Advertisement
Published: July 11th 2005
Block Party
The huge projection screen tv is in the front, in the middle of the street. There are thousands of Kiwis, Maoris, and Englishmen cheering for their respective teams, the All Blacks or Lions. The second test was tonight. The game was hyped up because it was in Wellington and all of us (AustraLearn students) had just arrived in Wellington recently. I bought the newspaper the day before and there was a huge 16 page booklet just about the game. It was all the city cared about. People were walking around with All Blacks posters, clothing, etc. Even businesses were writing go all blacks on their windows and signs. Billboards hyping up the game were seen everywhere.
Parts of Downtown streets were even closed off. There was a huge block party (3 blocks) on Courtney Place, where all the big bars are located. Thousands of people roamed in the streets, drinking and axiously waiting to watch the test. I walked downtown with two friends, Angela and Amy. We watched the game on a huge projection screen that was set up on the street in the middle of the block party. To my surprise there were many Lions fans present. Not just many, there were tons of them. People were either wearing black or red, and there was alot more red than I expected. At a bar in Rotorua I even met a
man who flew out here from England just to be in NZ for the tests. The Lions scored a try on the first possesion of the game and the Lions fans roared loudly. Soon the All Blacks regrouped and scored try after try, it was great, the Kiwis went crazy.
The whole time I really felt like I was a part of the nation and the culture here. Everybody united as the ABs destroyed the Lions, 48-18. There were many amazing plays and huge tackles that make american football seem like a joke and weak. Right before 'kick-off' the ABs do the Haka, a Maori war dance. It is very intimidating and I got goosebumps just watching and listening to them on the big screen. After the game we went to a bar called Rain and tried some of the local NZ beer.... not bad. There is one more test between the two teams and I think the ABs are gonna win again!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.127s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0678s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
B-rizzle from BHizzle
non-member comment
WERd
good times.