So on tuesdays and thursdays (well, just this past tuesday and thursday but we will in the future), we all go and play a lil pick up ball at this massive park, La Carolina. Its about a 15 minute walk from my place, whereas the others have to bus it over. Thank God theres an advantage to where I live. The park itself is MASSIVE, its a place where one can run (because if you did it around the city, people would look at you like hey look at this massive toolbag), play soccer, play basketball, or vollyball.
I have to tell you a lil about soccer and vollyball here. They are BY FAR the two biggest sports. Soccer, as you could imagine, is something every south american loves. Kids are kickin around soccer balls along with 80 year old men. When I first went, I saw what appeared to be a whole team dressed in blue uniforms training hardcore. At first I thought, whoa this must be a serious bunch of guys my age ready to kick ass, because they were running around really hard and pushin it to the limit. But NO, these dudes upon closer look were around 40 - 50 years of age just truckin it. Man, I hope to be doin that when Im that age.
Vollyball is also a huge deal. They play a lil different, with 3 guys on each side and with a higher set net. When you think about it, the higher net makes absolutely no sense because Ecuadorians, for the most part, are really tiny. Im a BEAST here in this country if this gives you any idea. Anyways, people love this sport for two reasons: 1. its fun and easy to play, and 2. people looooove to gamble on who is goin to win. I saw one game where there must have been 40 to 50 people standing around watching, eating, drinking, and yelling at what they were seeing. Its kind of funny to think of dudes really kickin their own butts into gear, while other dudes are pounding beers, eating sausage, and throwin cash money down. But c'est la vie, asi es la vida, thats how it goes, etc.
Ok, back to BALLIN. So we go the first day (last tuesday) to see if we can get a pickup game. Fortunately, there are ecuadorians ballin. . .so we jump in, play for about an hour and a half, and dip out. It was fantastic. They actually arent half bad, I thought we were going to be literally like the Harlem Globetrotters but they had some semblance of a game. The second time we went (last thursday), it was a lil different. There were a few more dudes, including this one guy in black who thought he was a cross between Chris Paul and Allen Iverson. Except. . . . . .he wasnt. He kept tryin to do moves and drivin the lane through about 3-4 people and always got STUFFED. It was kind of funny to watch him struggle. What wasnt funny was near the end of the game, when my buddy Greg got his bag stolen from right under the basket. In retrospect, we didnt play it smart and put it near right in front of the court where it would have been incredibly obvious that someone was walking away with it. . .but still. 5 days in ecuador and already someone has their belongings jacked. NOT COOL.
All right, well that should do it for this entry. Until next time. . .
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