DeFiNe a "rEaL MaN's SpOrT"

You can bounce it, punch it or punt it; either way, you better not miss one of your three goals. When Naomi and I landed back in Brisbane unexpectedly, we stumbled upon a bit of luck in the form of her dad's Australian Football League (AFL) box office tickets. Usually the seats are filled-up with clients, however, he had a few more people coming so had rented a second box for clients and gave the first one to her brother. Sadly, her brother then had to go down to the Gold Coast and gave them to the siblings to split up. As a result, I experienced my first AFL game in style (well, apparently as much as possible outside of Melbourne.) Although style may be a lose word. I experienced it in boy/pure Australian style, which is a whole lot of beer, a whole lot of fried food and a whole lot of swearing.

Naomi invited two of her friends from YSA (with a bit of encouraging) and when we all arrived, we were directly behind a group of whatever the old, frat-boy equivalent is in Australia. They were already drunk and couldn't understand why we didn't want to bet with them. Although, when they heard 1)my American accent and 2) me talking about the fact I much prefer basketball over U.S. football (psh, wimps, they wear padding and stop for rests every 2 minutes), we were there new favorite people. Who knew basketball was so huge down under?! I was never at a loss of people to turn to (minus Naomi and my fellow Yank, Rob) when I couldn't figure out the rules.

Throughout the evening we had--true to boy style--a TV showing the All Blacks game (for all you Americans, that's the world famous New Zealand rugby team) and platters of sausage rolls, meat pies, fish and chips and other bar food to keep our bellies warm. There were times we'd see other boxes getting chocolate covered strawberries or pastries and get really excited, only to get another platter of meat pies. But, what can you do? With free tickets, great company and free food it's hard not to have a good time, no matter the calorie count...or somewhat confusing rules.

Here we go defense, here we go!

18 men on the field per team, it was sometimes hard to keep up.
Luckily I had good commentators.