Football!

This is why I love being a girl and a foreigner, sometimes.

We bought tickets to a football match, the Euro Cup Qualifier. Armenia versus Russia. The place to be on March 26th at 7:00. Actually, the place we needed to be at 6:00 or earlier to ensure we were able to get our seats...

My friend and I bought our tickets off of another volunteer that arranged it through another guy and so on. Thanks to said volunteer for organizing it, that was great of you! To continue, so we had our tickets and like the two previous football matches I had attended, we just had to show up. Little did we hear or know that we needed to be there an hour or more before the game's kickoff to ensure our tickets would be valid. Apparently the ticket sellers sold about 300 extra tickets and the only way to ensure your seat was to show up way before the game started. Having been to two previous games where this was never an issue, I did not think the stadium would be sold out and then some.

As we walk up to the gate and see the crowd (at this point we still dont know we would be refused), we walk up to the police officers and show them our tickets, expecting them to point us to the entrance. They said we were too late and that our tickets were no longer good. They sympathized with us as much as to say, sorry we can't help. As the story unfolded about the number of seats vs number of tickets sold, the Russians who pushed their way through and the fact that other volunteers who were there an hour early were still having trouble getting to their seats, my determination grew.

Watching the guards like a hawk, surveying the entrances and where it was we needed to go, we made our move. I grabbed my friends hand, pulled out our tickets and did what any foreign girl has done at one point in their lives: acted stupid and entitled. I waited until a guard looked a certain way, ducked my head and walked. We kept pointing to our tickets, pretending we didnt understand the 'excuse me girls, wait, come back', and continued walking. We walked past about 5 different heavily guarded areas where we could have been stopped and eventually made it into the stadium.

We recruited another guard who wasnt even sure we should be allowed in to show us our seats. We made it right before halftime and joined with the other volunteers. We had a great time, I lost my voice slightly, and Armenia ended up tying with Russia, 0-0. All in all, good times were had. But I definitely abused my foreign status by pretending I didnt know the language or rules. I also think I only got away with this behavior because I am a girl and could play the lost girl card. And you know what, I am okay with what happened.