I committed a capital offense in the eyes of the sports fans in my homestay this weekend. To be fair, I had no idea what I was doing, but ignorance is no excuse. Let me explain: Saturday afternoon, I went to La Boca, a neighborhood known for its futbol team, Boca Juniors, and I purchased some shorts with their logo as a souvenir (their colors are also the same as Trinity's).
When I got home, I put the shorts on and went up to dinner with my giant homestay family (besides the two parents in their sixties, there are 13 foreign students living in the house, and about 7 of us show up to dinner every night). My host mother asked me what I had done that day, and I told her, in my broken Spanish, that I had done some shopping in La Boca (also a renowned tourist destination). She asked what I had purchased, and I proudly indicated the shorts.
Big mistake. She gasped (a bit dramatically, I thought at the time), and hurriedly told me that my rather gruff host father was a fan of the rival team, River Plate. essentially, it's like someone walked into my house sporting a Yankees hat, and telling me that they just liked the color.
Boca Juniors and River Plate have a rivalry similar to Red Sox/Yankees, except it's even more intense, since they are both located within the city limits of Buenos Aires - imagine the Red Sox and Yankees residing in the same town (somewhere in Connecticut maybe), and how that would intensify the rivalry.
I promised my host mother I wouldn't wear the Boca Juniors paraphernalia in the house anymore, she agreed to hide my logos from my host father, and it was a happy ending for all.
[Sorry this had only a tangential connection to baseball and the Red Sox; I'm working with what I've got.]
When I got home, I put the shorts on and went up to dinner with my giant homestay family (besides the two parents in their sixties, there are 13 foreign students living in the house, and about 7 of us show up to dinner every night). My host mother asked me what I had done that day, and I told her, in my broken Spanish, that I had done some shopping in La Boca (also a renowned tourist destination). She asked what I had purchased, and I proudly indicated the shorts.
Big mistake. She gasped (a bit dramatically, I thought at the time), and hurriedly told me that my rather gruff host father was a fan of the rival team, River Plate. essentially, it's like someone walked into my house sporting a Yankees hat, and telling me that they just liked the color.
Boca Juniors and River Plate have a rivalry similar to Red Sox/Yankees, except it's even more intense, since they are both located within the city limits of Buenos Aires - imagine the Red Sox and Yankees residing in the same town (somewhere in Connecticut maybe), and how that would intensify the rivalry.
I promised my host mother I wouldn't wear the Boca Juniors paraphernalia in the house anymore, she agreed to hide my logos from my host father, and it was a happy ending for all.
[Sorry this had only a tangential connection to baseball and the Red Sox; I'm working with what I've got.]
