Houston... Tenemos Un Problema

Sooooo, this weekend was the Tri-Nation match between the All Blacks and the Wallabies as all of you that read this blog should know (because I mentioned it earlier), but probably don't remember. Regardless! The girls and I set out in our new Toyota Friday after classes very excitedly for Christchurch to view said rugby match. About 30 minutes into our gorgeous, scenic, and fun ride, the new car (who was not named yet, thank goodness) died.

Thankfully we were able to make it to a safe shoulder on the road, where, after about a half hour and 20 cars passed us, a very helpful road worker asked if we needed help and came over to check out the car. He helped us find a tow service and everything and then went about his day. He was hilarious too. Thank you Mr. Roadworker for making our crappy moment funny! And for being so nice. Anyways, so we get towed to the automotive shop closest to the university and they offer to do a quick check on the car to see if we can get back out on the road. But it turns out the car needs a completely new engine... So needless to say that was a downer on the day! But we came back and ate a lot of chocolate, and cheese, and watched movies, and figured out a plan of attack because Arely and I had already purchased our tickets.

Atomic Bus services came to the rescue! We found round trip tickets for $55! Which is ridiculously cheap. Sadly, we lost travelers Louise and Beata in the crossfire of the car breakdown and so they stayed in Dunedin to watch the game. But Arely and I woke up at 7am day of the game and headed out to Christchurch on a 5 hour bus ride. Grueling? Yes. But it was so worth it. Christchurch is gorgeous! And they have a phenomenal public transportation system, and I wish we could have spent more than 18 hours in the city. Digression, sorry. So we get off the bus in Cathedral Square, and hang out for a while to wait for Anna and Kasey, her friends from the Arcadia Study Abroad Program. They helped us find our ticket vendors, which were on opposite sides of town,so we could pick them up. We walked with our sleeping and overnight bagsALL OVER CHRISTCHURCH! I am not exaggerating. Our arms are swollen thanks to the iso-bicep curls we did with our seelping bags and our legs are super sore thanks to excessive walking. We were exhausted by the end but just really excited to have our tickets and be going to the game. So fast forward a few hours to the game, because I could go on for hours, IT WAS PHENOMENAL!

Rugby is possibly one of the greatest sports known to man (and woman) kind. It is guerilla warfare on a field, fought in short shorts by extremely fit gentlemen, with a medium sized white ball during an 80 minute time period... what more could you ask for? It is the ultimate display of teamwork and brute force all at once. There are skirmishes every now and then, but they are men, therefor... they are (as a friend of mine would say :P). And the crowd is not completely and totally insane. Imagine the force of football, with the speed of soccer, a dash of the fights in hockey, and the crowd of a baseball game, topped with class and a dark chocolate covered strawberry. (OK sadly chocolate covered strawberries are not inclusive with the rugby package, but thats ok because then I would probably never watch another sport.... thats a lie, but you get the idea) I was almost in sports heaven! My seat was really really close to the field too, which was surprising, but the view was a bit awkward. Regardless, I was very happy to be there, just a bit too tired from walking all over the city to show it. The game was really good! Our offense was a bit off, but the guys have been ploughing through every team this season so you gotta give 'em a break. Defense was phenomenal! And I was a few (50+) feet away from Daniel Carter... I probably would've melted had I been any closer to the man whose ad campaign for some cologne or underwear line caused a lot of accidents in Auckland recently. I could have only asked for the USC student cheering section to be there to make the game anymore perfect. Anyways, it was an All Blacks victory 20-10 and then I almost fell asleep standing up. But the girls and I headed to a nice little snack and billiards bar in town where we had snacks (shocker!) and talked a bit and then I headed home early because I was about to enter REM in the bar/ pool-hall.

In the morning Arely and I caught the 8am bus back to Dunedin and went on a cleaning spree for some reason, so our rooms look very nice and the kitchen is almost completely clean. In the mean time we have been watching Country music videos by Brad Paisley and Josh Turner and almost crying at just about every one of them hahaha. Why do they always have to be so sentimental and amazing?!?! I don't get it. Well I am hungry and tired and this took me forever to write thanks to Señores Paisley and Turner. So ciao for now. Sorry for the long posts. Please pray for my hermana, "La Reina" Tanya, that she gets the job that she interviewed for because she is amazing and really thinks this job would be awesome and she deserves it because of all of her hard work. Thanks! (Oh, and pray that justice is served to Charles Taylor on behalf of all of the child soldiers and families that fought and have been damaged by the civil war in Sierra Leone.)

♥ Philipians 4:13