2/28 Raymond Li, Freshman Scrum-Half/Wing
The first day of tour started with a full 24 hours of travel. Upon arriving at White St. at 8:30 in the morning, the earliest I had been awake in recent weeks, the squad was preparing to travel. Zana had anticipated that delays and issues would arise, which they did indeed. My van did not depart for Chicago until 11 am EST, leaving us very little buffer time during the ride.
Once we arrived at O’Hare, we were quickly faced with a unique problem: Massimo had tossed his luggage into a different car without informing anyone. Luckily, the crisis was averted as the van that brought his luggage also took it out of the truck with them to the airport. The plane to JFK Airport, where we had a layover, was quite smooth and uneventful.
After landing in New York, the fellas wandered around the international terminal looking for reasonably priced food that was nowhere to be found. We must’ve walked around the entire terminal only to find a grossly overpriced steakhouse, pizza place and Dunkin’ Donuts.
Unfortunately, I don’t have much recollection of the plane ride to Buenos Aires as I passed out almost immediately as soon as I got on the plane and only woke up hours later to get buffalo-ed by Bessie, who was sitting 2 rows back…
3/1 Ryan Grover, Senior Lock
Just like any other normal Saturday, our day started thousands of feet in the air flying to South America. I was sleeping on and off during the flight, dreaming of all the steak and Argentine specialties I could have during the trip. I was so excited that I even said no to some yogurt on the plane, perhaps one of the most shocking things ever.
After a couple of hours, we touched down and somehow managed to get through customs without any struggles (despite our heinous tour cuts, including but not limited to blue hair, a half beard and several mullets). At baggage claim we were also surprised to find UMRFC President Zach Small ready to join us.
We took a lovely bus ride to the location of our AirBnB and started some Prankster. We had a little free time before our check-in so Large, Soupy, Kiyan and I went to exchange some US dollars for Argentine pesos. After realizing that Spanish knowledge was, in fact, even more useful than we had anticipated, we left with about 2,000,000 of pesos in straight cash. A truly great idea.
After some more exploring and our first lunch (which was sandwiches), everyone got into the Airbnb. After 27 hours of travel, we took some much-needed showers and rest to prepare for a full week of fun. We capped off the day with a nice pasta dinner and made our way to explore the city and each other. What a great day to start the Argentina tour.
3/2 Jack Regan, Sophomore Center
Hola!
Our first full day in Argentina started bright and early at noon! A late night caused us all to be a little tired this morning. We then all rallied and walked through the city to a local market where part of the group went to tour a cemetery.
The young boys split off and went to get some empanadas for lunch at Vinnie’s. I had 2 beef, 2 chicken, and 2 ham empanadas. They were delicious. After that we walked through the market where I bought a handmade custom leather belt. It’ll make a great souvenir to remember this trip. My group then explored the city some more and then went home to rest and relax a bit before we went to an Argentinian tasting event featuring steak and carefully selected regional pairings.
After a much-needed nap, we all put on our fine dining attire and headed off outside the city to the tasting. Upon arrival, we were greeted with a beautiful charcuterie board and got to see how they prepared the steak. We all sat together and began the tasting accompanied with empanadas and chorizo sandwiches to pair. Everything was fantastic and it was really interesting learning about what elements give different flavors to different parts of a meal.
Overall this was a fantastic experience and something I will never forget. Cheers!
3/3 Riley Gauthier, Sophomore Prop
Diary
Today started pretty easy, Soupy came into our room blasting music to wake me, Alex (AO), Gage, and Connor Gilfillan (Gilf) up. I got up and went down to McNor, the cafe right below our Airbnb, with Robbie and Josh. I got a torta that I thought was a sandwich but it was actually a cheesecake. Today had a lot of walking but I was running off cake and espresso so it was a pretty long day.
After breakfast, we were headed to San Telmo, where the area is known for its Obelisks and government buildings. The area was really cool with lots of interesting architecture. From there we walked to a large cathedral that was beautiful. Next, we walked to the San Telmo Market. This is a huge indoor market with a bunch of food and shops. Jack, Kiyan, Regan, and I went to a restaurant that served traditional Argentinian food. It was some of the best food I had on Tour and had a really cool environment. I got Regan in the game of sandwich punch. He was quite unhappy but I don’t make the rules 🤷♂️.
After we ate we walked to the take a tour of the tunnels of El Zanjón. This was a guided tour that took us through one of the oldest mansions in Buenos Aires. This was incredibly interesting to see and I learned a lot about the history of this city. We were taken below ground into the old sewer system of the city. When we were done, we walked down the street to a courtyard that had more shops and restaurants. We sat there and relaxed. It had been raining all day and there was finally a break and the sun came out. We also got to see some tango dancers perform. This whole time, the prankster was on the loose. There were not any pranks done so we thought that we accidentally didn’t give the “P” out.
