La Furia Roja, or, "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!"

Football - that is, the variety with a funny-shaped ball, and men wearing lots of pads - is very popular back home. People are religious about watching their Sunday football games. They get dressed up. They have parties. Kids on the high school team are mini-celebrities, if they do well. For some, football is life.

Fútbol, however, is a different story. We're talking the no-pads, round-ball, run-for-90-minutes variety here, and as Chuck Klosterman so wisely pointed out, Americans view soccer as the sport for kids who can't play a real sport. It's a little different in California, but the basic attitude is that "real Americans don't play a fake sport" - and by "fake sport," we must understand that "sport not invented in the United States" is what they're really trying to say.

Last night, I went to my very first soccer - er, fútbol - game ever. Cienciano, Cusco's local team, played Toluca, visiting from Mexico, so the fútbol fanatic Thomaz decided it would be a great outing for us all. I shrugged and decided hey, why not? It could be an experience to tell my children about. Maybe there will be riots. That would be interesting.

So, like a good little fan, I bought myself a red and white Cienciano scarf, bundled up for the freezing cold (it had been raining all day and the stadium is open-air), and trooped off with my friends to go watch some crazies kick around a ball. I know, right? But at least we figured there would be beer to keep us warm. Beer and sports are as hallowed a combination as peanut butter and jelly, or ham and cheese, or, shoot, bread and wine.

Well, no beer, but we had lots of amazing popcorn. Ali and I bought, I believe, four bags, and even though we shared some of it, we mostly ate it ourselves while trying to see over everybody's heads. Good thing we're about a foot taller than most of the Cusqueñans or we would have been pretty much out of luck. We arrived late, so most of the seats were taken, but we didn't mind standing. It probably kept us a bit warmer anyway, what with those concrete bleachers and all (hey V-town kids, remember Friday nights at Larrabee in November? It was kinda like that). Everybody sang songs that we didn't know, and some kid with a huge mohawk brought a drum. Quite the experience.

Our team wound up losing in the final minutes, which I have to say was kind of embarrassing, but it hardly put a damper on my evening because, win or lose, there will always be...

HOOLIGANS!