Selective Loyalties

Over the past couple weeks, much of the worl has been focused on the World Cup in South Africa. Football (soccer) fans all around the world stop their lives to take notice, and even some non-fans (like myself) are suddenly fans of the sometimes extremely dry game (NZ vs. Slovakia, case in point).

When your nation is competing, you can't help but feel some pride and cheer them on. Therein lies my rub; for whom do I cheer for? Usually it's fairly easy...
Ice Hockey? Canada.
Soccer? Italia.
Rugby? New Zealand.

But this time it wasn't quite as simple...

Canada. My birthplace. My home. Soccer? Yeah, right. When the Brazilians start competing in ice hockey will be the day Canada cares about soccer enough to have a team at the World Cup.

New Zealand. My current country of residence. Loveable underdog. Not a bad choice, but likely a non-winning side.

Italia. My ancestral heritage and where I also hold citizenship. Current no.5 in the world. Not a bad option.

Therefore, I start cheering for Italy as I usually do during World Cup time. They happen to be in the same pool as the All Whites, New Zealand's team. I talked trash to every kiwi at work, flaunting my Italian cycling jersey well before the Italy-NZ matchup. In hindsight, a very poor decision. Not only am I getting emails from friends back in Canada, but now the entire workplace is all over me after New Zealand tied Italy.

Some samples from messages incoming from Canada after Italy's early exit:
1-What happened to Italy today maaaaan!!! You in mourning... (from Chico)
2-Wow, talk about divided loyalties...great job by the Kiwis keeping the Italians at a tie! (from Anonymous)
And my absolute favourite, of which I will only show you excerpts, from a former esteemed colleague and co-coach of mine:
3-I chirped every Italian I could find about their awful embellishing against a team ranked 73 spots below them...I wore my All Blacks Jersey (as close as I could get to a Kiwi soccer shirt) and everytime one of my soccer boys (especially if they were Italian) walked by my room, I would feint an injury or flop on the floor and scream for a foul.

I couldn't stop laughing while reading that last email. Brilliant.

So now that Italy is out, along with New Zealand, do I even care about the World Cup any longer? Nope. But I still want to watch, so I've chosen the birthplace of email #1's writer, Chile, to be my new team. My apologies to Chico and Chile, as it seems the teams I cheer for always end up on the losing side.

71 Ks In 5 Days

Over the past week I had the opportunity to travel to Lake Waikaremoana for a 5 day, 71 kilometre tramp (hike) through the forest and around the lake. Disconnecting from life is always welcome; it's the reconnecting to find 200 emails waiting for you that's not so much fun, but still a small price to pay to experience what we did.

We had a fantastic 5 days, even though it rained for 4 of them. The trail was tough and beautiful, steep and windy, wet and breathtaking.

Here are a few pictures from those days of living amongst the creatures in the forest. As usual, click image to enlarge.

TV Sucks. Go Outside.

Over the weekend I got out to the west coast. Back home that would have been a minimum 3 day drive. In Auckland...80 minutes. I managed to snap some decent pics while learning about aperture, ISO, etc. I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of the new camera. Here's a few glimpses of the outcomes...
(click to view larger versions)

Tomorrow I'm off to Lake Waikaremoana with a group from work for a 5 day trek. I can't wait to unplug from everything and just enjoy what this country is world famous for; it's outdoors.