New Zealand has finally broken a 20+ year curse and has made it to the final game of the Rugby World Cup. They will be playing France this coming Sunday. The All Blacks beat Australia (our number 1 enemy) last weekend to make it to the final. It has been a good week for all the Kiwi's. We just have to see if they can win the final this week (which is also a holiday weekend here)- if so there will be some partying going on.
NZ campaigned to hold the RWC here on the premise that we would have a stadium of 4 million people - meaning that the games would be held throughout the country and everyone would get involved. Turnout for the games has impressed everyone and the nation has really gotten behind all the international teams. Each of the towns where games were being played have adopted a county to support. I would image the experience with the RWC would be somewhat like being in the host country for the soccer world cup or the Olympics.
In not so good news, NZ had its worst maritime disaster last week. A cargo ship ran into a reef in the Bay of Pleanty outside of Tauranga. It has been spewing oil all over the gulf for over a week. Removing the oil from the ship has proven difficult and the weather has been prohibitive. There have also been cargo containers falling into the ocean and washing up on the beaches and the ship has a big rip of the side of it and is close to breaking apart. We have our own little Exxon Valdez going on down here and it is killing the 'clean green' image of NZ. The one positive is that there have been lobbyists to start drilling for oil in the gulf lately (which Green Peace has been protesting). Bet the lobbyists go away for a few years since the oil spill incident has happened.....
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