Would you like a Pepper?

Today was the mighty All Blacks vs. Australia rugby game! Jane had managed to get us tickets a few weeks ago and all of us had been majorly looking forward to it!

But let's start this at the beginning. A whole bunch of Arcadia students came up from Otago University for the game, and well they needed places to stay. My friend, Arely, and her flatmate, Nicole, ended up spending the night at my flat. But first we had to pick them up from where their bus dropped them off. Not a big deal, except that traffic was so bad from the upcoming game that the city buses were running extremely slow so we ended up being late. Then it was a mad dash across the city so Arely could get her ticket from the Stadium, and then a even madder dash back to city center to get Nicole her ticket. We made it, but didn't get back to the University until three hours later, which left us only an hour to eat and get dressed for the game(All Blacks game= all black clothing!). At one point we had to wait at the bus exchange for the bus to take us back to the Uni, and Arely pulls our a yellow pepper from her backpack and starts eating it like an apple. I'm going to guess that Kiwi's don't see this very often, for Arely got A LOT of stares.

Supper took a little longer then it should have, and we were running very late for the 6:10 bus. Thankfully the bus was running late too. When we got to the bus stop there had to be over a hundred Uni students waiting too go to the game. It was packed! Which,as you can guess, made getting on the bus very interesting. The entire crowd moved forward and swept any non-moving people along with it. It took well over half an hour to fill the bus, and my group just barely got on. Conditions only got worse for those on board, the majority of the crowd was completely wasted at this point and you were basically standing on top of each other. It was.. uhm.. an adventure to say the least. The poor girls in the rest of my group couldn't get away from a creeper who kept groping them,the surrounding people were either too drunk to care, or were unsuccessfully trying to help (I was too far away, and didn't know what was going on, otherwise I WOULD have given him a piece of my mind). So as soon as we got to city center we fled the bus- except the creeper followed. Thankfully, 5 sober girls can out walk 1 wasted creep in a couple seconds.

Once out of the bus we quickly realize that almost all of the city center roads are blocked off. We still had a good 20 minute walk to the stadium, but walking was the only way to get there, since the blocked off roads meant cars/buses etc couldn't get anywhere near it. Walking, however turned out to be the best build up possible. Everyone was turned out in their All Blacks gear, talking in high spirits and just having a great time. At one point I looked up to see a little girl waving a cow bell out the window chanting "All Blacks, All Blacks!". 

Finally we made it too the AMI stadium, found our seats and sat down to enjoy one spectacular game!

Joe and Karl are definitely ready for this game

Katelyn, Kasey and I decked out in our war paint

Erik and I, thanks to this guy I actually knew what was going on!

AMI stadium is massive, but we had excellent seats!

Before every game the All Blacks preform a traditional war dance called the Haka. It's INTENSE! If I were the other team I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even bother playing the game after that. Check out the Haka  HERE

Getting ready to do the Haka

After the Haka, well then the fun starts! Rugby is amazing! Unlike American football's stop and go game play, Rugby is continual play until their one break at half time. It's so much more fun to watch, and looks super intense to play. I vote we ditch American football and all play rugby instead.

Yeah, they're lifting those guys STRAIGHT in to the air to catch that ball. My jaw dropped the first time I saw it.

The All Blacks won of course (20-10!)

Two rows in front of us were a group of obnoxious, drunk, Uni students. As obnoxious as they were, they were also highly entertaining. At one point they started the Wave and got it to go around the stadium FOUR times! However, as with most extremely drunk people, they were eventually kicked out.

Even though they were kicked out, even the policeman couldn't resist the high spirits the game put everyone in. Right before I took this picture he was mock strangling the purple-haired one, and laughing and joking with them as he walked them out. The rest of the game was much more mellow without those boys.

After the game we followed the mob of people back to City center where we went out to a pub to dance and eat- and drink more if that was your forte. The pub had a live band that night and Kasey, Katelyn, Arely and I spend the evening dancing too it. It was rather interesting to hear "Sweet Home Alabama" sung in New Zealand and with the New Zealand  accent!