England v. Georgia

We left Christchurch the same day the game was in Dunedin. It was a bit of a hurried drive because Paddy was going to possibly murder us in our sleep if we missed this one. But we made it in time! (And even had an hour to 'soak up the atmosphere' for Paddy's sake.) Unfortunately, I was gifted the ticket by Paddy and they were bought well before meeting up with Erin so she had to be left behind. More on that later. The game itself was fun, Paddy was loving it and I decided that, despite having the cross of St George on my cheeks, I was going to cheer for Georgia because they were the underdogs. So I ended up cheering for both sides. Paddy might have been slightly embarassed. After the game, we head back to Captain Cooks where we had left Erin in. As we were jostled along the road with the hundereds of others pouring out of the stadium, Paddy and I simply looked at each other and knew what we had to do: we took off raptor running down the road amidst a sea of confused and sometimes fearful faces. We had the run, the raptor call, the claws, everything. And we did not raptor for just a few seconds. Oh no, we raptored every time we were on grass, and every time we wanted to pass people. We raptored across roads, and scared a small child in the car, and Paddy even raptor attacked a car as we were crossing the street to the bar to meet Erin.
-K

Meanwhile, back at the bar...
After being left by Paddy and Kayla to fend for myself I spent an hour or so drinking beer and chatting with a lovely Welsh man. My newfound friend did not last long, however. Right after the start of the England v. Georgia match I was once again sitting alone in a bar. Only this time it was worse because the entire bar had emptied out with the beginning of the match and I was literally the only person inside. After a few pitying glances from the bartender and several concerned queries of "Are you okay?...Oh, you're by yourself?...Hmm..." I drained my beer and headed up for another. That is when I discovered something magical and wonderful. $13 pitchers of beers (keep in mind a regular pint at this place ran for $8). This was the alcoholic pot of gold. Deciding there was nothing better to do whilst waiting alone for my two companions I ordered one up - to even more concerned and pitying glances from the bartender after I informed her that I would only be needing one glass. After that things looked considerably more chipper, especially with the appearance of my second pitcher in the second half (I swear this is not a normal occurrence - I am in no way related to those sad and scary creatures you see sitting alone in corners chugging drinks and eyeing the rest of the world with hatred and bitterness...at least not normally). Some other people came into the bar and befriended me, even though they doubted my claims of having friends after seeing the two empty pitchers beside me. I tried to reassure them that I did indeed have friends coming after the game, but as time moved on I am pretty sure they believed I was having a drunken hallucination. Once Paddy and Kayla finally did arrive it was to burst through the door raptor style and roar at me...not too sure if my new friends were impressed by this or not. One thing the girl at our table was definitely not impressed by was our pirate neck tattoos (long story short, on the plane ride over Kayla found some temporary pirate skull tats in her purse and we decided it would be an excellent idea to put them all on our necks). In her words "So...do you all actually think you are pirates? I mean, was it just some sort of drunken mistake gone wrong or what?" Yep, she actually thought that we thought that we were pirates. And had gotten actual skulls tatted on our necks. Our reply though? "Try a drunken mistake gone right! Pirates rule!!" Take that pirate haters of the world. Our final act of the night? Wandering the streets until we found a McDonalds, where Paddy proceeded to chat up fellow rugby lovers from his homeland while Kayla and I scarfed down an assortment of ice cream, french fries and cheeseburgers, marking the end of a successful and entertaining night.
-E