Footy

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May 11th 2009

Published: May 12th 2009

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Bethany S

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Last weekend I experienced a traditional Melbourne event...Australian Football, otherwise known as Footy. It's a big thing in Victoria, with multiple teams in the region, although there are also teams from other states. The game was at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds and was between Hawthorn and Carlton. I think they said there were about 67,000 people there! It was funny because in the States people dress head to toe in their team's colors, but here most people wore scarves and beanies in the team's color. Hawthorn was gold and maroon, which kinda reminded me of Harry Potter. Carlton was navy and white.

The game was absolutely the most confusing thing I've ever watched! It's definitely not anything like American football. First of all, the players are all extremely fit and wear short shorts, which is a funny site compared to the huge, padded American football players. The game involves a little bit of every sport... The ball is like rugby, although there's not much tackling. There's a lot of running, which resembles soccer. You can kick the ball like football, serve the ball like volleyball, or dribble it like basketball. The ball also has to touch the ground every 15

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meters, but you can run with it in between. There are 4 quarters like football, but 3 goal posts and you get 6 points for getting it between the middle posts and 1 for the outsides.

The game is really high scoring. Since it moves so quickly, it really doesn't matter if one team gets behind because there's always time to catch up. It wasn't as intense at football at home, until the last 5 minutes. Then there were some intense moments as Carlton tried to come back, but missed by an outside (thus 1 point) versus inside (6 points) goal. The fans were definitely into it, although a lot less rowdy than American fans. All in all, it was a fun experience.

On a side note, we all decided that we're missing Mexican too much, so we've started having taco night every Friday and also making quesadillas. It's the best tasting food I've had in a long time! We also found an amazing bakery that serves tons of pastries, cakes, and chocolates. Also, it's very sad but we have become McDonald's soft serve ice cream connoisseurs, which is funny considering I never eat it in the States.