My second stop in Chile was Viña del Mar, a spa town close to Santiago de Chile and a destination for its inhabitants in summer time. As I was still coping with Chilean Spanish – which is hard to understand because of the well sounding but confusing mumbling of words – I was happy to be at the hotel of a family once coming from Offenbach am Main, Germany.
In the evening hours I was sitting alone on the roof terrace of this hotel, my host was bringing me a bottle of Chilean wine and I was just enjoying the lights of the city underneath. While some people where getting a big television ready I was asked whether I want to watch soccer. Normally I have all important games on my mind and I often watch games in bars while travelling – but in this case I was not expecting something important.
In fact it was a friendly game between Brazil and Chile – and it was heavily discussed by the family members being part of different generations. Some speaking German, some speaking English and some only speaking Chilean Spanish – some translation work was necessary on this evening. But therefore I got to know great players like Eduardo Vargas, Alexis Sánchez, Marcelo Díaz and Jorge Valdivia.
In the end Chile lost 1:2 against Brazil (Hulk and Robinho scoring for Brazil, Vargas for Chile) but on this evening I added the gameplay of Eduardo Vargas to the list of things I want to see again.
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