USA vs. Australia

The next morning we woke up bright and early to catch the 8 am ferry from Picton into Wellington. As it took off we bundled ourselves up in our coats and sat out on the deck to soak up the views and pop a can of delicious baked beans in ham sauce. 3 hours and a few games of speed later we arrived in Welly and headed for the city center. We had some time to kill since the game wasn't until 8 pm (it was 11 am). We spent some time eating delicious bagels and bumming at the library then in the afternoon decided it was finally acceptable to switch coffee for beer and headed for a bar, packs in tow. We finally found one with some outside space to spare since we had all our bags with us and set up camp for a couple hours. We met a ton of other people decked out in red, white and blue (Oz is even more hated than the U.S. in New Zealand, so the kiwis' were on our side), so we had plenty of supporters to pass the time with. Plus, our bar was next to the hotel the Australians were staying at so we got to see all them file out onto the bus before the match. We made our way to the stadium a little early to meet up with wonderful Jono, who had generously agreed to bring all our U.S. gear to the stadium so we could properly deck ourselves out. After donning our flags, boas and facepaint we marched out to our seats - right behind the goal post about 5 rows back. Sadly, being that up close and personal to the match only made it more depressing as the score steadily climbed against us (final score: Australia 67, U.S. 5). On a happy note, the one American try did happen right in front of us, so that was pretty cool to see. Otherwise, we had a great group of incredibly drunk Americans and a separate group of incredibly drunk Australians to keep us entertained during the game. Think, on the American side, guys dressed in Uncle Sam suits or barechested with paint and red afro wigs. On the Australian side we had guys dressed like they were from the 80s with some John Candy hair (aka Irv Blitzer, the Jamaican bobsled coach in Cool Runnings), one of whom also strongly resembled Chunk from the Goonies. They spent the 80 minutes of game time yelling at each other, making certain unpleasant gestures at the other side and generally just stumbling around and falling down stairs. Thanks fellas for the entertainment.

Afterwards, Kayla and I had decided to stay the night in Welly and enjoy ourselves. Apparently there was a friend's brother's sister's best friend's friend or some such in town that was willing to let us crash on the floor of his hotel room, so we went of in search of him and his group. We went to the bar we were supposed to be at and settled down to wait for them. Before they arrive Kayla got propositioned with my favorite pick-up line of the night. He complimented her on her tinsel/boa outfit and she admitted that she felt like an American Christmas tree. His response? "Christmas trees are supposed to be naked nowadays." Riiiiiight. Don't know how that one didn't work. Thankfully, Craig (the friend's brother's whoever) arrived with his friends and saved us. We hung out for the rest of their night and then went back to their hotel to crash. I grabbed my sleeping bag and promptly fell asleep on the floor while Kayla snagged a free bed since Brandon, one of the friends, was attempting to prove that he could sleep standing up. Kayla atttempted to reason with him by pointing out that there was no way he could actually do that. Stubbornness ensued as Kayla refused to go to sleep until he agreed to sleep horizontal like a normal person. Brandon refused for a solid 10 minutes until his alcohol infused righteousness wore off and he realized he actually did want to go to sleep. He crumpled to the floor and spent the rest of the night in a sleeping bag provided by Kayla. A+ for effort though. Thank you random nice people for a place to sleep! In the morning we all ate breakfast together and then Kayla and I grabbed a ride back to Palmy with Calum, who was in town diving. We would hang out there for a few days to regroup before heading north one more time and beginning our job search. Adios for now Wellington.

-E