So, Coff's Harbour is not a place you can get wifi, apparently. Between my phone not being configured correctly to get internet (which indi eventually fixed, god bless her) and our hotel not having functioning wifi, and my business preventing me from finding time/places to get wifi, i've been mostly offline. When I did get a chance to get online at the local bowling club (home of australia's oldest people), i'd be frantically trying to catch up on personal and nyrc business. but now i've gotten caught up on a lot, and my phone works, so i'm in better shape.
been a crazy few days. our hotel is on the beach near a bowling club and a pub that's sponsoring many of the teams, so we always go there to eat. (the pub is weird; it's a combo family restaurant/sports bar/gambling house/kids arcade, and serves the same food as all generic restaurants here. they also don't keep tabs at the bar). after an interesting drive down (our driver is a non-native, and not an expert manual-transmission bus driver), we unloaded at our hotel and headed to a fancier hotel for our jersey presentation, where all the teams took way too long to get our official playing jerseys (but it was still really cool). we got dinner at our official pub (where they have tables assigned to us and prepared meals for us each night), then off to bed.
off to the first day of games. our tent is being hosted by a local club, the sharks, one of the best touch teams in the area. prepared breakfast and lunch, ice baths, and it's parked right next to the australians' giant tents (since they brought like 150 teams) near the main fields. so, at any given time, we're all milling about, some teams warming up, some teams eating, some teams getting back, etc.. we played papua new guinea and won 11-5, then england 5-4 (which was an upset), so we were feeling pretty good. the horrible rain started when we played australia, and they (properly) creamed us 0-17, but we still played fairly well. ice baths between games, then off to dinner and bed. we watched what we could of the other teams, but the schedule wasn't generally very agreeable to seeing too much else.
second day (thursday), the torrential rain continued. people are playing in pure mud, and you're basically soaked as soon as you get out there. we played well against fiji (our televised game) and cook islands, but lost to both (close games). the whole day is just a mess of trying to stay dry/warm, and get game-ready, and adjust strategies based on the terrible weather.
showed up early for our game against japan friday, but the whole day was cancelled due to weather and lightning. so we had a bit of an indoor session at a local netball court, then long lunches and down time to actually get shit done on the internet, which is when i primarily caught up (and indi fixed my phone!). got to watch some rugby, and the team went 9-pin bowling, where we ran into the chinese touch team and challenged them, which we won handily (suckers).
saturday (today) had our morning game against japan in pure sludge (though at least we had a field -- many of them were completely flooded). narrowly lost, but we get to rematch this evening.
trying to figure out when we can go shopping, because apparently the party at the end is a fun dress-up event, and the usa women's team already had an awesome set of costumes when they showed up for dinner friday night, so we need to catch up.
it's been fun having all the other teams around and seeing the challenges they have and getting to comiserate in the tents. our women's team (first usa women's team ever) has been doing well after a rocky start, and the other teams are all doing ok. it's an interesting feeling to feel like the best in the US, then come here and realize just being in the middle of the pack is a challenge. the joy of playing with the greats :)
 |
| This was back in Redlands, but i obviously have to share it. |
 |
| lining up for the bus to coffs |
 |
| omg, rice krispies are called RICE BUBBLES |
 |
| team bus to coffs. every time we travel anywhere, we number off 1-16 (according to our field numbers) |
 |
| australia looks like this sometimes |
 |
| sometimes it looks like this |
 |
| the drive down to coffs. kind of Mediterranean feel, i suppose |
 |
| green cokes?! |
 |
| burger kinds are called "hungry jacks" because a dude who owned a mom-and-pop called burger king refused to sell the name |
 |
| pit stop on teh way to coffs. Targets here are called "Target.". PERIOD. |
 |
| australia apparently makes a game out of each town having a giant statue of something. this town has a shrimp. |
 |
| road-side pitstop near some kangaroos. |
 |
| people looking at kangaroos |
 |
| hard to see, but the Coffs Harbour Giant Bananna is there, hiding behind luke's head. |
 |
| after we get to our hotel, we go to the nearby bowling club to get lunch and internet and gaze at really, really old people |
 |
| lunch here is always steak, chicken parm, or pasta. |
 |
| we divided ourselves into blue, red, and white teams, based on bandanas. was supposed to be used to divide responsibilities and for a photo scavenger hunt, but we haven't had the time to do any of that. |
 |
| on our way to a warmup session the night before |
 |
| walk-through the night before, at some warmup fields. you can tell the tournament hasn't started, because we're not swimming yet. |
 |
| first downpour, from our hotel room, the night before. we went into the hottub during it |
 |
| jersey ceremony. really gives you an impression of importance. |
 |
| mixed team presentation. tristen's the coach from FIT. |
 |
| me getting my jersey. included this because i look huge. |
 |
| looking hulk style. |
 |
| getting my photo with our player-coach, jarred (his third world cup) |
 |
| messed up photo |
 |
| this guy tracey disappeared for a few days, then showed up here again. |
 |
| first day! the entrance behind the NZ tent. |
 |
| some of the main fields |
 |
| tent USA (and Chile, with whom we're friends, i think because they come to our nationals a lot) |
 |
| our tent, in action. you know, as much as a tent can be. this is clearly before the torrential downpour turned it into a barely functioning refuge. |
