Madder than Mardi Gras!

Last week, I was expecting a mild weekend, with lots of relaxing time to get caught up on some long lost sleep. I now see how very naive I was!

Last weekend was CRAZY! I have never been to Mardi Gras (though I hear that we'll get a taste of it in Sydney), but I imagine that it is nothing compared to what happened last weekend. For those of you who don't already know, last weekend was SEVENS! Sevens is a rugby tournament held in Wellington every year. If you have never seen rugby, it is INTENSE! Imagine a mix between football and soccer, where you run around constantly for 14 straight minutes, and get tackled full force without any pads on - you're starting to get the idea!

The festivities started Thursday with a parade around 1pm. Thankfully, my afternoon biology teacher canceled class so I got to go down to the parade! We rushed down right after class (which ended at 1pm) and got to see the tail end of the parade! I saw most of the rugby teams pass by on floats and got a squishy football (which I got signed by two NZ rugby players, but later lost) and a poster. They had a group of men playing the bagpipes which was pretty cool! At the end of the parade they welcomed all the teams to Wellington and the governor gave a speech. It was pretty cool, but just the beginning. After the parade, I went to the store to stock up on yummies for the weekend (pb+h all the way! plus chips and fruit and oatmeal (of course!)).

As I was going back to my room after the grocer, I saw Charity trying to get tickets to the Sevens tournament that next day. I thought all the tickets were sold out, so I found this kind of odd. So, I popped into her room for a chat. She informed me that you definitely could by tickets and they only cost about $50! What a deal! 50 bucks to see tons of rugby games all day and join a crowd of crazy people dressed up in all sorts of bodacious costumes! Hell yeah! I'm IN! SO I went up to Drew's room (the guy who I roomed with in Taupo) and asked if he wanted to go. He had the same response I did, so we started looking for tickets. We found some for $55, arranged to pick them up, and got them later that night. That was a total change of plans for me. Originally, I had just planned on going to some pub and watching a few games on the tele. It's amazing how God works things out! I had NO idea Pops would bless me with the tickets!

That night, the real fun began. A little after 10ish, a bunch of us went out clubbing. It was so much fun to finally relax and hang with my friends after a very busy week. (Note: Biology 1520 makes life VERY busy.) The coolest thing was that one of the clubs was giving out cowboy hats if you bought a vodka cruiser, so basically everyone did. The cowboy hat definitely came in handy later on, as you will see!

The next day was SEVENS! I slept in forever (10:30am) - which was wonderful! The games started at 1pm so Drew and I had to quickly brainstorm a costume. Everyone who goes to the tournament (actually almost everyone in town, regardless of going to the actual games or not) dressed up in groups. Sheri, Charity, and Aerin were going as pink flamingos. We considered joining them as flamingos, but they left earlier than we did, so we changed plans. Plus, i don't have anything pink. bleh. So, we looked around our rooms to see what we had. Things I noticed: unmade bed with sheets and comforter, cowboy had from last night thrown on chair, and other random piles from the previous school week. We had our costume: Togas and cowboy hats, oh yeah! Nothing beats that! (Except for the guys I saw dressed up like Alan from the Hangover, equipped with a baby doll in a stomach pouch;) Drew decided to add sunglasses to the combo last minute - great choice man! So we got dressed up and walked into town. Things were starting to get crazy. People were dressed up in ridiculous costumes (kinda a mix b/w college halloween and mardigras!). We met up with some friends (Jay and Tomas) and went into the stadium. It wasn't packed but there were plenty of people! The best made costumes were a group of avatarians in sitting in front of us. The costumes were perfect! It was incredible! After sitting down and enjoying a few games with the guys, I decided to look for the girls. But I wasn't about to walk around and lose the guys too, so I pulled out my camera and took pics of huge sections of seats, then switched to view mode and zoomed in. The girls were in BRIGHT pink, so it only took about 4 shots to find them. My method worked surprisingly well! I told the guys and we went and found the girls. They had found some other Techies so now our group was about 11 people large! It was fun. We sat back and enjoyed game after game after game of rugby. My favorite teams were NZ and S. Africa. They were crazy good! Around 4pm, perhaps the most exciting even of the game took place. I looked up from talking with Drew to see a pale figure running across the field at the opposite end. SOme crazy fan jumped down onto the field, mid-game and ran nude across the field! To his credit, he made it almost 2/3 of the way across! And then got tackled by 3 security guards with a towel. It was hilarious! I have a video of them escorting him off the field, so I will never forget it! Epic. That night we watched a movie or something like that and went to bed.

Next day was Saturday. We had purchased tickets to a concert which we went to in the afternoon. It was pretty cool but I enjoyed falling asleep on the grass the most (the sleepiness was starting to get to me). Key points for Saturday was that found the spot where Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin hide from the Nazgul just after leaving the Shire. You know, "Ooh mushrooms!" ... "Get off the road!" Yeah, that part. It was pretty difficult to find b/c the exact spot wasn't marked, but I'm pretty sure we did! The real fun for Saturday began that night! Saturday is always finals for the Sevens tournament, which means Saturday night is always the crazy party! EVERYONE gets dressed up and parties at all the clubs until they book up and then everyone crowds into the streets. So naturally, we had to join ;) Drew and my toga costumes won the popular vote for group costumes so everyone dressed up in togas. We traded the hats for the leafy circle headwear thing which I have now forgotten the name of. We even got Jessie (our TA) to join us and dress up! We had so much fun! I can't even describe! It was epic. And yes, I remember it all, mostly ;) We got back late that night. And I crashed.

Sunday, I had nothing planned, except for to work on a project for most of the day. I have developed a philosophy suggested by my dad which is actually very helpful. You see, I like to burn the candle at both ends, in case you hadn't noticed ;) So, I now view sleeping as a project. That way, I feel obligated to set aside the appropriate time to get the sleep I need (which isn't very much - ~5.5 hours a night). AND...then after a day of sleeping and staying in pajamas and relaxing like I did on Sunday, I can say that I accomplished a lot! :) What a deal! So, yeah, I slept a lot on Sunday, and spent my awake hours doing a puzzle and watching a movie and chill things like that.

All in all, SEVENS = AWESOME! For anyone planning to be in Wellington during Sevens, Go To The Games. And DEFINITELY dress up!