oh rugby

m just going to go ahead and gush about rugby for a bit here, so bear with me.

I love rugby. And guess what? England loves rugby too. England actually watches rugby and knows how the game works, and I love that about England. Go England.

This past weekend I spent most of my time with the girls from the rugby team. I so glad I joined a team, even if just for the social aspects of being a team member. Although I've been hanging out with the local kids, it's always been with at least a couple other American students too. So being on team that hangs out together at least a few times a week and having the chance to be with just them and no other Americans has been a unique treat.

Right now in England there's a tournament going on called the Six Nations tournament, which is a rugby tournament that lasts about two months fought by the following six teams: England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, and Italy. This past Saturday there were three games in a row on, so our rugby team spent most of the day together watching them. First, since our assistant coach had been bragging about his culinary skills, we went to the supermarket, bought a bunch of various ingredients, and brought them to his house so he could cook for us while we watched the first two games. Later that night we all walked down to the O'Neill's Pub to watch the England vs. France game. The atmosphere at these events is so awesome. The pub was extremely crowded--we squeezed 6 people around a small table, and throughout the rest of the pub people were standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the tv screens and sitting on the floor and steps in front of the large projector screen. They all sang aloud at the national anthem, they cheered at when tries were scored and yelled at the players when they made errors. It was beautiful.

Sunday was more rugby, this time rugby practice. Practices here, like everything else I've experienced in England, are more casual, laid-back, almost sloppy in a way. We don't really do any conditioning or drills. We just sort of show up and the coach splits us up into two small groups and throws a ball at us and has us play rugby. Or do one certain drill. For two hours. Pretty unstructured and totally different from what I've grown up to believe a sports practice should be.

Well, anyways, first game is tomorrow (now today, it's 1 am) so I'd best get to bed. =)

Random Fact #7: Instead of doing the dishes, you do the "washing up." Therefore, dish soap is called "washing up liquid."