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Sam and Stu's Kiwi Travels
Right....I'm going to start by telling you what SHOULD have happened today...and then I'm going to tell you what ACTUALLY happened today!!
Ok, the plan was to get up at 7 in time to catch the early bus up to Coronet Peak. Today was the finale of the Winter Festival and we wanted to watch the half-pipe competition which was taking place on Coronet at 1. We thought if we caught the early bus we'd have time to get a good morning's skiing in before we stopped for lunch and the half-pipe. If we had time we were going to get a few more runs in after the half-pipe, before getting the last bus home at 4:30. We had a table booked at Brazz (a restaurant in town) for 7pm for our first New Zealand lamb roast dinner, and we thought if we headed home after dinner we could get a couple of hours sleep before getting up at 2am to watch England v Portugal at the Sports Bar at 3am....
Whats that saying about the bet laid plans??!!!?!?!!
To start with we overslept! We slept through both of Stu's alarms and woke up at 10:10 instead of 7. As the last shuttle up to Coronet goes at 10:15 from a bus stop down the road we weren't going to make the half-pipe today......grrrr!!!! We'd both been really looking forward to it and were annoyed at ourselves for sleeping in. Never mind, there are other half-pipe competitions later on in the season so we'd just have to wait for those.
Ok, since we weren't going skiing what were we going to do today? We sat in bed going over our options and while we were pondering I had a quick look at my phone to see whether my alarm had gone off or if i'd just slept through it (I'd set it for the wrong day by the way!!!). I had two text messages, one of which was from mum and read "I hope you're watching...I can hardly bare it myself" ??!!??!?! WHAT????? She could only mean the England game but I was positive the game wasn't until tonight. I jumped out of bed and ran into the living room to find the fixtures sheet.....we'd got our days and dates wrong with the time difference!!!!!ahhhhhhh!!!! *#!*$**!!!!! Really, really not happy!! I'd been really looking forward to this game as it was going to be Englands first (and only as it turns out!) real test and as we were going to the Sports Bar to watch it it should have been a brilliant atmosphere....b*****!
Right...a plan! I knew that the Sports Bar recorded every game and that they would play them back at your request. I marched into the bedroom, kicked Stu out of bed and we were dressed and out the door in 15 mins. We made a Bee-line for the Sports Bar as we didn't want to hear or see anything that might give away the score. We walked in the door and it was absolutely dead inside, there were two other people in there. We asked the barmaid if she could put the England v Portugal game on as we had missed it - she gave us an incredulous look, laughed and said she'd put it on for us.......but we'd be there for a long time as it was a very long game!!! Grrrrr....really didn't want to know that as it suggested extra time and penalties and we'd made it there without a hint of the score but hey...at least we were going to see the game. We sat down with a pint and a Malibu and coke (at 11:15am!!!) and watched the sorry story unfold.
We got to half time and decided to order some food (as we'd skipped breakfast) before watching the second half. I headed up to the bar, placed our order and chatted to the barman as he poured our drinks:
"What do you reckon of the game so far?" he asked.
I said it was ok but we didn't seem to be playing too well - just had to hope things would improve in the second half, and that I was annoyed we'd missed it live:
"Yeah" he said, "It was a brilliant match to watch especially as it went all the way to penalties!"
Aaaaaaaaaaahh!! I put my hand to my ears and said please, please don't tell me the score!! Grrrrrr!!! I grabbed the drinks and stormed back over to Stu..... I've missed the match, I'm now watching the replay....I really didn't want to know that England aren't going to win in normal, or even extra, time, and that its going to go all the way to penalties!!
I didn't want to ruin it for Stu so I kept quiet. We watched downhearted as Beckham limped off, and then as Rooney was sent off...then...just after Rooney was given his marching orders the screen went blank and the France v Brazil game flashed up!! Grrrr...again! Stu went up to the bar and asked if they could put the England game back on..................the plonkers had recorded over it!!! They'd forgotten to finalise the DVD and had recorded the next match over the top!!!!!!! Ever get the feeling it just wasn't meant to be!!!!