Once we relaxed for a little longer we walked to Gibraltar, a British pub, for some dinner and rugby. While we were hanging out, Luke Zana was reprimanded for playing the Hat Game too loud. We also decided to end the round of prankster because it appeared that no one was pranked. We then figured out that Jamie was the prankster all along. He just was not doing very well. Once the rugby game was over, we called Ubers back to the Airbnb.
The rest of the night was spent there, where we were solving the problem of our power going out. We had a pretty slow night after a long day to prepare for our game tomorrow.
3/4 Conor McNabnay, Second Side Coach
Today we awoke to our first sunny day in Buenos Aires, a pleasant reprieve from the past three cloudy and rainy days. We had nothing planned early so the majority of people slept in, but others took the opportunity to go to McNor, the cafe below our apartment, for breakfast.
We regrouped at our apartment and split off into Ubers headed for La Boca, a neighborhood on the river known for its soccer team and colorful architecture. We met next to La Bombanera, the stadium of Boca Juniors, one of the best soccer clubs in Argentina. Many of us were amused to see Massimo arrive wearing a full kit complete with a mouthguard and scrum cap too. After everyone assembled, we split off into groups and explored the shops around the stadium that were selling all kinds of soccer merchandise. I conversed with the shop owners, locals, and a youth soccer team from Ecuador, finally applying the skills I learned in high school Spanish. After 30 minutes or so we regrouped and it became apparent that there was a prankster on the loose. The team then decided to split up for lunch, my group went to a restaurant called Caminito for pizza, while another group opted for street food. When we finished our meal, we walked further into La Boca admiring the unique colorful architecture of the neighborhood, we even saw the famous corner building with a statue of Messi in the window. We continued strolling through La Boca, finding the Maradonna store where we purchased various jerseys. We then finally met up with the other group who had been at an art museum close to the river. After contemplating going in, we decided to wait for the people who were inside.
After this, all but 5 of us decided to head back to the apartment, however, Gooch, Grover, Jike, Kiyan and I decided to continue exploring. We walked in and out of stores and markets for another 30 minutes only to realize they all sold the same things, soccer jerseys and various Argentine-themed trinkets, tchotchkes, widgets, doodads, knickknacks, toys, doohickeys, gizmos, thingamajigs, novelties, playthings, ornaments, whozeewhatzits, dinglehoppers, and other assorted gadgets. Realizing the time for departure for our game was nearing, we headed back to the apartment. While there, we rested and prepared for our practice/game before boarding the bus for the long ride out to San Jose Rugby Club on the edge of Buenos Aires.
Upon arriving we found a muddy field, waterlogged from the previous days of rain and were greeted by the members of the club. We then got dressed and took the field, finally seeing the new tour kits in action in all their goofiness. We started by doing a joint warm-up and practice with San Jose where we learned some new drills, we then split into teams to practice and discuss our game plans. The game started as the sun set, we struck first with a cross-field kick from Shea to Glusker, San Jose responded shortly after with a try of their own. We went on to exchange scores, ultimately trailing 21-20 going into the final play, however, Zana managed to score a try ending the match 25-21 in our favor.
Upon wrapping up the game, both teams went back to the club house where we exchanged our Michigan merch with San Jose. We then convened outside for an Asado where San Jose served us some delicious Choripan. We spent the next few hours eating and socializing with the San Jose players in English or Spanish. The night ended with a gift exchange, where the president of the club gave us a kit and a plaque to commentate our visit. We then said our goodbyes then boarded the bus back to the apartment, while on the bus we kept ourselves entertained and awake by singing songs.
Upon arriving back home, there was a wahala, it was discovered, much to their dismay, that the room of Jike, Mason, and Noah was locked and couldn’t be opened. Some of us hung out in the hangout room, ultimately retiring to bed at different times with the newly found room-less guys having to settle for couches in other rooms. It was another great day in Buenos Aires, one that highlighted the sporting culture of the country, starting off by experiencing the aura and grandeur of one of the best soccer teams in Argentina and ending with some grassroots rugby.
3/5 Michael Chrismale, Junior 8-Man
Today was a day that never had a true start because the night before felt like it never ended. When we returned to our Airbnb after our game and social at San Jose, Noah, Mason and I were all locked out of our room around 1:30 AM. After eventually calling it quits on trying to open the door around 3:30, we decided we should get some sleep for the quickly approaching 7 A.M. wake-up at the Tigre Kayaking excursion.
