St. George Down Under

Waratahs and Kiwis

April 20, 2009 at 10:30 pm (Uncategorized) (air new zealand, bed and breakfast, christchurch, frost/nixon, lord of the rings, new south wales, new zealand, rugby, rugby explained, rugby videos, waratah, waratahs, western force)

I awoke this morning to the ringing of a phone, bleary-eyed and confused. I spent the night on the floor of my parents hotel, The Grace, in downtown Sydney, and it was the disgusing hour of 6:00 am. I writhed around for twenty minutes, feeling sorry for myself, and stumbled into the shower. Ugh, I hate early mornings, especially when airplane flights are to follow. Even the knowledge that we soon would be in Middle Earth didn’t brighten the morning.

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I stayed with my parents in their hotel room Saturday night because we were to fly out to New Zealand the following morning, and we were already going to have a late night together. I had bought tickets for us to see the New South Wales Waratahs play the West Coast Force, a rugby union game at Sydney Football Stadium. (The Waratah is the state flower of New South Wales.) Dad and I were both pumped as we had been watching rugby league all week, marvelling over the huge hits sans pads.

I had figured out all the transportation, packed all my bags and jumped on the train to the city. We took a bus to Oxford Street, a cool and charmingly dirty row of shops and restaraunts, and found ourselves a pizza place. We were served by a stunningly beautiful Brazilian girl who seemed near my age. She was so sweet, and had that doe-eyed apperance-overwhelmingly cute. It was at this point that I started to quietly resent the company of my parents; it’s quite hard to flirt with someone accompanied by your charming dad and lovely mother. I talked with her a tad and silently vowed to return the following week. We’ll see how I feel on Saturday after flying out of Wellington at 6:00am. I also need to get a haircut.

Anyway, we finished our Rocket (Arugala) pizza and made our way to Sydney Football Stadium. As we neared the venue the throngs of Waratah supporters increased consistently. It always reminds me of nearing an ant hill-you see one ant, then as you get closer it turns into 5, then 30, then 100, and by the time you reach the ant hill, or stadium, they are swarming on top of one another. These ants were wearing powder-blue rugby jerseys and scarves, partially marinated in alcohol, and ready for bone-crushing and blood-spurting fun.

The stadium was laid out in a very interesting fashion. As you can see from the pictures, from the street it looks like it is just the top of the stadium coming out of the earth, without a base of any sort. In the states most of our stadiums are built from the ground up. This stadium, intriguingly, was built below ground level. We took stairs down from the street, entered the stadium, then the concourse, then walked down to our seats. It was quite cool!

 

 

We looked for our section and presented our tickets to the usher and she directed us, “All the way to the bottom and on the right.” We started down the steps, and I excitedly whispered to mom, “Did you hear that?! All the way down!” She wasn’t kidding either, we were in the very first row, near ground level. (Well, technically the second row, but the second row started about 3 metres to the right of us. I’m calling it first row!)

 

I was bent on arriving early, so we had about forty-five minutes until …I want to say kick-off…I think thats what is is. I visited the ATM for a few bucks (as did everybody else, took me 20 minutes or so) and bought myself a sweet white- and powder blue-striped supporter scarf, as well as a Waratah rugby ball. I was set!

 

It was my hope to sit next to some cordial Waratah fans, as I was hoping to get explanations of the game. It seemed as though I was out of luck, my neighbor to the right was a broad-shouldered jersey-wearing intense supporter. Somehow throughout the course of the first-half I broke the ice (I believe I was wondering about rules aloud to my father, in the hopes of being corrected by him…). Throughout the rest of the game we talked football and the differences between rugby and American football. He explained how much the players made (the good ones make an upwards of $600,000, close to a million with sponsors), what certain calls meant, and other rules. It was fantastic having him next to me; turns out he played for a rugby club a few years ago. I learned so much about the game!

He left to get some grub and I talked to his dad/uncle/friend who took him to the game, and he revealed that his wife was from Delaware. We spoke about America a bit, other sports, my studies at Macquarie, etc. These truly are the nicest people, Australians! I was peppering them both with questions and they were more than happy to oblige. I think it excited them that it was my first rugby game. 

We were so close that we could hear the grunts and the smash of the scrums. Take your fists, ball them up, and smash them directly into each other. Now imagine your each knuckle as a player’s head, with each fist being a team. This is a scrum. The team with posession then slips the ball through the middle of the scrum towards their side, and the men in the scrum can only use their feet to move the ball backwards.

 
There are no forward passes; you can kick the ball forward or lateral it backwards. And once the player is tackled he/she must release the ball backwards on the ground to his/her team mate. Running into the opponent’s end zone and touching the ball to the ground equals five points, and a extra-point-like kick follows, which equals two points. Also, if there is a penalty, a team can either choose to retain posession of the ball or attempt to kick it through the goal posts for three points.

 

 

Gameplay was amazing. We were about 5 metres from the actual players when they advanced the ball to our side, and to see the hits was incredible. As I mentioned before, we could hear the grunts and the smash of the scrum, and players breathing hard as they came past us. The throw-ins were interesting as well. One team has a player throwing in the ball, as in soccer, and both teams hoist a player up to their shoulders to try to grab the ball. It was so unique!

 

Apparently blood isn’t a big deal. There were a few guys with blood seeping down their faces, cuts under their eyes, jerseys dirtied by blood, and they played on. The hits were massive, and they kept getting up. I can understand why they think American football is a sissy sport; these guys have no pads, there is much less stoppage of play, they play both offense and defense, and, again, they have no pads. It just felt like a pure, carnal sport; the same way that chess feels more pure than checkers, this felt more like war.

