all blacks v. ireland

Ann arrived from Nelson this afternoon, after a whirlwind room-cleaning session on my part, for my first visitor to the flat! I'm very excited to finally be able to partially pay back Ann's hospitality, since I stayed at the place she shared with Lex countless times, and her new flat just last Friday.

It was apparently decided for me that I'd be supporting Ireland in the match, so Ann brought me a green, orange and white hat from the nursery where she works and she had a matching one. Phone tag with Rosh and Isaac started early in the day, but we didn't manage to catch up with them before, during or after the game despite many attempts.

Ann and I shared a bottle of Lindauer Fraise before the game, for old times' sake, and I'm glad we did - helped us stay warm(ish) in the cold rain! The rain started on our walk to the stadium, and continued throughout the game so we 'borrowed' some seats in the covered section - lots of other people had the same idea, very few people were sitting in our section, just a couple rows from the field and completely unprotected from the weather. Ann (from Cork) made some Irish friends in the seats next to us, so we ended up with flags painted on our faces as well.

The All Blacks won pretty easily, and Ann lost her voice from shouting at them. We stopped at McDonald's on the way home, and I discovered I get a Flatmate Discount there - woohoo! At my flat, we changed, attempted to re-straighten our hair, and headed out to the Welsh Dragon Bar. Ann was right about the Irish fans - they take the losses well, and were out in full force all having a good time, whereas Kiwis tend to sulk for a week or so (or 4 years, in the case of the Rugby World Cup) over losses. We made it until nearly 5:30 in the morning, heading to Kitty O'Shea's after the Welsh bar - not quite as impressive as some of the Christchurch return times, but still something! I randomly ran into 3-4 people tonight that I recognized from working at the pub there - lots of people in town just for the rugby.