The first Friday night of September in Texas is traditionally spent attending the first football game of the season. As a band director, it also came with anxiety about the first show in front of real live humans, and also the slightest twinge of guilt that you were secretly wishing for a loss to make sure marching season ended before Thanksgiving.
The first Friday of September 2013 was spent at a stadium as well, but despite a few similarities, was a whole new experience. We attended the World Cup Qualifier Game Chile vs. Venezuela at the Estadio Nacional here in Santiago. We put on our official "La Roja" gear,I bought an obnoxious red, white and blue Horn thing, and we joined the masses migrating to the neighborhood of the stadium. We arrived quite early to make sure we got decent seats with our cheapest tickets in the Galeria. It was fun to watch the seats fill as game time neared. At one point, I noticed some particularly enthusiastic Chilenos with painted faces behind us and asked them if they could do me the honor of painting my face to make me more Chilena for the night. They obliged, and also snapped photos the entire time. I'm guessing there is hash tag gringaloca somewhere... No importa.
Gringos love Chile too.
We participated in the wave, choruses of chants, and songs. A few of my faves:
The ever so classic: CHI! LE! CHI CHI CHI! LE LE LE! VIVA CHILE!!
The "we can't settle on the melody" : Vamos! Vamos Chilenos! Esta noche... Tenemos que ganaaaaaaar!!
The very Chilean: " se ganaron Los wueones"
The Obvio: "otro gol Chile otro gol"
The "leave it to the Chileans because those garabatos make me uncomfortable"....
Also, immediate noticeable cultural difference: whistling= booing for us, as in, is a negative thing. My favorite thing of the night was the surround sound of cat-calling (woo-wooooo) every time the Venezuelan goalie got the ball.
2nd favorite thing was when the random kid ran on the field in the last to minutes to give Alexis Sanchez a giant (creepy and a little long) bear hug. We won 3-0 which means we qualified for the World Cup! (Chile va al Mundial... Another song).
Warming up:
The military band even joined to play both Anthems (hence the flip-folders. I admittedly judged them for not memorizing their music until they busted out another country's Anthem).
VIVA CHILE!
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