World Cup Semi Final Win

So Ecuador is currently in the running to go to South Africa to compete in the World Cup (that would be soccer people...) We first thought of the idea of going to one of the games played here in Quito because we thought Mom and Holly would like it. We finally decided that we for sure wanted to do it right before they played Peru on the 7th of this month. We reasoned that if Ecuador lost to Peru, the tickets to the next game would drop significantly in price, and since everyone assured us that they would lose, we did not buy the tickets at that time. Well wouldn't you know that Ecuador had to show us by WINNING... After winning Peru, they would next play against Argentina, one of the best teams in the world, for sure the best in South America. So not only did that mean that ticket prices to that game go up, but the fans started lining up outside the stadium to buy their tickets the night before they went on sale. There is no Ticket Master here folks. All tickets to the stadium are sold from a single line (over 33,000 people were at the game, a good deal of them in that line...) leading to a single ticket window. (Efficiency is not our forte here in Ecuador)

As Hannah and I had a full day of studies planned here in Tumbaco, our friend Danny graciously allowed us to delegate the ticket buying to him, as he works in Quito and has a two hour lunch. At that time, we had no idea, the line would be so crazy. Well, to make an incredibly long story short, he got in line at the stadium at 11:00 am and ended up staying there in the line, wrapping around the stadium for 9 HOURS!!!... until 8:00pm! If I had known it would be so insane, I never would have asked for the favor. But it was one of those things where, every hour that passed, it seemed harder to leave the line. It became an investment of time. And not only that, but he knew how badly my mom would want to go to the game. Oh, by the way, that day was one of the hottest days that Quito has had all year, so it was pretty miserable standing under the hot sun all afternoon. There were a number of people that finally gave out from the sun and left the line (better for us!) Danny had to call into work and ask for permission to take the rest of the afternoon off to stay in line. Of course, as they are all soccer fanatics here, the boss was totally cool to give him the day off. Side point, here in Ecuador, most companies give their employees the day off to go to Games. All you have to do it show your game ticket, and it's a free vacation day. Cool, huh?

Ok, so finally at 7:00pm I got a phone call from Danny saying they were going to close the ticket window and reopen at 7:00am the next morning. Danny and his brother Dennis decided that they would sleep there in the line so as not to lose their spot if that is what it took, but fortunately, the stadium decided to leave the window open an extra 3 hours to accomodate the long line, and they ended up getting the tickets just before 9:00pm. What an ordeal...

So that is the story of getting the tickets, here are the pictures of the actual game. Guess who won??

Here we are on the bus on the way to the game at 10:00am. After collecting our fairs, the bus attendent guy asked if we were on the way to the Stadium. We asked how he knew, and he said we just had "the look". He asked where are shirts were, so we took them out of our bags to show him and prove that we were really going to the game. It was funny. We changed into our shirts (very carefully...) before we got off and the driver got a kick out of it.

Below is the first line we had to stand in. We were there for about an hour before the doors opened. Then, once in, we waited in another line that went much quicker to actually enter the stadium.

Second Line

The guy in the tan hat is being escorted out of our seating area. Apparently, he was Argentinian and took someone's seat. A dispute broke out, and the crowds around us started chanting, "Fuera, Fuera, Fuera!" meaning take him out. Giving in to the crowd, Security escorted him out of the section and told him to go hide somewhere else.

The day started out so sunny and so hot. It must have been close to 100 sitting there in the bleachers, 4 hours before the game started to save seats. Luckily we brought umbrellas to shade ourselves as we waited.

There were 33,000 at the game that day, although there were a number of empty seats in the "Executive" section.

These are two boys that sat behind us. They came with their father, a friend of a friend who saved our place in the entrance line earlier that morning. They are even cuter in person than in this picture.

Here's our group... Carmita, Dennis, Jon, Mom, holly, me and Danny. hey, where's Hannah?

Our umbrellas quickly turned from sun protectors to rain protection. Within 30 minutes, we went from 100 degrees and sunny to freezing, and pouring rain. Only in Quito have I ever experienced a climate shift like this.

Hannah and our friend Jon hiding from the rain

The night before the game we were surprised with these gifts from our friends: Team jerseys!!

The Police Force was a bit distracting, and they did absolutely nothing.

We are the bright yellow, blue and red. The Argentinians have baby blue and white stripes. I kind of liked their outfits, but I wasn't allowed to say so aloud.

View from under my umbrella...

Our first goal was pretty exciting. Everyone jumped up and started hugging everyone.

Final Score: 2 to 0 win for ECUADOR!!! And the crowd goes wild.....