I can only hope that some of you know the Dr Suess reference. I read that book many, many, many times to Mazie.
We woke up in Wellington (in our room inside an apartment, inside a parking garage, inside a shopping mall) and got dressed for the big game. USA vs Netherlands. We stopped at a wonderful cafe called The Hangar. There were lots of Americans fueling up for the game, which is actually great, because it's winter here and the tourist crowd is not great otherwise.
Our seats were awesome and the crowd was so much fun. Lots of Netherlands fans and tons of USA fans. We got to see the Crane family, who we adore.
One funny thing about the game was that the Netherlands flag is Red, then White, then Blue. I had wrist bands that perfectly matched their flag. Confusing. What's more confusing is that they wear all orange and have orange flags too. When they cheer, the yell, "Poland, Poland, Poland." Which makes no sense until most of the way through the game and you realize they've been chanting, "Holland, Holland, Holland." Right. Except...what's going on? The math teacher in me failed to retain the Netherlands vs Holland distinction. Amsterdam is in Holland and Holland is like in the Netherlands...is the Netherlands...used to be the Netherlands....will be the Netherlands???* Then we were wondering where is Zealand? We know where New Zealand is, but that means there is a Zealand somewhere, right?** Like New England is from England. But what is New England? Does it include New York? NO! Right? It's Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut. I'M NOT SURE!*** My dad knew everything and I don't know everything. I wish Mazie would stop asking so many questions.
Where was I? Oh, the game. The US kinda stunk it up in the first half. Netherlands was more fun to watch and #17 was a problem. We were down 0-1 at half, but the coach subbed in Rose Lavelle (I wear her jersey) and the game turned around. She assisted Lindsey Horan (who was an absolute beast for 90 minutes) to tie the game up 1-1. We had lots of chances in the final 10 minutes, but couldn't find the win. Someone tell me why the coach made 1 sub in 100 minutes of soccer when he's got fantastic players on his sideline...LIKE RAPINOE?!?!?!
Pretty cool to be right there.
After the game we headed north to Whanganui. We stopped at a McDonald's for one reason and one reason only. We wanted to go through a drive through on the wrong side of the car. It was awesome! The food? Fine. Turns out Mazie had her first ever McDonald's burger in New Zealand of all places. Who knew? I was unable to get the hot mustard nugget sauce for my burger and refused to substitute with the oyster sauce. Go fdul;cjk yourself. Am I right? It was a less than optimal experience.
The scenery from Wellington to Whanganui could best be described as...similar to Colorado, actually. Flat grasslands with farms and beautiful mountain ranges in the distance. Their mountains are a little greener than ours, but with pine trees and yellow coloring as well it really did remind me of home. Mazie and I talked a lot about how the more you see the more you find similarities, rather than differences. This part reminds me of Washington. This part reminds me of Rwanda. This is like Arizona. This is like Winter Park. That's like Wisconsin. This looks like Hawaii. What I thought was really cool was how New Zealand seemed to have so much biodiversity that I truly saw all those places in a few hours of traveling the country side. I wasn't shocked by anything, but it was so beautiful.
There are a ton of sheep everywhere. Or as Mazie said, "Holy Sheep!"
We arrived at our bed and breakfast at a reasonable hour, but since it is winter here, the sun had already set and we went to dinner in the dark of night. We found a sports bar that put on the Portugal v Vietnam game, but we were too tired to make it past halftime. They had a very cute downtown strip and the city is situated alongside a river, which makes for great views and a nice river walk. We also stumbled upon this....
Time travel is difficult, logistically speaking. I'm just trying to make sure I don't run into future me or past me. That's the one thing I know is an issue. I'm staying in a different airbnb every night so that I'm hard to find.
Goodnight!
*Holland refers to North Holland and South Holland (Noord and Zuid) which are two of the 12 provinces of the Netherlands. Amsterdam is in Noord-Holland. So those fans were only cheering for 16.67% of their country.
**Very interesting coincidence here. New Zealand is named after a Dutch Province, Zeeland. Which literally borders Zuid-Holland. And yeah, the answer is DUTCH province, not Netherlands province, even though google maps finds it as Zeeland, Netherlands. I want to compare the Dutch flag to the Netherlands flag to the Holland flag.****
***I was right. New England = Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts's, Connecticut, and Rhode Island
****The "dutch flag" used to be orange, white, and blue and then the French outlawed the color orange, so the Netherlands flag changed to Red, White and Blue. Orange is the colour of the Dutch Royal Family, The House of Orange-Nassau. So the all orange flag with a lion on it is in honor of that history. But don't fly the old orange, white, and blue unless you're a Nazi sympathizer. geez.
No comments:
Post a Comment