World Cup

I would be remiss in remembering our time here without documenting the mania that is the World Cup or Copa Mundial! About a month before the World Cup started, the kids here starting collecting these stickers. Every boy (and some girls) was obsessed with them, taking them everywhere they went. There is one sticker for each player, one sticker for the whole team, and several other random stickers, so more than 1,000 overall to collect. 

The stickers go into an album that has two pages for every team. 

You buy the stickers in packs at the store like you would baseball cards, and then once you have duplicates, you trade them. That's where the fun begins. We bought the boys zero cards, and yet they somehow ended up with over 25, just from kids giving them their extras that they didn't want and then trading them for others. The kids also play these games where you can win them. The trading is so popular that there were Cambiatóns or Trade-athons where groups of people come together to trade the stickers, all over the city: in neighborhood parks, malls, schools, etc. 

Now that the World Cup has actually started, the games are being played all day, every day, everywhere.  Everyone is talking about, everyone is watching it, and all the kids have their favorite teams and players. It's an obsession here, and it's been really fun to be a part of it, even if our enthusiasm isn't quite as high as most. There is a mall here that is full of outdoor sports stores, and they installed a large screen with free viewing of the games. So we went there for the USA v. Australia game last week and had fun watching with our fellow Americans. 

We are going back to the US in July for a visit during our winter break, and it will be fun to watch the games with our nephews and niece, as they also have World Cup fever.

GOoooooooooOOOOooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!