Sunday, July 12, 2009

Splashing in a Mud Puddle


That seem to be the theme for this week. From start to begin, I was just walking around in mud. I've already talked about my holiday program experiences that I don't really want to discuss again. And I worked one day of manual labor taking wooden boarding out from underneath a bridge....in the mud. And on Saturday, we had a league match in which by the end of the game the pitch would have been unplayable. Now I know why they didn't want us to warm-up on the pitch before the game.




We went to Waiuku on Saturday. This was my first time getting out of the city limits of Auckland. That being said, I was off to the middle of nowhere. It looked like a rural area in the United States almost. There wasn't really much differences between the two. And the pitch was off in the middle of nowhere also. Fortunately, the club made sure that we were comfortable, they had better changing rooms and those that lock instead of being in fear of getting everything stolen. Also they fed us after the game even though the chips were lacking. It's alright. Food is food right?




We had control of the game for the most part. We kept the ball and tried to break them down as much as possible but they were a tight group and made life miserable for us on that front. It seemed like they weren't worried about winning the game rather than to make sure we didn't put four or five on them. They went into a 4-5-1 lineup and attacked with just him or relied on a long-shot hoping that we would mess up.




The referee was bordering on blatantly cheating for the other team. We had a couple of sure penalties not called and he called a foul on me at the end of the game where I didn't even touch the guy, but I think he wanted to make things interesting and have the other team lump it in the box for one last go. Normally after the game, you would shake the referees hand too. I honestly couldn't build up the strength to do it. I told myself eff that and walked away. I should have been an asshole and walked up to them and then walked away but whatever it's cool




At the end of the day, we came out 1-0 winners. Like I said before by the end of the game, the pitch was just in a total mess and grinding out a victory like this at a tough place helps build more confidence ahead of difficult games. I mean I was wearing soft ground cleats and I still couldn't keep my footing. I felt like I was in a ice-skating rink even though I can't skate worth a crap. I was just glad to get back to the locker room take a nice shower and put $50 in the bank.




Today (Sunday)


I went up to the summit of Mount Eden and just took pictures (as seen above). It was somewhat muddy going up there. And I didn't bring the right shoes for my expedition. I had indoor soccer shoes and if you know how indoor shoes look then you know that the bottom of the shoes have horrible grip if you are going into muddy terrain. I got up there just fine. It was more the getting down part that I had trouble with.




I got up to the summit and took pictures of the crater because it use to be (i don't know if it is active) a volcano. And then I went around the summit and took random pictures of all the parts of Auckland. You can see most of it from up there. Sky City, the port, the Harbour Bridge, everything. It was cool even though the weather was quite windy and overcast, it did help with the picture-taking though and being alone with this kind of weather did help my mood a little bit. So I got back down, of course took more random pictures and then went back to the hostel for a much needed nap.




Right now I'm in an internet cafe (what's new) just checking up on what's going on in the world and how are my friends holding up. I'm sure everybody's enjoying the hot weather and being able to go into a pool or the beach for a nice dip on the weekend. I'm still over here trying to get a tan any way possible. Of course I've been unsuccessful.. (those that are reading and don't know my sarcasm take it for what it is)

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