After the short nap, we got up and prepared to leave, as I had to borrow some of Regan’s clothes since I couldn’t get my own from my room. Once Soupy got all of us rounded up on the bus, we made a quick stop at Mcdonalds where we waited for our boat to arrive. Their version of a McMuffin was a ham and cheese sandwich between 2 pancakes, which actually wasn’t half bad.
Soon after, we hopped on the boat which was a surprisingly long hour ride before we made it to the delta where we would start kayaking. I was in a kayak with Sam, Nabs, Grover, and Jack, as we started around 9:30 AM. As we progressed along the delta, we made our way right to the front group which was Shea, Zana, Zeem, Louis, and Soupy, we raced our way down the delta until we reached the halfway point, where we both realized that we were way too tired to do it again on the way back. About an hour and a half in was around the time when my boat had enough of my complaining about my wicked sunburn and my lack of access to my room back at the Airbnb, as it felt like it took us forever to make it back to the start of the delta.
Upon returning to the shore, we started our social, where we were given bruschetta and fruit as some of the guys started to make their way into the water for a swim, but I had already had enough of the sun at that point unfortunately. This was around the time when there was a real suspicion of a prankster because AO had repeatedly kept saying “Open the case” and “Yeah I knew that!” for no apparent reason.
Once the social ended, we had to send out small groups one by one on a smaller boat that would lead us to the ferry that would take us back. What was an hour ride felt like two, which was very noticeable due to more than half of the guys passing out on the boat and in Noah’s case, sleeping with his eyes wide open. From there, we took the bus back to the Airbnb, where the guys either chose to nap or hang out on the roof where there was a hot (or in our case, probably cold) tub, and most of the guys had to sit on the edge of the tub since there was only enough space for maybe 2 inside.
Around 8 PM, A group of us decided to get some dinner at La Josefina Barilla, which was probably one of the best meals I had the whole week because of their very high-quality meats.
Once we returned back to the Airbnb, I got pranked by Kiyan to constantly say “I just want to spend so much money right now”, no matter where we were. From there, most of the guys got up to some shenanigans until around 10:30-11 PM, where I and A couple of others tried to rally the guys to go to the Tango club that one of our tour guides the day prior recommended us to go to. Unfortunately, some of us took more time than others, to the point where once we arrived at the Tango club around 12:30 AM, the doorman told us that the show had just ended. We tried to see what other places were still active at this point in the night, but we came to the conclusion that we should probably call it a night since it was only Wednesday and we had three very long days ahead of us.
3/6 Massimo Lorenzetti, Freshman Lock/Prop
Today, I slept in because I had gone out the night before and decided not to go to the mate tasting. Then Noah and I went to Mc Nor coffee shop downstairs from the apartment for a quick lunch. Then we returned to the room and chilled individually before getting ready for the rugby games in San Jose.
We left pretty early because the traffic was going to be heavy. We drove for about an hour and a half, and I slept for most of the drive, although it was very hot outside to an uncomfortable level. We got to the field dressed to play in the tournament of 30-minute games, three being played. We warmed up altogether and got ready to play the games.
I decided not to play in them because I injured my neck in the game on Tuesday a few days earlier. I watched the games, and we won all three, which was apparently a first for Michigan Rugby.
After the games, we took pictures and celebrated in the locker room. We then socialized with the other team, ate food and hung out. We then said goodbye and returned to the apartment.
Then, I got ready to explore the city at night. I left with a big group of guys, almost the entire team, and it was a fantastic time. I enjoyed the scenery and cityscape of Buenos Aires at night and did not prepare to head back until 5 in the morning. Also, some players from the team that hosted us came out and joined us for fun. Then I walked to McDonald’s with friends and got some well-needed late-night food after the long night. Then I went home and went to bed at 7 in the morning.
3/7 Kiyan Jacobs, Freshman Lock
¡Buenos Días!
We woke up on Friday ready to face our last full day in Buenos Aires. Following a slow morning of recovery after a late and gritty night of rugby and bonding at San José, groups of guys splurged on fancy steak lunches. White st residents enjoyed a Michelin-Star steakhouse while 8 other guys, including myself, headed to La Dorita for a fun and delicious Argentine meal. With full bellies of ribeye, flank steak, and even sweetbreads and blood sausage, the team got a head start on cleaning the airb&b before boarding the bus to a soccer game, drenched in blue and white, the home team’s colors.
The team we were going to watch, Vélez Sarsfield, hadn’t scored a goal in all 8 games so far this season, even after winning the league last year. Puzzled, our expectations were admittedly low. After enjoying some local street food outside of the stadium, our guide for the day, Diego, took us into the heavily secured stadium. It was pretty clear early on why Vélez was 0-8 on the season. Fortunately, their opponent, San Martín, didn’t look too great either. We eagerly watched a stalemate of a first half, with Vélez fans behind the goal chanting and playing music for 45 minutes straight. The second half brought the unbelievable: a goal(¡GOOOOOLLLLL!) for Vélez! They held on for the rest of the game and pulled away with their first win of the season. I don’t wanna say it’s because we were there, but the correlation is a little suspicious.
