Tag: argentina

Mi Buenos Aires Querido

For the last weekend of September, my classmates Holly, Charlotte and I took a plane across the to the other side of the Andes to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

We arrived in Buenos Aires in the evening after a turbulent flight. The thunder and lightning reminded me of the scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when the Order of the Phoenix were transporting Harry to the Burrow. Once we arrived at Ezeiza Airport, we took a taxi to our hostel which was located in the Palermo District of Buenos Aires. The hostel was nice and was more like as all the rooms were privates and breakfast was free. After we arrived, we went to a bar and restaurant in Palermo where I pint of beer was an amazing $70 Argentinean Pesos (£1.50/$2.00 USD)!

The next morning we were woken up by one of the heaviest storms I have ever seen in my life. It was a humid day with thunder and lightning and the rain bouncing off the pavements. Our first trip of the day was to the ticket office to buy our tickets to the Argentina vs New Zealand rugby match. After drying off, we then went to the Evita Museum where we learned about the life of former Argentinean President Eva Perón.

Later, we took a trip on the metro to the El Ateneo, the biggest bookshop in the world. As well as the sheer number of books, the architecture in the building was grand as the building was once a theatre. Some of the artwork on the ceiling resembled that of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Before going to the rugby match, we went for a pizza at one of Buenos Aires’ many pizzerias. Pizza in Buenos Aires has a very good reputation as a result of high Italian immigration to Argentina and to this day the majority of Argentineans have at least one Italian ancestor. After enjoying the pizza went to a 45- minute bus trip to Liniers to watch the rugby.

The next morning we went a tour round some of the main sights in Buenos Aires. Thanks to the amazing public transport and SUBE cards that you can use between people, we were able to see quite a few things in one day. Our first port of call was the Sunday market at San Telmo, which had various articles such as souvenirs, antiques and sports merchandise. Afterwards, we took the metro to the La Boca, a colourful neighbourhood decorated with murals and home of Boca Juniors, one of the most successful South American football teams with ex-players including Diego Maradona. We witnessed first hand the religiosity of Argentinean football when due to Boca Juniors playing at home, the whole neighbourhood went into shut-down so everyone could attend the match at La Bombonera.

We then went to Plaza de Mayo which lies next to La Casa Rosada, the residence of the President of Argentina. The square is often a flashpoint where demonstrations take place and crowds also gather to listen to the president.

In the evening, we went to a restaurant to try some local Argentinean steaks. At the restaurant we went to, we got a discount as we arrived early and if promised to vacate the table by eight o’clock. However, we had to wait a while for the food to come out so as a result, the staff made up for the delay by allowing us to stay for as long as we liked and by giving us free champagne and lollipops! The steaks and wine we had were amazing and the steaks were an enormous 700g!

Going to Buenos Aires was an amazing experience and it was such a fascinating and charming city. I will definitely add it to the list of places to return to in the future. I even picked up the Argentinean accent I liked it so much!

 

 

 

 

Argentina vs New Zealand- 2018 Rugby Championship

For many years whilst living in Scotland, I have seen many Rugby Championship matches on television and I have also been to a very high number of Scotland home internationals in both the Six Nations and November Test series. However, I managed to get tickets to watch Argentina play New Zealand in Buenos Aires.

The game comes with what has been a very interesting Rugby Championship. Argentina have won two games, one of which was a victory over Australia in the Gold Coast in their previous match whilst New Zealand came into the match having just lost to South Africa in Wellington, breaking a 22-game winning streak. The situation made for an exciting encounter between two top-class sides.

After taking the45-minutes bus journey from Palermo in centre of Buenos Aires to the outskirts on the west of the city, we arrived at the Estadio José Amalfitani, home of Vélez Sarsfield. one of Buenos Aires’ many football teams. After a slightly chaotic entrance to the ground, we made it into the stadium and we were amazed by the atmosphere and the sheer number of fans that had turned out. It was reported that the match had been sold out, even after 2,000 extra tickets were put on sale in the run-up to the match. After the singing of the national anthems and the haka, the match got underway.

Argentina played very good attacking rugby and played a similar style game to that of previous weeks, passing the ball across the width of the pitch. However, Argentina struggled with the set pieces and gave away try-scoring opportunities because of this. They also struggled defensively and missed quite a few tackles, allowing New Zealand to gain territory quickly. I do however feel that Argentina’s main issue was the number of unforced errors. They often gave away knock-ons and turnovers when they were in try-scoring positions. One example of which was a penalty in the second half when Argentina were on New Zealand’s 5 metre and fly-half Nicolas Sanchez bizarrely chose to play a cross-field kick intended for Moroni when running the ball or a scrum would have been a much better option from that position.

New Zealand played very well in the first half particularly. They soaked up quite a bit of phases but played an outstanding passing game, creating frequent overlaps allow them to tear through the Argentine defense with relative ease. New Zealand are known to be a very streetwise it was very apparent throughout the game. Although Sonny-Bill Williams was sent to the sin bin for repeated infringements in the first-half, New Zealand assumed that if they stopped Argentina both legally and illegally from scoring a try, they would eventually make mistakes, which they did. Beauden Barrett was solid between the sticks and slotted over all of his kicks, something which he has often struggled with in previous matches.

The match finished Argentina 17 New Zealand 35, but Los Pumas can take a lot of pride from the match and can hopefully build on it for their final match against Australia in Salta. New Zealand on the other hand have won their third Rugby Championship title in a row and will play South Africa away in the final round.

As someone from the Northern Hemipshere, it was an amazing experience and one of the best games of rugby I have ever attended. The quality of rugby was outstanding and the atmosphere was amazing. The matchday experience will definitely be one of the highlights of my time in South America.