It was only our second day in Ireland and already we had
full plans for the day (even though just a few hours beforehand we really had
not a clue in the world what we would be doing). Luckily the night before, we
had met a very nice Holland family who had two extra tickets to the South Africa
and Ireland rugby match, and they were able to give us a great deal on the
tickets. So that day we headed to meet them at the same pub we had met them the
night before to get our tickets and hang out with them for the day.
So let us just set the record straight now, we have met so
many people already that not remembering names will become a common theme in
our blog so for the sake of argument we are just going to give every one a
different name and try to explain them as best as possible.
In the Holland family, there was mom, or Mary, who was quite
a lovely lady and had helped us out the night before by telling the old creeper
man to leave us alone (even though it probably was just Mary’s secret plan in
order to hook up her son with Brittany). Then there was her son, Max, and her
husband, John. Both of these fine gentlemen were also quite enjoyably pleasant and
a little quieter than Mary. They had come along with their friend named Julie
who was shy at first but warmed up to us and became the favorite for both of us.
Then there was Bob. He worked with John, and man, was he something else. He was
friendly at first, but as the day went on this friendliness became a little
much.
However, we were, to some extent, at the grace of these
people since they had given us their extra tickets, so we followed them around
for the day. We went to pub after pub since the game didn’t start until 5:30.
Every place we went to they bought our drinks, we talked about the game and got
to know each other a little more.
When we eventually made it to the game, the stadium was
packed with 55,000 people. It was incredible; however, if we are going to be
honest the actual game was not the most fascinating part. It was the players.
These men looked like they could knock down tiny towns with their huge muscles
and size. In some sense they looked like warriors, but quite charming ones. We
were in a trance. Sadly, we didn’t meet them that day, but we do believe it is
in our near future, and in that case one of us will be getting married.
But back to the actual game, since we had gotten the tickets
from the Holland family who was cheering for South Africa, it was kind of
necessary for us to do the same and fortunately we had cheered for the winning
team. Although this was the first full rugby game that either of us had gone to
and we were a bit unsure of the rules, it was a good match and in the end we
both learned a little something about the actual game. The one thing that was
very interesting was the fact that when a player kicked on either team the
entire stadium was quiet. It was an unusual and somewhat eerie scene. Also both
sides, especially the Irish, were quite nice to the opposing team. It was even
funny when they tried to smack talk the other side because it seemed so
innocent.
After the game, of course we had to go out to celebrate some
more, but by the end of the night both of us were exhausted and we went to bed
dreaming not about the actual rugby match, but about those nice looking rugby
men, soon to be husbands ;)
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