Christmas are over. Summer is in full swing. Life has that beautifully sweet and undemanding taste. Take it easy and just cruise along. Love is in the air. I’m not high, I promise. This season always evokes these feelings in me. Summer forever…I won’t mind.
One Christmas present was a book this year. I liked the illustrations on the cover and bought it without looking inside. It was called ‘We’ve got a boat’. I bought it with a thought ‘we don’t have any book about boats yet’. After opening it, I found out that the book is really about a boat. About one boat. New Zealand sailing yacht that won America Cup in 2017. The story in the book is actually a song and book comes with CD. If you ask what Christmas carols we sang last year and what we’re listening to in the car at the moment, answer would be the same ‘We’ve got a boat’ (and honestly, I’m not tired of it yet, I still like it). At the end of the book there are pictures from the race and more information. It got me thinking how every nation has at least one sport which is number one in that country.
New Zealand is surrounded by the ocean so conditions for water sports are great. Surfing, scuba diving, rafting, already mentioned sailing, etc. And Kiwis are good in all of them. But (but from my point of view), nothing, absolutely nothing, beats rugby.
Before living in Scotland I may not even have noticed that rugby exists. I’m not kidding. While enjoying lovely weather in Edinburgh, I heard something about ‘Six nations’. I didn’t live too far from Murrayfield Stadium, so sooner or later rugby would cross my way anyhow.
Then I saw my first rugby match (on the screen). My knowledge about the rules is very vague. Watching the game, I was astonished, asking myself ‘Why? Why do they do that?’. What’s the pleasure in hurting each other? Is the person with most missing teeth player of the game? Isn’t it illegal?
Since then I saw more rugby matches, even though I intended to never do it again. And watching those, I noticed that some players are kinda cute. That might be mine first reason to watch it. Ok, I can’t think about any other.
Ever heard about All Blacks? That’s New Zealand national rugby union team. When we arrived last year, I bought my son a hoodie with All Blacks logo. Because he needed one and taken in account all crazy designs in the shop I decided that this one was the least evil. Guess what.
There’s also All Whites – New Zealand national football team. I haven’t heard much about them really. I can’t even recall seeing anyone here playing football, but I heard people talking about it. Either they play it at some secret spots or I’m just always at the wrong time in the wrong place.
What’s truly amazing about this ‘rugby madness’ and what always gets me, is how people are excited about every match. Rugby fans here are giving their heart into it. It doesn’t matter if it’s somewhere at the stadium or bunch of friends is watching it on TV, the atmosphere is always incredible. I would always have that ‘why’ in the back of my mind, but then I see people celebrating victory and ‘why’ would be very quickly exchanged for ‘WOOOOW’.