The Commonwealth Games

This weekend was spent in other foreign cultures, besides China. On Saturday I went to play rugby again, which is always fun. There were alot of people who came out this weekend too. For those of you who don't know, rugby is like weird football. You have an olive shaped rugby ball and two teams and the goal is to score goals, or "tri"s by running into the endzone. The main difference is you can only run the ball forward, there is no forward passing, only lateral or backward, and play never stops like in football, you just keep going until someone scores a tri. We play touch rugby (which is much different than tackle) because there are all sorts of people of all different ages and levels playing together so it's just easier and less dangerous and more fun this way. In touch rugby the only other important rules are that when you get touched you have to roll the ball through your legs (like I am doing in the picture) and someone else, called the "dummy" picks it up and has to toss it off to another player right away before getting tagged or its a turn over. You get 6 touches to score a tri or it's a turn over and it's also a turn over if someone drops the ball. That night was St. Patrick's Day. Everyone met at an Irish bar in town called Shamrock's and a great time was had by all, need I say more? This is a picture of one of the guys dressed up like the pope, obviously. Johnny, a guy I play rugby with, also dressed up like a Leprechaun.
Sunday I went with a guy named Dan, who helps organize rugby, to play cricket. Cricket is another crazy Commonwealth game that is like baseball, but much lazier. The ball is kind of like a baseball, but there are no gloves and the bat is just a flat stick that you swing more like a golf club. I'm not as clear on the rules of cricket yet because I only played that once, but here is the jist of it: there are two teams, one batting and one in the field. The pitcher is called the "bowler" and the ball is "bowled", which is like over hand pitching, but has to be done with a straight arm. If you bend at the elbow it is called "chucking" and it is against the rules. You, as the bowler, are standing beside a set of three orange sticks that are one set of wickets and the batter is standing in front of the other set about 50 feet away. The ideal pitch goes straight down the middle and bounces on the ground once before reaching the batter who then can hit the ball anywhere, including behind them. There is also another person from the batting team standing next to the pitcher at the other set of wickets. To score points you and your partner (the other batter) run back and forth between the wickets. Once down is one point. Once you hit the ball in play, you can decide whether you want to run or not, it's not forced like in baseball. If you don't think you are going to make it to the other set of wickets, you don't have to run and you are not out. The only way you can get out is (1) if you run and someone fields the ball and hits the wickets with the ball before you get to the other side; or (2) if the pitch hits the wickets or (3) if the ball is a pop fly and is caught. One bowler bowls for an "over" which is I think like 6 bowls and the game is played for a certain number of overs. We played 10 overs for each side, all in a row. Which took like an hour and a half. Then we played another game of the same length. Our games both had scores into the 70's and 80's. I still have not figured out the scoring AT ALL, but I figure one thing at a time. But here is a picture of the score board and Pedro, who is from New Zealand, sitting next to it. A regulation cricket game is 5 days long. One of the guys told me "cricket is like going to the beach", meaning people just go to hang out, not necessarily to watch the whole time. Cricket was fun too, but there was alot of standing around. It's not exactly that active of a sport. I played for 4 hours without breaking a sweat. I got to play with a bunch of people I hadn't met before, although they were all older men. There were 4 Pakistani guys who were really good and this guy from Canada who reminded me of George Risch-Boody. That night Laura and I made this Mexican Tomato-shrimp soup that her brother in law (who is Mexican) taught her how to make and it was delicious! I miss Mexican alot. We had chips and salsa to accompany it, yum. We had it again for lunch today and I made grilled cheese sandwiches (with real cheese!!) too. Well, it's Monday again so another week of class. But I know it's going to fly by and soon it will be the weekend again. If anything else interesting happens, I'll keep you posted. Cheers!