Thursday night was the first game at the "Leones" stadium after the all-star break. Chris left for the field around 3PM. He still won't be activated until next Tuesday, but he is able to go and catch in the bull pen so he can get used to the pitchers. Then a second bus came to the hotel at 5:30PM for all of the American player wives, family and friends.
The bus is really nice...but nothing that you would see in the states. I will have to take a picture of it one of these days and post it on here. It basically looks like a school bus and white limo mixed! Then we went to another hotel to pick up the Venezuelan wives and families. Their hotel is a lot nicer, but they tell us the area is not safe for Americans. We probably only drove 5 miles total but it took us over an hour to get to the field...the traffic is crazy! Plus, people drive insane around here....swerving in and out of lanes. Red lights are only suggestions, mopeds are everywhere and the traffic can best be described as organized ciaos! I have never seen anything like it!
When we got the stadium they dropped us up off right next to the club house. I felt completely safe the entire time. The stadium is huge and can hold up to 30,000 people. The seats are nice, but there are definitely two sections in the stadium...one section is full of nice stadium seats that go from behind home plate all the way down both the first and third base lines to the foul poles, there are food vendors and drink vendors everywhere. But once you get to the foul pole there is the other section separated by a barbed wire fence. There the stadium seats turn into cement bleachers, there are no vendors, none of dancers are out there and you can tell its not the safest place to sit. It was pretty empty on Thursday, but I heard during the big rivalry games that area is packed and thats where most of the fights break out!
I think we were all a little nervous when we got there so we decided to have a beer. Beer vendors are a little bit different too....there is one guy that stayed in our section the whole night. He only worked like 10 rows and he just keep his cooler sitting in the middle of the stairs. He had a piece of cardboard that he used to keep track of the beers we ordered all night and every other person in his section....then you don't pay until the end of the game. When you order a beer they pop the tops and dump it in a cup and walk it over to you. The beers were so cheap. Between the three of us we had like 18 beers (most consumed by Nathan) but only cost 10 U.S. dollars!! Beer is cheap...and so is hard alcohol! They were also selling bottles of whiskey at the game. Full glass bottles....just handed out into the crowd. Ridiculous! And they never stop selling alcohol. There is no 7th inning rule, alcohol is sold until the last pitch.
And while were talking about cheap things in Venezuela....cosmetic surgery doesn't cost nearly what it does in the United States. There are so many women down here with not only breast implants but also butt implants! I only mention this because it is EVERYWHERE!! Aparantly, a breast implant only costs around $900 dollars. Nearly every woman down here has some sort of implant...its crazy. And it definitely makes the people watching at the game very interesting! ;) And not to mention that the games are normally 4 hours long! They change pitchers nearly every inning. So the long games combined with excess silicon and cheap beer and bottles of whiskey definitely make for an interesting night!
In between innings they have dancers...not quite the same as the U.S., they're out fits are just a little more revealing. :) And they also have people that throw out t-shirts. But they don't just throw them....the hang from the top of the stadium on ropes with a pulley and they belay down until they're hanging above the crowd (check out these pictures!). Then when the run out of shirts they turn over upside-down, losen their pulleys and belay all they way down into the stadium. It was so cool, but it would never fly in the U.S. It looked really dangerous!
The team is playing their rivals this Sunday at 1PM...Los Magallanes Navegantes. This match up is basically like the Yankees playing the Red Sox. They expect the stadium to be sold out and crazy! I heard that at the bigger games people in the stadium get so excited that they start throwing their cups of beer everywhere. I will definitely be taking lots of pictures at that game! Stay tuned!!
Day 7 done....41 more to go! (One week is over!)
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