footy

last nite i went to my first AFL game. that’s australian rules footy. not soccer. not american football. not rugby.

it was at the mcg, melbourne cricket ground, which is of historical significant. or something. the main difference between it and the other possible location (the telstra dome) is that telstra has a retractable roof. mcg doesn’t.

as we were going thru security, the woman searching asks if i have beer in my bag. it’s a fairly small bag. a purse, not a backpack. when i say no, she sez ‘well that’s a disappointmentl. you could fit a fair bit of beer in that bag.’

um. okaaay.

we walk upstairs to our seats and in the probably 5 minutes that took, it went from no rain to pissing down rain. it was amazing how much and how fast the rain was coming down. i tried to capture it on camera but there was no way you could see it. it was just so fine.

and it kept going. we were just barely under cover. we were in the 2nd row and the first row wasn’t covered. the guys in front of us were pretty wet. at one point i realised the guy in front of me had ice on his shirt. it must have been hailing. the rain lasted for probably 15 minutes or a little more. during that time, the game never stopped.

the whole thing lasted 2 1/2 hours and i still don’t know shit about aussie rules. we talked for most of the game. i noticed the guys can certainly kick. the rules don’t really make sense. the refs have all sorts of funny arm movements and ways to toss the ball back when it’s out of bounds.

the crowd was pretty interesting. collingwood and the lions were playing and collingwood is supposedly the most ferel (aka rowdiest) fans. they certainly were loud and interesting. i’ve got some pix ill put online later.

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