6/20 - A more colorful post

What I did:

I woke up and got ready to go play some touch rugby. Matt plays with a group of guys every week, and invited me to go play today. So, Matt, Jack, and I headed off to a park overlooking the city. Guys (and 1 girl) steadily trickled in for a while and by the time everyone was there I think there were a little over 20 of us. It rained a little at first, but it cleared up right in time to start playing.

We split up into 4 teams and had two games going on at a time. There were about 5 people per team. The rules had been explained to me, but jumping in took a little time to get the hang of. Nevertheless, my team won almost all of our games (probably more by luck than anything), and I had a great time. It was good to get out and run some and meet a lot of people doing it. We played for a couple of hours and at the end even tried a bit of touch American football. After we were all completely worn out we headed back.

We made some lunch and watched some telly for a while. Then Matt looked up what was going on around town and found that a gay pride festival was going on. We finally decided to go (Matt wanted to get some pictures, he’s a photographer). It was pretty interesting. They had some live music going on a stage facing a very large open lawn area. There were lots of booths set up on one side and around the back. A fair number of people were there just walking around or listening to the music. We walked around some (the band was terrible) and checked out what was going on. We wondered before going if people would know right away we were straight, and what it would mean if anyone hit on us, but not much happened. One guy greeted us, but that was about it.

We stayed just a little while then left to go back to Matt’s. Then, Matt and I took George (his dog) for a walk in a different nearby park. We saw a live cricket game going on in the park and watched a little of it, then found some sticks to throw to George. After a good bit of that, we went back and saw that a new cricket game had started. We watched some more of it then headed back for some dinner, Bear Grylls, and a nice movie (Reign Over Me) and time to chill the rest of the night.

What I learned:

Mayonnaise can freeze. Maybe?

Gay pride celebrations seem to kind of go against any attempt to bring an understanding of diversity to the city. They just reinforce stereotypes of others and really only attract the gay community (although I can’t say that too completely because we were there). I just don’t really know if they serve a purpose. (I have to attribute most of this thought to Jack, but I found it very well founded)

A lot about rugby – no passing forward (I got caught), have to keep the right distance back when playing defense, it is very tiring, cleats (proper boots) are helpful on wet, slick grass.

Man vs Wild is called Born Survivor over here.

The truest meaning of being “knackered.”