The All Blacks vs. Australia

I'm going to start integrating recent happenings with my archival accounts so as not to lose track of things. A note on New Zealand sports: There is no football, there is no baseball, there is no basketball. This is true at least in the general interest of the public. The only sport worth playing, talking about or arguing over is rugby. Having never been exposed to rugby or its rules in America, I was shocked and impressed when I first watched a weekend high school Rugby game next door to one of my orientation sessions at Rotorua. Rugby takes American football and multiplies the testosterone and general masculinity by ten. I swear to god these 14 year old kids all had more facial hair than I do. So, Rugby. Teams in New Zealand salute/challenge each other by performing the Haka, the war chant of the native Maori species. Here's a minute or so of the high school team performing the Haka. You can't see them very well, but the chant itself involves aggressive and masculine hand and torso movement involving the slapping of the knees and waving of hands in the air. I swear to god these kids are 14 years old. I almost crapped my pants.




New Zealand rugby is ten times more hardcore than American football for the following four reasons:

1) They do not wear armour of any kind, aside from the occasional soft helmet.
2) Aside from halftime, the clock never stops. When a player goes down, the game is still played; there is an entire aspect of the game devoted to getting the ball to another teammate after you've fallen or forcing the ball from the fallen players hands. This involves ridiculous pigpiles and bloody noses.
3) These guys hit each other in ways that would surely be considered uncool to an American football ref. I'm going to reiterate again that this is full contact American football on steroids and with absolutely no body armour.
4) They wear nothing but black.

The ball cannot be thrown forward, only lateralled to another teammate who then runs forward with the ball. It can, however, be kicked forwards, but the rugby ball does not sail as far as the football. Seeing an almost-football game played with mostly lateral passes is thrilling and makes for very interesting and complex gameplay.

As I was saying, rugby is THE sport here, and New Zealand has one professional team that competes on a worldwide level: The All Blacks. There is a loyalty and passion for the All Blacks that no regional American football team could garner. The reason for this is simple: The All Blacks represent the entire country of New Zealand. Where our country is divided by countless sports teams divided by the individual state, the All Blacks inspire a sense of unity and pride that could only be felt from an entire nation of people. New Zealand is a small country and it's people often think of their country as the isolated, lone ranger or the underdog. They are proud and quick to the defense of their country, but there is no denying their relatively tiny influence in an international scale. The Lord of the Rings was and is such a huge phenominon here because it gave the people something huge to be proud of; it was worldwide proof of what they believed in all along. This country is thirsty for pride and recognition. The All Blacks are always a chance for New Zealand to shine amongst its international peers, and the people here use their team as a conduit to channel their pride and support of their country. When the Blacks play, the only thing you're going to find on any television across Wellington in any pub or restraunt is the rugby game, and it's all anyone is going to be doing. Using sheer will-power, women have been known to force themselves out of labor for these games.

On Saturday, the night of the 18th, The All Blacks played Australia in Auckland. This was allegedly the biggest sports event of the year, as Australia is New Zealand's bitter rival in more than a few ways. It's relatively close proximity, dwarf-like land mass, and close similarities (especially in their accent) have made Australia the Empire to New Zealand's Rebel Alliance. The people here know they are inferior to Australia in more than a few ways, but they support their home nonetheless. I joined some kiwis, americans and international students to watch the game and play some pool at a local pub. If you're at all interested in knowing, I lost my first game by scratching the 8-ball. I tell it like it is.





The cheering and genuine enthusiasm of the kiwis was enthrilling. I could feel their pride for their country, and they showed it for their rugby team. It's really great to see an entire country unite behind something like this. The game is divided into two fourty minute halves, and it's over in about ninety minutes. It's odd watching an entire fourty minutes of a sport with absolutely no commercial interruptions; I had to applaud them for it. The game got a bit tense during the closing minutes, but the blacks managed to secure a victory over their Australian rivals. The cheering clapping was very powerful and sent chills through me. Overall, the pub had a really great vibe and it was an awesome experience.

I just need to throw this last picture in here because it cracked me up. After the game and a few more games of pool, we stopped at a McDonalds to get some food. There, outside of the male toilets in all its glory, was a framed poster of The Return of the King. I wasn't kidding when I said they're proud of their Oscars.



Until next time,

Bill

The Journey, Part 3

At what I was informed was around 5:30 a.m. (I was taking anyone's word for it, at this point. It was an odd feeling), the wheels finally touched down on the ground. Being allowed into the country was a three part process. Auckland airport employed a small, furry dog to sniff all of our bags as we took them off baggage claim. The dog was looking less for drugs and illegal substances than for harmful agriculture and any sort of foreign food. The habitat of New Zealand is very fragile and is not used to any predators or viruses that living things might bring in with it. Because of this, most of the strict enforcement at customs dealt with food. I failed to get a picture, but it was a very funny image. I'm used to seeing more masculine, aggressive dogs in security roles like that in the states, but New Zealand reflected their laid back nature by using an animal that I could probably stepped on. After the excitement of chasing my bags down a conveyer belt, I went through a baggage scan area (where even my checked bags were x-rayed), a preliminary customs meeting ("what brings you to New Zealand?" "Why did you choose Wellington?" "What are you studying?") to get my visa stamped, I proceeded further through customs, where I declared nothing (I had two beautiful bags of trail mix that I decided not to risk and had thrown out as I exited the plane) and walked through a large archway into the airport. Though I was burdoned by many pounds of luggage, I felt a large weight come off of my shoulders. Nothing huge had gone wrong and I had made it to Auckland.

