Celeste madness, again.

You may have heard by now that Uruguay won the Copa América 2011, the South American competition of football teams. It was no mean feat to eliminate Argentina in their home turf in quarter finals, especially because the locals played well. Mexico and Peru went before, and our last rival, Paraguay, eliminated Brazil.

The explosion came last Sunday evening, after the final game with Paraguay ended with a 3-0 victory.



The city went stark, sky-blue mad for several hours. From grandparents to grandchildren, everybody went to the streets just to shout and wave the flag. I got the old camera out and went to the Rambla to see what was happening.



Hard to see who was crazier - us on the sidewalks or the car passengers!



People were heading to the Centenario stadium, to wait for the winning team. The team arrived there at 3 AM. Lots of disorders in the old stadium; nothing was prepared for the very long wait, and it seems that vigilance was slack. But then, who would have dared to prepare a celebration when the game was still to be played? It would have been most un-Uruguayan.



Next day, Monday, the city was a long yawn. Everybody had stayed up late, but there were a lot of happy faces. I had never seen before so many sky-blue pullovers, ties, shirts, you name it. A new fashion trend must have started while I was sleeping!