The World Cup Soccer

The world cup soccer is over, and the Netherlands made it to the finals, and for the third time got second place. Unfortunately, I could not enjoy and experience this great event at home in the Netherlands. But here is a short impression on how I experienced it all here in Tarija, Bolivia.

First of all, there are not a lot of bars, etc. in Tarija, and no have big screens showing the soccer games. The plazas here were not filled with thousands of fans dressed in orange watching 88 m3 big screens. Since Bolivia wasn’t playing, we had to do with the occasional car, decorated with an Argentinean flag, that drove around and around the plaza, honking its horn after Argentina won.
 
Therefore, we had to be inventive and create our own parties. For instance, the night before Netherlands - Brazil, we had a pre-celebration at Gabriel's house. The guys came up with 3 T-shirts, a Dutch, a German and a Brazilian. Some how I ended up wearing the Brazilian one, I blame the Singani (see text below) or maybe I was just very confident in our team! (the photo quality is not too good, taken with my Iphone at night)

Gabriel (Holland), Lars (Brazil), Mauricio (Germany)

However, I found some enjoyable alternatives;
First of all, one of my favorite restaurants/coffee place has a TV, and since there is a 6 hour time difference with Holland, I could watch some games during my lunch break.
 
Even better were the games we watched at my friend Mauricio’s house, he put up a beamer and we watched a few games there. 

But the best world cup viewing experience was in the new cinema of Tarija. They showed all games on the big screen!!!

Big screen experience, and a royal visit

Watching the final at Mauricio’s, together with Christian, Gabriel, Daniel, Monica and Valarie was intense and great. My god did we scream!!! All of them, like most Latinos, were rooting for Spain. Since no Latin countries made it to the final, all that was left for them was to support the motherland, Spain ;-) So it was just me, dressed in orange, against the whole (Latin) world. But all the orange, all the confidence, all the cheering, all the cursing at the referee, were in vain….. "the clockwork orange" (in spanish also "la naranja mecánica") failed to live up the (high) expectations in the last few minutes.

 Our private theatre

 The orange outfit didn't help.....

 Monica, Valerie, Daniel

It wasn’t Holland’s most beautiful match, and it was a bit rough and hard, so with a sore throat and a small tear in my eyes I had to except the fact that we were only vice world champion (as they call it nicely over here). Spain had won, simple because they were slightly better, and at that day played the better game. 

Luckily, I am not a huge soccer fan, so the next day I faced the music…. or better said, the laughter, jokes, etc. However, most people here thought that we played a good world cup. And even one TV channel praised the Dutch and pointed out that for a small country with only 16 million inhabitants, we did exceptional against all the bigger soccer nations. So with that in mind, I went to pay my dues, because not wining the finals cost me 1 cake (a bet with my Spanish teacher) and 3 bottles of Singani (bets with 2 colleagues at work and one friend)


Overall, it was a fun time, and for a few weeks, we had some good fun and high hopes.

And now for the educational part ;-)
Singani is a grape Brandy made in Bolivia, similar to pisco, distilled from a variety of the muscatel grape grown in southern Bolivia. It is Bolivia's national liquor. Singani is used to make many traditional cocktails, including the chuflay and the yungueño.