We were greeted immediately (There were about 50 of us from Australearn) by Joe and Alicia, two Australearn employees. Here they are by the table:


Joe is a native New Zealander who lives in Auckland. He was a funny guy and carried his acoustic guitar around with him wherever we went, even on the busses. Alicia was an American who had studied abroad in N.Z. during college and had went back after graduating to work for Australearn. She's lived in New Zealand now for about four years, and the New Zealand accent has been curiously interjected into her American accent; she says certain words and phonetic noises a bit differently. I thought it was very interesting to see how your own mode of speech is affected if you hear another mode for long enough. As you can see, they passed out nametags and shepherded us directly onto a bus that was to take us to Rotorua for a three day orientation. It was at this point that I made my way to the nearest bathroom and began what has now become a large, extensive photo library of things or terms that I find curiously different from what I'm used to or just plain odd.


This actually makes much, much more sense than "restroom" or "bathroom" once you get over the intial hilarity of the sheer blunt nature of it. So yes, there's no such thing as a bathroom or restroom here. We have Toilets.


This was also in the bathroom. I'm sure there's a perfectly good explaination for this but I still can't figure out what you would be doing with any sort of "sharps" in an airport bathroom. Sorry, "Toilet". I'm getting better.

McDonalds has a "KiwiBurger" here. It's a hamburger with and egg in it. I have yet to try it.

I received a phone card with my name tag and made a call to home for about 15 minutes. After my card had pretty much run out, I joined my friend William whom I'd met on the plane and proceeded to set foot on New Zealand land for the first time. This banner was over the archway out of the airport. Big fan.



The walk to the bus was a bit longer than I would have liked with all of my luggage, but I found my way alright in the end. I was very out of it and disoriented at this point, and had a very one track mind to get to the bus and rest a bit, enjoying being on solid ground. After a short journey, I found myself at the foot of the official Magic Bus. That's right.

"Every day I get in the queue (Too muuch, the Magic Bus)"

The ride upon the Magic Bus to Rotorua was a bit humerous as it involved two people trying to milk as much enthusiasm and excitement out of a bunch of tired, greasy, and disoriented 20 year olds who wanted nothing more than to get some time to rest. Everyone had to get up and say their name, where they were from, what they were studying, and tell what the "craziest thing you've ever done." Most answers to the last question were "this," including my own. The driver of the Magic Bus went by the name of "Crutchie". This was due to some horrible nickname that stuck after he injured himself in college. He was a fully funcitonal human being, which sort of added to the hilarity of the nickname. Anyways, Cruchie was the man, and he tried his best to get some laughter out of what must have been the epidomy of a "tough crowd." I met a few kids and we engaged in small talk, but most of the ride was spent in quiet reverie as we took in the landscape of the North Island of Aotearoa. The morning was a overcast; the fog rolled in and the landscape took a foreboding air. Here are a few good shots that I got. Do yourself a favor, open these images and view them in high definition. They're beautiful.

"...but where our hearts truly lie...is in peace...and quiet...and good, tilled earth."

We made a couple of rest stops. One of these stops was to get some breakfast. Most of us (myself included) ate our first meal in New Zealand at an exotic McDonalds. We had no choice, the rest of the food there was about 20 dollars. This stop was the beginning of what was to become a familiar format: The introductory conversation. Questions belonging to this conversation include, and are mostly limited to: "What's your name?", "Where are you from?", "What school are you going to?" "What are you going to study there?", and "How long was your flight to L.A.?" It got a bit tiring but it guaranteed a conversation with anyone you came in contact with, and the entire weekend involved this nonstop act of stepping outside of you comfort zone and meeting strangers. I would also occasionally throw in a joke about a screaming baby that was on the plane ride to New Zealand. It was mostly a hit. The second stop was at a very touristy attraction/rest stop where the entire building was shaped like a dog. I don't understand the significance or the relevance. A bit odd and unnecessary, but you can't blame them for wanting to attract tourists. As if their entire country and its natural beauty wasn't enough.



After a few more hours of driving, awkward and aggravating (for the love of god, let us sleep) introductory exercises, and some acoustic guitar jamming by Joe, we arrived at Kiwipaka (a tourist hotel) in Rotorua at about 9:30 a.m on Friday, or 5:30 p.m. on Thursday Eastern Time. I took a deep breath and prepared myself for the next few days.

Part 4 coming up.