Hilary's Pages

ALL BLACKS WIN RUGBY 7s in Wellington! *not my photo. Source: stuff.co.nz

Team USA at the Rugby 7s in Wellington! Casual selfie with Maddison Hughes after ceremonies!

Hilarious.

Link to main rugby 7s website for Wellington

This is what happens when New Zealand wins the Rugby 7s in Wellington!! *not my photo, photo by Jennifer Smith @lifeactuallyltd

For the weekend to watch, attend, and experience the RUGBY 7s! The rugby 7s is a HUGE worldwide tournament and happens all over the world! (Las Vegas, London, Port Elizabeth, and more!) However, the one here in Wellington is the only one where the entire crowd of 40,000 people DRESS UP! We're talking full on costumes, some of them pretty intense; pineapples, minions from Despicable Me, The Flintstones, pirates, Bananas in Pajamas, huge Tickle Me Elmo's, and so many more. Literally every single person. Amazing. The 7s were so much fun, with 9 hours of strait rugby a day, concerts, performances by a New Zealand artist and by the number one ranked marching band in the world! (And a DJ too, of course) The final match ended up being between South Africa and New Zealand which were two of the teams we had been following the whole time which was so wild to have it come down to them! Such an incredible game, and such a unique experience to hear the entire stadium singing to new Zealand's national anthem. New Zealand ended up winning, just so amazing. The players were fantastic and came around to our section (we managed to get in the first row for the whole thing! We could literally reach out and touch the players!) and we even took some selfies with the players haha! One of them on team USA couldn't figure out how to get a good angle with the stadium so he offered to hop right up into the seats with us!!! Incredible. Incredible. Incredible.

Not sure where we're going, but we'll get there eventually.

Means "foam" in Maori.

Where we went this morning!

Woke up to this view the first morning! Managed to unintentionally go for a morning dip (read: fell in) but luckily it was warm and refreshing!

Stuff is just stuff and I've arrived safely in New Zealand and managed to find Sarah and Kim!

Awesome.

Flying over the clouds.

Good morning from the calendar line...

Hung in the trees, Sung by the breeze. White lights near Santa Monica, CA.

For my ELEVEN hour layover.