The ‘Tas lead at the half, but the Force ended up beating them. It was sad to see my beloved Waratahs lose, but so great to see a legitimate rugby game. It was so exciting, so passionate, so real, and it was such a rich cultural experience. The Aussies react in much the same way as we do to our American football, just with badass Australian accents. 

The night was great, another new and unique Aussie experience. And I got to bring my parents to something that they had never witnessed before. I’m hoping to see the Wallabies in June, which is the Aussie rugby national team. They’ll be playing France. Anybody interested? 

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After our wonderful breakfast the next morning, which included fresh fruits, pastries, hash browns, juices, eggs benedict, etc., we headed towards the Wynyard train station. As we left the hotel it started to sprinkle rain, and was as gray as a January morning in Eugene. It was so ironic because it had been threatening rain all week, but had, for the most part, held off. And when we left Sydney it starts to rain. And its been raining since then, pretty constantly. It’s so essential that it stayed dry while they were here; it greatly cuts down on what you can do if it rains in Sydney.

We caught the 8:05 train to the airport and headed towards the airport. What a great way to end my parents tour of Sydney! The train snaked underground, then came out above Circular Quay, the harbour right in front of us. It was drab and rainy, with the Harbour Bridge on the left and the Opera House to the right. It was absolutely stunning! I had never seen the Quay rainy, and as it was early there wasn’t anybody out; it was like the beauty was reserved for us and our few fellow passengers.

We arrived at the airport and made it through to our gate without any disturbances. My system was a bit off, and I was feeling kinda crappy. I ALWAYS feel like crap when I fly early, and the breakfast was so rich, I was nervous about the plane, etc. I got over it though. But it did suck…ugh.

We flew Air New Zealand, which was the most comfortable I’d ever been on a plane. Each seat had a screen in the back of it, loaded with movies, tv shows, everything. I know many people have experienced that before, but it was a first for me. (Even though I’ve flown a bunch…) And it was only a 2 hour 40 minute flight, which was pretty convenient. 

Dad and I watched Frost/Nixon, an incredibly intriguing movie on the English talk show host David Frost interviewing Richard Nixon after Watergate. It lasted about 2 hours, so it was perfect! I followed that up with an episode of Flight of the Concords. Is there anything more perfect than watching Flight of the Concords on a flight to New Zealand? The correct answer is NO.

 

 

We landed relatively smoothly into Christchurch, NZ, and trudged through security/customs/quarentine. Mom got attacked by a beagle. Ha, it was pretty funny. We were walking towards quarentine and a customs officer with a beagle came walking by, and the dog made a beeline towards mom’s bag and wouldn’t stop pestering it. Turned out he smelled a bananna that mom had thrown out minutes before, as well as some seeds from the Botanical Gardens. It slowed us down, but I was so delighted to have contact with a canine! It’s been so long, and with living in the city, and my brother’s departure, I really haven’t had that much contact with dogs. And it’s killing me! The bed and breakfast we’re at now has a dog; I’m super-psyched to see him!

 

We headed out to our rental car and it started to hit me; I’m gonna die in New Zealand. My dad has been driving on the left side of cars for roughly 40 years, and this would be the first time that he would be driving on the right side. First we started driving with the arrow pointing towards us in the middle of the road, which is generally not a good sign (pun not intended). After making a wrong turn we pulled off into a parking lot, regrouped, and dad prepared to turn right to go back. He turned, but turned into the right lane, straight into oncoming traffic. I yelled, “Left, Left, LEFT-LEFT-LEFT” and at first he froze, then slightly swerved right (which is instinct [and a terrible instinct to have in OZ/NZ/UK]) then swerved to the left and into the proper lane. One of the freakiest things I had ever experienced. MAN! Also, the turn signal switch is on the opposite side, so we kept on having the wiper blades going as we were turning. He turned into the wrong side maybe 3 other times, but towards the end he figured it out.

 

 

 
Our woes did not end there. We found the general area of our bed and breakfast, which was on the side of a hill with a tree-like road heading up it. Tree-like in that it started out as one road, then forked off and forked off, and wound itself up the hillside. Incredibly confusing. And it took us half an hour to finally come to our destination. We got lost so many times, asked a few Kiwis for directions, and the post boxes kept jumping 11, which is the address we were looking for. It was so frustrating because we were all at our wits end for having almost died numerous times-we just wanted to reach our destination and depart the danger that is misguided instinct! 

But we did finally arrive, and the place is just beautiful. It overlooks one of the inlets here, and when the fog isn’t out the mountains are directly in front of the dining room (or so we were told). There is  a beautiful garden that mom of course loves, and comfortable and clean rooms, along with nice hosts. 

 

 
Today is dad’s birthday, so we went out for dinner in his honor. We drove to a small little town and ate at a little hole-in-the-wall Indian restaraunt, with literally six tables. It was so amazingly good. I had lamb (yes, NZ lamb!) with coconut and mustard seed sauce. It was so creamy, and the meat so tender. It was a delicious dinner!

 

It really has surprised me how different New Zealand is from Australia. When we arrived it was around 62° with mist hanging in the air. It actually reminded me a lot of Eugene and comforted me, the wet and moist air. Nearly everything other than the roads and buildings are green, and there are very few densley-populated areas, but most of NZ is farm land. We came across a few swamplands and houses nestled up on hills nearly hidden by the fog. It’s quite obvious why Peter Jackson picked this oasis to be Middle Earth. Everything is so natural, dense, and wild, green and luscious. It is as if humans are an addition, not a parasite. I’ve barely been here 8 hours, and I love it here. I can’t wait to see more of the island! The only problem is, we’re driving!!!

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Below are Rugby videos. If you don’t think its hardcore, check ‘em out. It’s ridiculous…
Here’s the New Zealand national team gettin’ revved up for their match…