Prelude to the World Cup 2006.

Mendoza, Argentina lies east of the Andes Mountain range and boasts beautiful women, insanely deep street gutters and a plethora of young people just wanting to get drunk and make some bad decisions.

I honestly can't get over the depth of the gutters. They run along both sides of the street and are between 3 and 6 feet deep, just waiting for the drunk decision makers to plummet to the bottom of them.

The first day in Mendoza I participated in Repelling and Canopying, both activities that require very tight harnesses and tighter wedgies. Uncomfortable as it was, the activities proved to be quite fun, and I was even able to fly like superman for 400 meters over a lake. Sadly, I wasn't wearing my superman underwear from 2nd grade. If worn today, these would probably cause a comparable wedgie to the harnesses (or harnessi).

After the activities, two English friends, one Dutch friend and myself were challenged to a soccer game by 4 Argentineans in the parking lot. After 1 minute the score was 1-1. In the 15th minute I was professionally slide tackled and I now have rock lodged in the palm of my hand. After 20 minutes we were stalemated at 5-1. The final result was the Argenineans winning on a last minute golden goal, 8-1.

Between the U.S., England, Holland and Argentina, I am certain the U.S. will prevail in the world cup. And by prevail I mean have snazzy uniforms.