To close out the 3rd decade of my life, I spent the last weekend of my 20s at the Dubai Rugby 7s! Let me tell you that it was a bizarre experience. I have been to many drunken sporting events in my life but they have all been American. Being that this sport is qualified as "gentlemen acting like thugs" (as opposed to soccer), the crowd was drastically different. Everyone was drinking at 9am but there were no real fights and very limited security. Everyone was very chill- like the Woodstock of sport. Not to say that it was without drama. Apparently, people are VERY concerned with how their team competes. Since the US only scored once in 2 days of play, I chose my favorite team by match or surrounding fans. I have now found that this approach to rugby is not appreciated by "serious rugby fans"- whatever, I was born in a true first-world country where your opinion doesn't count! Yeah, I am such a great world traveler! Here are some of my observations:
1) England's song is "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"- this is an American spiritual song sung by slaves. I thought that was the most random choice.
2) The organizers only had one CD of songs to play because by day 2, I never wanted to hear the following songs EVER AGAIN:
-Sweet Caroline
-Is This The Way To Amarillo
-Hey Baby
3) People will wear anything (or close to nothing) in public in a Muslim country
4) I did the conversion after the weekend and a 12 pack of Heineken beer with a cloth cooler was close to $80 USD! I am glad that I didn't think about that at the time.... I am mildly unhappy with the close to 10 coolers sitting in my apartment- we drank WAY too much expensive beer!
5) They imported cheerleaders from all over the world to be the international squad touring with the groups. I have no words for these girls except they do fit my normal views of cheerleaders.
6) The "Stadium Food" was officially PIES. I thought this was weird since people were walking around selling pies. Then, we got a round of pies. They were chicken pot pies..... little ones for personal eating. Gross.
OK, I am going to try to share the pictures of this day on Webshots tomorrow. I hope it works. Let me know if you have problems and I will just email you the link or whatever!!!
HD of UAE!
I heart this!
About Me
- KOA
- An American, who survived living overseas as a contractor trying to blend and avoid any international incidents.
2 comments:
Hey Kate! Abieshek finally gave me the link to your blog... And I think your doing a wonderful job at keeping this updated and interesting. Im glad that things are going well for you! Everything has been pretty good for me to exspecially since I've managed to survive the latest group layoffs once again. I asked Matt L. how you were and he told me you were really busy, but you were good. Well I hope you make the best out of the Holidays while your in Dubai. We all will have to get together once you return.
Ttyl
Lynn M. :)
Hey there!! Thanks for the message!! I am super busy and working pretty much all the time! I am glad all is well- keep me updated with any and all office gossip and we will get together for a reunion as soon as I get back!!
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