Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Winning the rugby world cup and other fun things


The most exciting thing that’s happened recently is that New Zealand won the rugby world cup! We went to the fan zone to watch the game sporting some finely crafted face paint. The place was packed at it was really fun to see so many people come out and get excited. The game was against France and was too close for comfort – in all honesty France played much better than New Zealand – but somehow the All Blacks pulled out a victory and it was so fun to be there for it. They haven’t won since 1987 even though they’re consistently the best team in the world. Even better, the last time they won was in New Zealand and that time was also against France, so this was a repeat of history. It was especially special in light of the hard year a lot of Kiwis have had with all the earthquakes. Christchurch was supposed to be one of the host cities for the world cup but lost that chance when the stadium was destroyed in the earthquake.


The day after the victory the whole All Blacks team came to Christchurch (with the shiny gold cup in hand) for a parade and speech at the fan zone. I was glad to be there for that because in some small way winning the world cup has made up for the earthquakes for a lot of people (yeah, they’re that obsessed with rugby) and this is really the first happy thing that’s happened in Christchurch in a year. It was also just fun to see all the guys in real life because they’re superstars here and I think it meant a lot to people that they would come to Christchurch. Much of the team is from Christchurch so it was pretty special that they were ‘bringing the world cup home’.




Aside from rugby I’ve been doing boring stuff like relaxing and studying – took one final, two more exams and a video project I’m pretty excited about to go. Only other real stories to share are a few little trips around Christchurch I’ve done.

My flatmate brought a lamb home from her parents' farm!


GapFiller event, an organization that puts public art on sites of demolished buildings

View towards Banks Peninsula, walking around in the hills south of Chch

View of Canterbury plains from a day hike up Mt. Grey

That’s all for now – only  three weeks left in Christchurch (wow oh my god sad), including two exams and one last weekend hike, before I take off for further adventures!

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