Hope and Glory

This weekend I went to Paris to watch the South African Springbox team defeat the English Rose in the World Cup Rugby. I've never been much of a rugby fan, or any other spectator sport for that matter, but my friend Brit came across from New York so I had to come see her. She's Australian so she was basically born watching rugby and cricket. It was just a nice time to catch up with a good friend and I wanted to experience what it was like in a World Cup city during the finals. As much as Americans may love their football and baseball, I think that Europeans are much more die hard fans. They have to wait four years to see a World Cup final and they wait with great anticipation and reverie.

I took the Eurostar from London-Waterloo to Paris-Gare du Nord which is what I must say the only way travel from London to Paris. No 2 hour check-in, no baggage restrictions, no long security lines, and best of all, not restrictions on liquids. When Eurostar moves next month, it will be 30 minutes shorter travel time putting the journey at a little over 2 hours. But I digress. London-Waterloo was a nightmare especially since I arrived 20 minutes before my train was scheduled to leave. I had to push through the tens of thousands of England fans to be one of the last people on the train. On the way to Paris I soon discovered that the two official England Rugby songs are The Gambler by Kenny Rogers and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Why the English chose an American country song and a Negro slave song as their rugby anthems I have no idea but I still can't get know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em out of my head. When I arrived in Paris-Gare du Nord I had to wait nearly an hour in the taxi queue and then sat in traffic for another 30 minutes. It all worked out though because taxis were impossible to come by and arrived at the hotel just in time for Brit, Mike, and Tonya to hop in my taxi and head to the pub. We headed to the area called St. Germain to watch the game with the thousands of other fans who didn't want to shell out a minimum of 800 GBP to attend the game. Being in a World Cup city during the finals is just amazing. To be right in the thick of the madness and the energy is intoxicating, and I'm not just talking about the beers.

Sadly though the English lost to South Africa 6-to-15 but everyone agreed that South Africa was the better team. There was some controversy to the game though as one of the English players scored a try (similar to a touch down in football) but was called out because his foot touched the line first (depending on which camera angle you saw). The English swear that this was a pivotal turning point in the game even though it still would have put them 1 point behind at the time. Brit was ecstatic though since it was the English team that dashed her Auzzie team's hope of a rugby win. All in all it was a tough week for the English in the world of sports. The football team will most likely not qualify for Euro 2008 (some convoluted scheme of how Russia needs to lose to Israel and England needs to beat Croatia), they were unable to defend their World Cup Rugby championship title from 2003 and finally the rookie Lewis Hamilton and the McLaren team walked away with nothing but a 50 million GBP fine after the final Formula 1 Grand Prix race in Brazil yesterday. British Airways did rename the club plane to "Hope and Glory" for the English rugby team.

Needless to say that my train ride home was a bit more somber and did not include any singing or chanting. I did get to ride in first class this time so I had quite a nice ride home. Geez I love Eurostar. Here are the pictures.