, and it was kind of terrifying, but I busted some moves and they all cheered for me! Everyone was suuuuper nice, which was exciting because we are sometimes treated with suspicion by the ladies. I think they think we want to poach their men. Honestly you guys, it was like the end of an American varsity film, only BETTER. I kept thinking the camera was going to spiral above us and the credits would slam down over us to the tune of "All The Small Things" by Blink 182.

Now I want to go to Santa Cruz because everyone was so completely great. There were other schools at the after party but the Santa Cruz kids were definitely having the most fun. The best thing was that they had to go back to Santa Cruz that night so we still got to bed before midnight! Party on.

Ro is unwell at the moment. Please give her your love and maybe send her a nice email?