It was now Sunday morning, and we knew it was going to be a big day. First of all, England was playing Germany in a game I was very, very scared to watch. And after that was another game I was pretty scared to watch, but for a completely different reason:
Mexico/Argentina. In the Zocalo. With a whooooole lot of people.
After a strange hotel breakfast where we witnessed Mexican family ceremonies and couldn't get any bacon, we headed to the hostel bar so Milo could buy a Mexico shirt and get his face painted (really). Then we went to the square to catch the 2nd half of the England game. It was already 2-1 Germany (should have been 2-2, motherfuckers!), and the square wasn't that packed. Germany quickly made it 4-1 while Milo laughed at me. There was plenty of time in between games, so we went for a walk, thinking it wasn't going to be as busy as we thought.
Wells, we were fucking wrong.
When we got back, there were people EVERYWHERE. The entire square was full. Every side street in every direction was jam packed for at least a block. We managed to wade through the crowd and get inside the square. Every Mexican was being thoroughly patted down and having all their shit confiscated. Milo and I? Waved right on through, didn't even touch us. Goooo being white!
We we absolutely surrounded by people. The dudes in front of us were wearing Mexican flags as capes and lucha masks and looked pretty funny. Milo wanted me to take a picture of him with them, but I was still a bit creeped out by this many people in one place and was a bit testy about that. Sorry, dude. People weren't allowed to bring bottles into the square, so a lot of people had plastic bags full of water or pop. It was brutally hot and there was no shade to be found. Oh yeah, there was one other thing not to be found:
Bathrooms. NONE. For that many people. What the hell?
It turned out that there were about 250,000 people in and around the square for the game. It was absolutely insane. Along with them, there were at least 3000 riot police, 4 deep, surrounding the entire square. All with their full shields, machine guns, and gear. There were 5-10 police helicopters constantly circling over top of us. And SNIPERS on the roof presidential palace. It was fucking unreal.
I was way too scared to take pics of any of them, but Milo was all over it - he took a pic of the riot cops that turned out pretty funny. Half of them were pointing at him to lower the camera very sternly, and the other half are smiling and cheesing it up. It's too fucking bad I lost my stupid camera - it was pretty cool.
The anticipation was unlike any sporting event I had ever attended or watched before. Mexico got a chance in the first few minutes, and I couldn't even hear myself think it was so loud. Unfortunately Argentina got a BS goal where Tevez was waaay offside pretty early, and that sucked the life out of the crowd. By halftime it was 2-0, very hot and stuffy, and there were no BATHROOMS, so we decided to get the fuck outta the square and catch the 2nd half somewhere else. I'm really glad we did, because one of the highlights of the trip (for me at least) happened on the way out.
After wading through thousands of people and police officers, we got out to the street. A bunch of kids were hitting a big (but heavy) beachball around in the crowd. We walked by...and some dude just fucking spiked the thing right into the side of Milo's head. I'm not lying when I say that at least a thousand Mexicans and one gringo (me) burst into hysterical laughter, while Milo rubbed the side of his head and wondered what the hell just happened to him. Once he figured it out he was laughing too, but it was unbelievably funny. A "had to be there" moment probably, but any public embarrassment Milo suffers is always hilarious. And common.
After walking by some Mexicans who stole a mascots costume head and were having pictures of themselves with it on while smoking a cigarette (yeah, weird but funny), we got away from the crowd and just wandered around the Centro. Every little store had a small TV set up and everyone was watching the game. The streets were pretty much deserted, which was ridiculously weird after watching 20 million people stomping around 24/7 for the last 2 days. Mexico finally scored, and even though we were nowhere near a TV, it was blatantly obvious. The entire neighborhood just blew up with cheering from every window, every store, every car. It was amusing.
We wound down the day with some retarded antics I'll describe in the next part, but that was our Mexican soccer experience. The biggest reason for this trip was to go to a country that was playing in the World Cup, and we got to see firsthand how fanatical Mexican fans were. And how surprisingly accepting they were when they lost. No rioting, no crazy shit...just acceptance. It was cool.
This was not our last soccer story by a longshot though. Milo's love for the Dutch team led to many more strange and amusing tales. Stay tuned for more.
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