After a highly unpleasant Friday and Saturday (which did end in good news, at least), Sunday was a breath of fresh air. Spent Father’s Day in Princeton with my family, the highlight of which was taking selfies with my two year-old niece. Then headed back to the city for the Argentina v. Bosnia-Herzegovina World Cup game at Novecento, an Argentine bar and restaurant in Soho.

After waiting outside for more than an hour, my friend Lisa and I managed to snag a table and immediately made friends with a guy named Pablo who was decked out in an Argentina jersey and whose parents are from Mendoza. I told him I was here not because I am Argentine myself but because I had been to Argentina for a measly two weeks in February, loved every second of it, and just wanted to be amongst Argentines again. Even though I felt a little foolish admitting I was a wannabe, he approved and we got along great.

The game was awesome in that BIH scored against themselves within 3 minutes, and Argentina held the lead for the rest of the game. The adorable, bedimpled, cartoon-like elfin cutie Lionel Messi scored a goal in the second half, and then BIH scored a goal towards the end, and then there was a nail-biting ten minutes of praying the game would not be tied up and go into overtime. It didn’t, and everyone was joyous.

Being amongst people whose country you are deeply enamored of, while they are winning their beloved game and everyone is best friends with everyone else, is a pretty amazing thing. I knew that if I went it would reaffirm my commitment to learn French and Spanish and that it would motivate me to pick up where I left off about a month ago. And it did. I went home and watched an episode of Destinos, the telenovela for Spanish novices that is actually quite engaging in a strange and silly way.

Additional delights of Sunday at Novecento: I ate a huge hunk of lomo, or beef tenderloin, my steak of choice in Buenos Aires. I admired legions of handsome Argentine men both in the bar and on the soccer field. And I decided there would be worse things you could do than making Argentina your adopted homeland and blowing all your vacation funds visiting on a yearly basis. Thinking perhaps next February will find me hang-gliding in Cordoba or hiking in Patagonia…

¿Quién sabe lo que nos depara el futuro?

[I cheated and did that in Google Translate so I have no idea if it is nonsense or not.]

One thing I do know: next Saturday will find me back at Novecento for brunch and the Argentina v. Iran game. Vamos vamos Argentina!

That’s me in the foreground and my new buddy Pablo behind me. The fuzzy focus captures my warm fuzzy feeling. 🙂