Aussie Aussie Aussie

It was with much trepidation that I stepped tentatively into the world of the Aussie sports fantatic. Here they all are wearing their yellow t-shirts and going beserk in a crowd of about 60 thousand fervent Uruguayans. As you can see from the picture I couldn't quite bear to wear the t-shirt that the Australian Embassy kindly gave us but tried to make some effort by draping it ever so stylishly over my shoulder. The locals also kindly provided us with some security in the form of several hundred police decked out in all black, with helmets, riot shields, guns and big sticks. Nice gesture but not that reassuring when we arrived - what exactly were they expecting? However we needn't have worried - the Urgies (as I like to call them) couldn't have been nicer. Some of them even applauded us when we finally left the stadium with our police escort and I have to say they feel so passionate about their futbol I will probably feel bad if we beat them.

Even though I find futbol a little dull at times it was a pretty interesting people watching experience - I particularly liked our own little Aussie cheer squad made up of me and Ed, Dan the pom, Chantal the American and Ezekiel the Argentinian. I think these three were more patriotic than me - oops.
Apart from the footy Montevideo was an interesting little city, very picturesque, sleepy, laid back - quite the anithesis to the frenetic, neurotic, stylish, sleepless BA just accross the river. The best thing about the place? the garbage in Monte is collected by horse and cart - and quite often these horses wear hats.....go figure.

Ed looks like he's spotted a horse wearing a hat on the streets of Monte.