An Ultimate Weekend

For the free weekend Krystal and I went to Auckland to play in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament. It was a good chance to hang out with New Zealanders from around the country. There were teams from Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. The people were similar to people back in the US. Our teammates were very welcoming to us. Many of them had moved to NZ for various reasons from Canada, the US, and the UK. After the tournament was over, many of them were eager to watch the cricket game on TV that night.
I noticed many similarities between NZ Ultimate and US Ultimate. Both groups use many of the same phrases while playing and encourage sportsmanship between teams. There were some differences in the playing style but the formations that the NZ players used were comparable to Ultimate strategies in the US.

I have noticed that a lot of sandwiches in New Zealand have avocado in them; one person this weekend made himself an avocado and vegemite sandwich. Vegemite is not nearly as popular back in the States as it is here. We had meat pies for lunch; I have also noticed that they are common in the many bakeries throughout NZ. Other than eating vegemite and having slight accents, the kiwi’s seemed very similar to Americans.

We also went to Mission Bay which is a beach about 10 minutes outside of Auckland. While there, I saw a group of people playing pick up games of cricket rugby. These sports are defiantly more mainstream in NZ than Ultimate. The tournament this weekend, which was a national tournament, only had seven teams.