World Cup 16: It's starting to wind down

So, we only have a few days left of this WOrld Cup. It's really surreal when I think about the fact that many of us have been training and preparing for this event for years and years and it's finally here and almost gone. It leaves a little sense of 'what now?'.

So the past couple of days have been a lot of fun and really have embodied what World Cup is all about. On Thursday I spent the day out shopping for food with Miller and KTP for our BBQ with South Africa, which was one of the highlights of the trip. We went over to the Edmonton Rocker's clubhouse and had a big BBQ. It started out a little like a junior high dance with both teams standing off to one side talking to each other, but that changed after a bit. We broke the ice initially with 'The Bottle Game', where one person is a base and the other person tries to crawl up there back and place a bottle out as far as they can without touching the ground. It's usually a drinking game, but we did it with water bottles and sober.

Then we had food, which always brings rugby players together. But the real bonding came when we played a rousing rendition of 'Chicken on the Henhouse', where everyone had to partner with someone not from their team. I won't even try and describe how you play the game, but for those of you who know what it is you know how much fun we had! After that there was a dance-off, where we went position by position with one USA dancer going head-to-head with a South African dancer. In the end we were all cracking up and the final tally was a tie (or at least I say it was, and since I was the MC keeping score what I say goes). The evening wound down with the South African girls singing and drumming for us and then with us doing our rhythm performace for them. It was a really great night to bring our two teams together and bond. It's really what World Cup is all about...

Yesterday was reminiscent of our various UK tours. We had two practices both in sleet/ice-rain and a temperature of 5 degrees celsius (about 42 degrees)... it wasn't too bad once we got moving, but the hands never seemed to regain feeling once it was lost. After what were our last real practices of World Cup we came back and took long hot showers to try and thaw some before heading to the hotel next door for a dinner. We had a fancy little shindig to thank all our donors who have given so much of themselves to this program and to what we are doing here. My parents were able to come to the dinner, so I got to spend some time with them again. And apparently people actually read and pay attention to what I write in my blog seeing as I now have tickets to tomorrow's match for my family thanks to one of our donors, Denise Hargreaves, who read my blog and wanted me to have her tickets since she couldn't be here. Thank you, Denise!

After dinner the trading craziness began. Several of the South African girls came by looking to trade stuff, so the feeding frenzy began. I really want one of their fleeces, but unfortunately I don't think I have anything that any of them would want, so I'll have to keep scouring. I wound up with an entire South African kit, as well as a French jersey, that is pretty much spandex on me (it's a XL though and I did trade their prop), but it prevents shirt tackles.

This morning we had a short captain's run-through to just get the backs working together. And then we came back to the hotel put on as many layers as we could find, as well as the various South Africa paraphanelia we had acquired last night to go out and root on the South African team during their last match. They unfortunately lost to Kazakstan, but we cheered them on the whole way regardless. After that we came back to the hotel to shower and began the packing process. We still have two days left, but tomorrow's going to be consumed with the game, then other matches and post tournament functions that we really need to be packed before tomorrow night because we'll be leaving monday morning at the butt-crack of dawn. While packing a little low-level trading happened (I got a Irish prop's jersey). After that most people stayed low-key and read or watched movies. I watched 'The Devil Wears Prada' with Jen and Pam, before we had to go to a brief forwards meeting. Now it's a little bit till dinner and then our final jersey ceremony of the tour. I'll be getting my 3rd number 1 jersey, which is just incredible to me.

So that's about it... I'll write tomorrow before the match (I hope) to try and stay up to date or else things may get too chaotic and I'll lose track of events.