Waitangi Day

So last Saturday, after some emotional moments watching the mighty QR QLD Reds do there thing I headed off to meet RDP and friends at the Waitangi Day Circle Line Pub Crawl.

For more info see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_Line
For an example see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqanmTarrEU

Basically its just a pub crawl around the Circle Line tube line (clever name) where your supposed to have a drink at a pub near each stop then catch the tube to the next station and have another drink, all the way around the line until you get to Westminster where everyone goes out onto the Parliament Square for the Haka at 4pm.

Now Google is telling me that my spelling of haka is wrong! is it?

So anyways I jumped the Central line to Notting Hill Gate station where I was to catch up with RDP and friends not really knowing what to expect. I'd had a couple of breakfast beers watching the Reddies so brought some roadies for the trip, by the time I got across town I was a little tipsy. I hadn't ventured to Notting Hill before so I was hopeful that Robbie would be somewhere near by and easy to find (Mobile's don't work in the Tube so for the 30 minutes I was traveling I was uncontactable) So I come out of the tube, and in my belligerent, slightly drunk state don't realize I am shoving a cop out of the way in order to leave the station, and my friends I can't really describe the scene that confronted me.

The nice policeman I had shoved out of the way was standing there because they had SHUT the tube station! The high street outside the station looked like something of CNN coverage of downtown Bagdahd, lots of rubbish and lots of rubbish on the ground, high police presence, it was weird. There were so many people standing around drunk on the street I couldn't believe it. I called RDP - We've moved on to Gloucester Rd.
-Well Fuck you Robbit- I thought, then turned back to try and get into the station, this is when I realised that the Bobbies were there to shut the station. I needed some quick lines to get back into the station. At first I tried the 'but I'm an Aussie not a Kiwi' line but unfortunatly my Wallaby jersey was still in the laundry from Aussie day, the copper thought that Waitangi day was an Australian thing anyways, and finally I was wearing a Black t-shirt in an effort to fit in with all the fucking Kiwi's- so I was batting 0/3 at that stage, but some how my next trick of pretending to have nothing to do with the circle line crawl- What there something happening today? was clever enough to trick my way onto the train.

Well the train ride was something, it turns out that the station was shut because there were so many people coming from up the line that each train was packed, luckily I'm big enough and mean enough looking that I could force my way on board. Anyways, this story is starting to get longer then it needs to be so we'll skip ahead. I got to Gloucester Rd and hurried out of the station with about a 1000 other kiwi's to get in on the fun, when one guy pulled out a Conch I started to have a little Lord of the Flies moment in the middle of the pressing masses rushing out of the tube stop, but luckily I hadn't been near any strong liqour at that stage so any homicidal urges I was having were easily quashed.

So we come out of the tube and into the Caxton St Seafood and Wine festival, at least that's the deja vu moment I had for a little bit. It the only way to describe it, except that instead of stalls set up they just have off liscences (which quickly ran out of beer). Anyways, I found Mr and Mrs RDP and their friends and we stood around drinking for an hour or so, and then decided that the only thing to do was to join the streaming mass on its walk to Victoria, the next stop, at this point all thought of trying to get on the Tube was abandoned.

A mob of a couple of hundred or so left the Gloucester Rd mob and walked the couple of blocks to Victoria to join another bigger mob of a couple of thousand or so, and we stood around drinking some more. It was at this point that the lack of sleep (love the super 14) and many beers started to combine, the problem was a complete lack of Hurricanes jerseys to heckle. But finally I saw one and?

a) kept quiet
b) pretended to be a Kiwi and called him Bro
c) got Mouthy

OK who was right? the answer was C- TK would have loved it. The problem is over here I don't quite have the posse that I once had, RDP is a stout enough lad, but the and Co part of the group consisted of Mrs RDP, and there two house mates, and one other girl- not quite a fighting bunch. But luckily enough we have spent enough time treating the Kiwi's like a younger sibling that they are far to timid to fight back against a full blown Aussie assault despite being in a crowd of a few 1000 of their brethren.

RDP decided not long afterwards that it was time to move on, so we decided to skip ahead a few stops and go to Parliament Square to try and get a good spot to watch the dance (which is what I might have started calling it). We jumped the Tube and I was quickly told that you weren't allowed to hold on while the train was moving- Tube Serfing in a very crowded train, good times. Eventually we arrived and headed up onto the aprk. Try to picture (or watch the Youtube link above) a crowd of about 10 000 Kiwi's standing around in a park drinking (I guess you could also just go to any Auckland city park on a weekday to see the same) but anyways where off topic.

10 000 Kiwi's standing around in the park, framed on one side by the Parliament and Big Ben, the other by Westminster Abbey, on a perfect London winters day- it was really quite a scene. A couple of hours drinking went by until about 3:45 when B A Tron and RDP decided to try to get into the middle of the crowd to have the best view of the dancing- which was a lot of fun. One thing about being used to seeing so many Maori's at rugby is that when your mixing with the prodimently white crowd of Kiwi's that is in London you realise that your much, much bigger then most of them. So with some pushing, and cajoling (its amazing home many people got out of the way when I told them that RDP (the whitest man alive) was performing in the dancing) we started to make some head way through the crowd.

Our progress became really impressive all of a sudden, it was like the crowd was melting away, moving the other way, this went on for about 30 seconds until someone told us we had missed the dancing and that it was all over- Duh!

So that was it, I was officially without sight at this point, RDP and Gang wanted to kick onto the Walkie with the other 10 000 people, but I declined going instead to find the nearest pub to watch the England Scotland game. it gets hazy after that, I remember being in the bar trying to hide that I was drinking a beer I had brought in from outside, I remember booing when Wilkinson kicked his drop goal, I remember making a hasty retreat when I realised that no one else was booing the field goal, I remember going to an ATM to get cash out and then finding the cash I had all ready gotten out somewhere else, and i remember getting of the bus a couple of 100 metres past the stop on the Shoreditch High St. but that's all.

Good times.