Day 6

Today is Saturday. Today is also the day that I get to go to the All Blacks v. Springboks rugby match. I have been waiting for this day since the day that I discovered that this would be the only All Blacks match in Auckland while I was living here, which was probably around May. About three or four weeks before leaving the States, I was emailing with the Kiwis, just asking general questions. I let them know about the fact that I had a hostel booked and might wind up asking them for advice about where to live, and I also asked about whether or not they thought I’d be able to get a ticket to the rugby match. Kiwi Mike said he was already going to the match, and that tickets would likely be sold out by the time I got here. So he offered to just get me a ticket. I was at home when I got his email, and I replied as fast as I could OH MY GOD YES PLEASE AWESOME THAT WOULD BE AWESOME. And then he emailed back a few minutes later to say no problem, he’d already bought it. The man gave up a better seat in a better part of the pitch in order to sit with me, since all of the seats in the stand his original ticket was in were sold out. Sheesh. These Kiwis. Their friendliness and generosity is fabulous. Startling, but fabulous.

So today he picked me up for dinner before the match and then off to Eden Park. I’d only ever been to small league matches before, and even though Eden Park is still under construction for next year’s World Cup, professional sporting arenas are always an enjoyable spectacle. Our seats were pretty low to the ground, and the Springboks blocked my view of the haka, but I got a good video of it on the big screen. The All Blacks quickly took the lead and ended up spanking those boks 32-12. It’s one of those experiences that you hope you’ll get to be a part of, and then you find out you will in fact get to be a part of, and then you’re sitting there in the crowd, knowing you will just never forget this. I will never forget this.