Wheaton (Massachusetts) field hockey player Ashley Miller discusses the team's trip to Argentina. The Lyons are presently 1-1 on their tour.

To start off our trip to Argentina, our team first arrived in Buenos Aires airport pretty early in the morning and from there we went straight to our hotel, getting into our rooms, eating a breakfast right away, and our tour manager, Suevea, greeted us for a tour of the city. Around the city, we were able to see the "pink house" where the Argentine president goes in daily to work. From the "pink house" we left to visit a mausoleum cemetery, which had beautifully and diversely architectured mausoleums where we saw the place Evita is buried. After resting for a while, we headed in to see a professional soccer game.

The soccer game was equivalent to a Red Sox game during playoffs. I have never seen such loyal fans and such an intense atmosphere. There were fireworks, drums, banners, not to mention a gong.

On Monday, we headed off to have a four hour clinic with a coach, Lalo, of the National Team of Argentina. Field hockey is the number one sport down here for women and it is completely different than in the States. People do not play that much with their schools, but enroll themselves in clubs in which they are members for life and play two seasons a year.

From the clinic, we headed over to a community center in Belgrano to work with children. It was a place that had opened up in order for younger children to have a recreational outlet to go to instead of resorting to the streets, as they said. It was a great experience and to interact with people other than within the tourist sector, not to the ability to connect with people in such a short amount of time despite a language barrier.

On Tuesday, our team got on the bus once again to head to practice, this time for only two hours; however, as soon as we got there, we met a member of the Argentine national team, Donna, along with her husband, who is the goalie for the men's national team. We learned so much from our two hours with one of the best players in the world.

Following our practice, we were anticipating our first game against CASI, a local club. Unfortunately we lost the match. It was a good game despite the loss and after the game we headed in to have dinner with the other team, which is custom for them and exchanged small gifts.

On Wednesday, our day mirrored Tuesday, in the morning we had a two hour practice, this time with our tour manager, Suevea, who aside from being our tour manager has been training for the Argentine national team, where four of her teammates from her club are on presently. It was a great practice that was completely different from how we usually practice. As on Tuesday, we got ready for our game at night. This time we played a club called GEBA. However, unlike Tuesday, we won this game 1-0, which was great for us to beat an Argentinian team. Afterwards, we exchanged gifts again and ate dinner with the other team.