The barman apologised and said he couldn't give us the rest of the game but he could tell us the score if we wanted. Well...it wasn't looking like we were going to see the rest of the match so we crossed our fingers (and toes) and said go on then.....England lost 3-1 on penalties!!! s***, (Sorry mum!) so not only had we missed the match but we'd missed England's last game of the tournament!!!!! Really not a good day!! We were gutted....I'd really felt that this could be Englands year and was so relieved when we found out we could watch the matches over here. It was such an anti-climax....especially as we weren't even there to see it!! We sat there stunned for a second, and then made some lame excuses like "Aaah, well....with Beckham, Terry and Rooney missing the next match we'd never have made it to the final anyway".
No point crying over spilt milk, what shall we do with the rest of the day Stu asked? Now, those of you who know me well will know that I'm not one to give up on something I really want without a fight...stubborn some might say....personally I prefer determined or strong willed!!! :0) . I needed to see Englands exit, I wanted to see every missed chance, every free kick, every second of extra time and every penalty to see where we went wrong. I needed to know that I had watched the match, and to know how and why they were out...and I wasn't going to stop until I saw it!!!
I knew that most of the matches were replayed around lunchtime on Sky Sports so I dragged a slightly disgruntled Stu to altitude bar to see if they were playing the replay. As it was only 1 o'clock the bar wasn't open yet but a lady on the activities desk on the door suggested we head to Pog Mahones, the Irish pub round the corner. Round we went but we'd missed the replay!!!! The England game was replayed at 10am, and they were now playing France v Brazil. The barman, perhaps sensing my distress, pulled out a TV guide and had a look through. The full game would not be on again but we could watch the highlights at 10 this evening....hmmmm......That's a good back up I thought but I hadn't given up yet!!!
I dragged a slightly more disgruntled Stu up to the Pig and Whistle, Queenstowns only English Pub, to see if they had recorded the game.......nope, still no luck!??!! It was at this point that I started to think the replay was our only option. Stu pointed out that short of trapesing round every pub in Queenstown, all we could do was accept we'd missed it and head back to Pog Mahones at 10 for the highlights. Okay....I give in!
We headed back to Altitude Bar (which had opened by this time!) for some drinks and some pool. On the way I made a quick stop off a Betty's Liquor to put some credit on my phone card so I could give Dad an early morning wake up call!!! I needed to have a moan about the nightmare we'd had trying to watch the game, and also to moan about Englands general performance and the fact that we were out of the World Cup (as Stu was sick of me moaning and wandering around aimlessly like a grumpy teenager!!!). Even though it was about 4am back home, a sleepy Dad answered the phone and let me rant and moan....aahh, isn't he lovely!!! (Mum too i might add...I was very surprised to hear her chirpy little voice at that time in the morning!!!).
We still had our table booked for our roast at 7 so we figured we'd stay in Altitude until 6, and slowly wander to Brazz via a few shops on the way (retail therapy....and the shops here are open til gone 7!!!!). While we were in Altitude, one of the barman flicked up the Sky TV guide on the big screen and was browsing through the Sports Channels to see what was on tonight......21:30 - SOCCER QUARTER FINAL REPLAY!!!! But which one???? I ran over to the bar and asked the barman if he knew which game was being replayed. He pressed the Information button and............halleluya (??!!?!?!) it was England v Portugal!! Finally, we'd found it!!!! Right, new plan!! We'd go for dinner as planned and head back to Altitude after to watch the game - yey!!! I felt much happier now!!
We wandered up to Brazz for 7 and had a beautiful Roast dinner in front of a roaring open fire - things were definately looking up! We stayed in Brazz for a couple of drinks and then headed back down to Altitude. The game wasn't on until 9:30 but we decided to take prime position in front of the big screen at 8:30 to make sure we didn't miss out again!! When we sat down we were a bit confused as the England game was already on....don't worry, it was only the highlights being played on another channel!! We decided to watch anyway just in case the barman had got it wrong and this was our only chance - especially as we'd already seen the first 60 minutes!
As promised, the full game started at 9:30. We sat and watched every missed chance, every stray ball, every free kick, every Portugese dive and every near miss. Finally we had the agony of the penalty shoot out and we watched despairingly as England only managed to score one penalty - an all too familiar story. It was a sorry three hours to watch but at least we had seen what happened and we knew how and why England were out...I could make my peace with it if you like!! We headed home, tired but much happier at 1am. It had been the longest day (as Stu pointed out we'd watched the match about three times in the end!!!!) but we'd done what we set out to do...we'd watched England v Portugal from beginning to end. I think Stu's very relieved the World Cup only comes along once every four years!!! :0)
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