Rugby World Cup

I bought the tickets in July and finally the day arrived for us to go to a Rugby World Cup game.

In the photo we are wearing official RWC hats, beautifully embroidered with the stars and stripes.

On Friday 23 September, we saw the USA Eagles versus the Australia Wallabies. We wore some cool USA caps and chanted USA with many other fans. Unfortunately, our USA team lost to Australia. Australia 67 points and USA 5 points. You can see highlights on the Rugby World Cup website http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/.

The weather was just beautiful for the game: cool and clear. We rode the train to and from Wellington Regional Stadium and all was good.

The games are being played in cities all over New Zealand. We see flags of the participating countries on banners at various places. Even the bank has a scoreboard and flag banners. Most cars have some kind of flag hanging from the window; usually New Zealand or All Blacks. Dennis and I even saw a truck that was painted like a Samoan flag.

On Thursday our museum Te Papa had a USA day. They handed out some cool freebies: mini rugby balls and visors with the stars and stripes on them. We heard a choir, percussionist and jazz music. We also watched country line dancing and cheerleading.

I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the "Star Spangled Banner" sung two days in a row; once at Te Papa and at the match.

The fans wore some interesting costumes. I noticed one Wonder Woman. We saw about six President Obama masks. One person had a sign saying, "Don't tell Michelle I'm here." Five young men showed up in USA wrestling uniforms. Many fans of both teams draped flags around their shoulders. Of course some painted their faces, wore multi-colored wigs or top hats.

Dennis made three "TRY" signs for us to hold up which we got to do one time when the USA scored. He also made a US flag and taped it to a stick so he had something to wave at the game.

I'm not keen to give DHL business soon. They gave out noisemakers that the kids were making lots of noise with--or maybe it was the pitch that was bothering me.

We've been watching some games on television at friends' homes. Slowly we are learning and understanding more about the game. Kiwis grew up with this but I grew up with American football. I like how rugby keeps moving whereas football stops and starts. Football clocks count down but rugby clocks count up. Half a game is 40 minutes and then starts up again after the break (20 minutes). The commentators refer to what happened in which minute of the game. Hey, Tom just found a comparison of the two games on Wikipedia which I'm going to read! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_American_football_and_rugby_union

Music from the 70s was played at the games. We recognized Neil Diamond singing, "Sweet Caroline" and John Denver "Country Road Take Me Home." When I was in high school I never would have imagined hearing those songs 30 years later in New Zealand or at a rugby game!