Beautifully unplanned

Today was surprisingly amazing, considering that I didn't do anything I'd planned. Maybe this isn't something unique to Argentina at all, and it's just me finally realizing that I don't need to make plans for everything all the time. I'm so used to trying to efficiently cram in as much activity as possible into one day, especially after living off campus last semester, when my schedule had to be much more rigid because of the drive. Even the weekends were engineered to be efficiently fun. That's not to say I was inflexible, but I was always planning, planning, planning.

I woke up today with a few options in mind--San Telmo market, back to La Boca, buying supplies for paint class, picking something interesting out of a guide book--but nothing seemed that urgent. So when Emily asked if I wanted to play soccer, I said yes without hesitation. Rose had really wanted to sit around in a park reading and drinking mate, but after some indecision she caved and came along. We took the subway to Emily's friend Brenda's. When we got there, Brenda said we could either go to a nearby plaza to play or take an hour-long busride to a huge park in Belgrano. After a half-hour subway commute, an hour-long busride did not appeal, but the little group seemed to be leaning toward it so I wasn't going to be the aguafiestas (party pooper) to ruin everyone's fun.

We walked a bit to the bus stop, and had some pleasant bus conversations, but I was having lots of bus second thoughts. The route ended near a medium-sized plaza, and it was fifteen more blocks to the big park. We almost gave up and played in the plaza, but there were no good spots. So finally we made it to the Belgrano park. We set up some goals with bags and water bottles and played a little bit of two-on-two, but some nearby young men kept asking us to join them despite our protests that we were terrible. After some introductions and cheek-kissings all around, we started to play six-on-six.

It was the most wonderful soccer game I've ever played. Nevermind the fact that I am mediocre at best, and most of the guys were more pro than anyone I've ever played with. No one was keeping track of scores, and the teams were evenly matched. It was about playing, not about winning, and for once I stopped feeling incredibly embarrassed every time I passed to the wrong team. I truly enjoyed the near-impossible game of trying to get the ball away from guys with magical footwork who seemed bemused by my efforts. It was all so beautiful, and sometimes during slow points I stopped and thought, How could this day be any more perfect? I'm in a beautiful park in a beautiful country playing a beautiful game with beautiful people. Incredible.

I liked the part where we got nicknames. They called Emily (who is from Iowa) "Chicago," and I think Rose and I were both "Texas" for a while before they switched to "Rubia" and "Roja" or something like that.

After playing forever, Rose and I met Pablo and León, Emily and Brenda's friends. They were really cool and funny, and I felt terrible that we kind of screwed things up by not bringing any of our stuff with us to the park. We could have gone out to eat with them or driven around the city some more, but we didn't even have phones to call home and say we'd be late, so I didn't want Miriam or Maruja to worry too much. Oh well, next time...

I think my bed was made for someone half my size and weight. I woke up with a very sore back today, and it's probably because I've managed to carve a depression in the matress after only two weeks. I guess I wasn't sleeping in it properly last night.