We headed back on the bus in good spirits. Upon arriving back at the Airbnb late at night, we partook in team traditions in honor of our last night of tour before reluctantly getting to bed in preparation for our day of departure.
3/8 Joshua Nicholson, Junior Scrum-Half
Today was our last morning in the Airbnb, and we had to be packed and out the door early in the morning, despite some players’ last hoorah in Buenos Aires the night before. I was packed the night before, and so had no issues, but sounds of “Where’s my shirt” and “Can I put my wine in your box” filled the air. After exiting and loading the bus, we took a short drive to an Irish pub, where many of us were excited to watch the Ireland v. France matchup at the Six Nations. If you can, imagine being the Argentinian waitress, who speaks no English, seeing a group of nearly 30 American rugby players with abysmal haircuts walk in at 10: 30 in the morning asking to be seated for Guinness and pub food. Yes, it was bizarre. Despite the wait, we were able to sit down and enjoy a nice lunch. Since it was still early and slightly chillier today, I decided to order what I thought was a hot chocolate. However, I was brought a class of plain, steaming hot milk with two small chocolate bars that I had to throw in, melt, and stir myself. Despite the mix-up, it was delicious, and a welcome respite from the fact that Ireland got completely dominated by the French defense (another worrying development, almost everyone on the team was rooting for the French).
After paying, the team split up, with many guys walking over to a market to get last-minute knick-knacks. By this point, it was starting to rain, and other guys took refuge at a local bar, spending money on tourist prices for food that they could have bought at the pub — yes, I am judging. Once we finished up, we took the bus to the Buenos Aires airport. This being my first time in a non-English speaking, non-European airport, I was unsure of what to expect, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Argentinian TSA was quick, easy, and so low-tech that you don’t even need to take off your shoes. The initial immigration checkpoint was similarly low-effort, with them just checking my passport and then waiving me through.
Once at the gate, we only had an hour or so before our plane departed. With that much time, a few players decided to invent a new game, Cup Spill, which they had been workshopping earlier at lunch. If your cup is directly on the table, rather than on a coaster or napkin, any guy can come over, call “cup spill”, and knock it over — although the exact punishment is still unclear. Allegedly, the first instance of it was played at a restaurant in the airport. Other than that, the only other notable event was when Massimo Lorenzetti decided to, in the words of the generation, “crash out” after finding out you can’t bring water onto an international flight from Argentina. Despite us telling him that they give you water on the plane whenever you ask, he sulked on his way to dumping out his gallon sized jug of water.
While my tour experience was a fun one that I wouldn’t trade for anything, I am slightly disappointed that the end to my day occurred with me half asleep trying to watch Megalopolis on the plane; partly because I was dead tired and couldn’t sleep and partly because it was a goofy and incoherent movie to end the day. But oh well…
3/9 Connor Gilfillan, Junior Flanker
0:00 I was asleep on the plane.
1:00 I was asleep on the plane.
2:00 I was still asleep on the plane
3:00 I woke up briefly to stretch but then went back to sleep on the plane.
4:00 I was asleep on the plane.
5:00 I woke up finding out I had missed the plane breakfast it was quite sad.
6:00 Finally back in the US, we landed in JFK, got our bags through customs and found our gate.
7:00 We were waiting at the gate for the next flight so I charged my phone and played some Balatro.
8:00 I stayed at the gate charging my phone and watching Youtube.
9:00 Boarded our flight to O’Hare and luckily no one sat next to me!
10:00 I was asleep on the plane
10:00 again (because of time zones) I was asleep on the plane
11:00 I woke up finding out I had missed biscoff cookies on the flight but that disappointment quickly faded as the plane landed.
12:00 We rented cars, said our heartfelt goodbyes to Soupy, and began the drive back to Ann Arbor
13:00 I was asleep in the car.
14:00 We stopped for lunch at Culver’s where I got a burger and some cheese curds. We also played two of my favorite games: Drink Spill and Sauce Finger.
15:00 I was asleep in the car
16:00 I woke up from my nap in the car and played some ranked brawl stars.
17:00 We finally made it back to AA!
18:00 I began unpacking all of my stuff from tour and cooking dinner.
19:00 I talked with my friends in the living room while playing Rugby 25 on the Xbox.
20:00 – 24:00 Tour ended here so there is no more to this day. (I fell asleep)
