Sunday August 17th, Quito vs. Barcelona

PART I

I woke up, stretched for a long time and then put my head back down, because I had a long day ahead of me. Breakfast as always at the hostal was really good. The marmalade was its usual, amazing. As we were getting ready to leave we packed up everything, no games, it was just packing, packing and more packing (except for a soccer ball, more on that later). It wasn’t straight out the front door, mom and Ainsley took a little bit longer to get ready and then it was straight out the door. We had a little stop in the courtyard to look at the humongous fig.

We buzzed ourselves out and to the cab, it was to the cab. “Estadio Olimpico” we said to the cab driver. “Quanto Cuesta?” Vrrrooommm!….and we were off to Estadio Olimpico (the soccer game of my lifetime).

In the cab, I thought it was going to be one of those movies where you came into the stadium and it was the coolest preparation ever for a game. And you know that music, right? Now, we just got out of the cab and there were so many different fans of each team and we went to this guy and bought two tickets. Two tickets, OK. Two tickets, we bought two tickets! Then there were three parts of the ticket. One for the gate. Two to get inside the stadium and one for you to keep (and this ticket mostly goes in our journals). Then we past and gave out our second part of our ticket and I was ready for the awesome music. Then there was……a soccer game already going on (the preliminary game). L But, one of the teams was from where we were staying next (Cuenca). J

PART II

Tweet!! And the game was on! My brain went so many different ways. It was so exciting, but the only problem was that it wasn’t going to be as exciting if either team scored a goal. A little bit into the game Quito – 0, Barcelona – 0.

Have you ever been to Loco Pops before? Well, if you think I am going to tell you how much I miss Loco Pops, you are wrong. Because, we got LOCO POPS, helados actually, at the soccer game and popcorn. There was this one goal attempt which almost untied the game to put Barcelona in front. There was a quick from about mid way to an open Barcelona player, then from the Barcelona player’s perspective you could see three things. The goalie, a Quito player and a Barcelona player running up behind them. He kicked the ball right in between the goalie and the Quito player. It had it right there, setup for the Barcelona player to do a sliding kick right for the first goal of the game. Ground ball was going, going, going, into……the goal! OK, maybe I was stretching the truth a little bit. Yeah, he went a little bit too late and the ball went right past the goal. Tweet, Tweet! Halftime.

INTERMISSION
Hey, we’re back with more. Quito – 0, Barcelona – 0 If you could have seen this ballgame there were so many attempts (mostly by Barcelona), but sadly we had to leave early because we had to go on a plane flight and you know I would have rather stayed and not gone to Cuenca in the first place because I could have watched the rest of the soccer game as well as not have to go on our plane flight (editors note: Jack doesn’t like plane flights!) Maybe I was a little bit more happy, the fans went crazy, loco. They were so loud you should……n’t have been there. But, all together the soccer game was an experience of a lifetime and Cuenca here I come!

p.s. We accidentally left the soccer ball at the hostal.

p.p.s. Thanks for reading and thanks for all of your comments. We enjoy reading them.

Jack