Best birthday ever! It wasn't mine, but this weekend was my friend, Garrett's, 20th birthday. Friday night we went out for dinner and ate a lot of cake before hitting a few clubs. Saturday was when the real fun started, however. Ecuador played Uruguay on Saturday, in Quito- a World Cup qualifying game. It was a HUGE deal. The entire city was decked out in yellow jerseys (the color of Ecuador's team), and there were parades, bands, free stuff, and stilt-walkers. Tickets have been sold out for weeks, but we went down the stadium before noon (the game was at 5) and scalped tickets for $30 each. It was pricey for general admission, especially for Ecuador, but it was so worth it. We bought imitation jerseys on the street for $4, and headed into the stadium around 2 (after buying some beer outside- here you're allowed to bring drinks and food into the stadium! Weird, right?) We really should have gone inside earlier. Even three hours early, the stadium was packed! Fortunately, the Ecuadorians went out of their way to be nice to us once again (it probably helped that 7 out of 9 of us were lost-looking white girls), and motioned us to open seats. We weren't all sitting together, but we were really very fortunate to get seats at all; there were a lot of people standing.

The game was awesome! The stadium was completely full of people of all ages, and everyone was so excited to be there. Even though we had to sit there for 3 hours, the time went by quickly.The only bad part about the game was Ecuador's loss. It's hard to tell when you're watching the game live, but those who watched on TV said that the refs were not so great- when replays were showed, it was clear that they missed some key penalty calls. It's very disappointing. However, if Ecuador beats Chile on Wednesday and Uruguay loses to Argentina… we still have a chance.

After the game we enjoyed more delicious cake, chocolate, that Garrett's host mom made- aka awesome day and best birthday ever! (Except if Ecuador had won… that really would have been the best birthday ever.)