Howzat!

It's a good day to be an Englishman in Nuzziland. The cricket boys made a great start to the tour tonight.

It's a good day to be a New York Giants fan too. Yesterday, in case you missed it somehow, was the Superbowl, and the unfancied Giants beat the previously unbeaten Patriots in a rollercoaster game with an awesome climax. Both teams scored early on and then the second and third quarters passed with New York's defense dominating and their offense misfiring. But then it all came to life in the fourth quarter. New York scored to take the lead then with 2:45 or so left the Patriots retook the lead and it looked all over. The Patriots were going to go unbeaten through the season, only the second team ever to do so. But the story had one final twist in the tail as the Giants drove the length of the field, including one spectacular play, to retake the lead with only 30 seconds or so remaining. The invincibles had been defeated.

And I got to watch it all. One good thing about the timezone I now live in is that the Superbowl is on on a Monday afternoon rather than overnight on a Sunday. No more staying awake till 4am. Instead, I took the afternoon off and joined 15 or so people Simon had gathered at the Holy Grail sports bar in the city centre. The place was heaving. I was quite impressed. The Holy Grail is a cool place too with a huge bigscreen thing. Almost cinema size. It was all round a great afternoon. The group I was with, including Kiwis, an Aussie, a Fijian and another Englander, didn't have extensive American football knowledge. I think I could count on one hand the number who had watched a whole game before. But by the end, they were all converts. The Superbowl afternoon could become a regular thing.

Tonight we went to a lovely pub called the Watershed along by the estuary. It doesn't so attractive when you say it's next to the estuary but it's a lovely spot. And a lovely little pub. The toilets have to be seen to be believed and the icecream dessert was very gastropub. We'll definitely have to go there again. We were there to celebrate Rebekah's birthday. 21 today. Happy Birthday, Bek! It was a shame that it wasn't warm enough to sit outside but it didn't spoil the evening. And we got to meet some new people too.

One week today my dad will have arrived. Exciting, eh? It'll be great to see him.

Ooh, and we have a day off tomorrow. Feb 6th is Waitangi Day. I like having this bank holiday in the middle of the week thing.