Fútbol in Mexico City

For a while it felt like there wasn’t anything “blogable” happening here… wonderful daily life, but nothing new to report. Then we traveled two weekends in a row and were too busy to keep you up to date!
We had a wonderful trip to D.F. where we visited fellow Fulbrighters and explored the hip and very green (as in parks and trees) Colonia Condesa.

Parque Mexico




There are 16 colonias (boroughs) in Mexico City. We planned to visit the Colonia Coyoacan, but by the time we finished our bus and taxi rides we were ready to walk instead of taking another 30-40 minute cab ride! So we had a great time walking around the neighborhood, exploring the parks and eating yummy salads!





We went to a restaurant that reminded us of Urth Café! On Sunday we attended our first soccer game: Americas (Mexico City team with an eagle mascot) vs. Chivas (Guadalajara team with a goat mascot). The game was in the Estadio Azteca, which was used during the 1968 Olympics and seats 105,000 spectators.

Estadio Azteca


It was really an incredible experience. We were sitting near a caged viewing area with barbed wire atop the fences and riot police guarding the perimeters. We discovered that people self-selected themselves as hardcore fans that needed to be contained—they bought more expensive tickets to be in that area! The game was much more exciting than I expected, but the people-watching was really the highlight. The vendors were climbing over people to sell mini Dominoes pizzas, fruit, Maruchan instant ramen cups with lime, and beverages. In our section there were fans dressed in both teams’ gear and everyone seemed to be getting along. The Fulbright-Comexus organizers kindly warned us not to wear the teams’ colors or to bring anything that could be stolen. Including cameras. During the game I was really disappointed not to have a camera, but as we left I understood why… there was a mad push on the way out and there were times when I felt like I didn’t need to move my feet! It would have been easy for people to grab a camera or purse during that.


Hola a todos. I’ll recap some of what Naomi already blogged about. The visit to Mexico City to see a full on fútbol game was out of this world. El Estadio Azteca held aprox. 120,000 people! The place was buzzing with chants from the rival squads that you could feel in your bones. It was Américas vs. Chivas, which was on par with the Yankees and Red Sox rivalry.

Américas vs. Chivas


Not a seat was empty and almost everyone was wearing their respective team's color. I was secretly rooting for Chivas (I was surrounded by Américas fans) who won by the score of 2 to 1. But before the game, we were briefed by the Fulbright staff (who by the way organized the whole trip) not to wear belts with buckles or any yellow or red clothing. I was expecting some full on belt fights between the fans but there were no outbreaks except for some Chivas fans who were lighting fireworks across the way and shooting them at Américas fans below (ouch).
Taxi Ride