Jolly Ol' England

Still in England, in the wee town of Thame. I'm currently working illegally during the day at David's warehouse, packing boxes and making up kits and whatnot. Could be more exciting, but hey, money is money, and this is a huuuuge favour from David. (For those of you who don't know, I'm staying with the family I Au Paired for two summers ago, David is the dad.)
So I don't really have any exciting photos to put up, or stories to report. Besides the fact that we break twice a day for 'tea time', so I've literally been drinking about four cups of tea a day here... And the man who runs the warehouse, Vernon, has a toy model bus collection, (I think he owns around 300+ buses...) and also collects Christmas decorations, which I find really exciting. (He orders them all from Costco, apparently they have really stellar Christmas stuff.)

While I spend my time mindlessly packing boxes full of Nokia mobile phone leaflets, I got to thinking...
I had mentioned earlier on in the blog that my mom had wanted me to have a purpose for travelling, sort of like an informal research project while I visit each place. Originally I was going to take a look at cultural events, or festivals that each city/country hold throughout the year. But now, after thinking more about it and having already experienced some of it, I have decided to really take a look at the sporting industry over here, and attempt to compare it to ours in North America.
 Already I have been to a Gaelic Football match, (match, not game) when I was visiting Laura in Dalkey. Her friends brought me to the match, and we watched their team lose, unfortunately. This sport is only played in Ireland, which is really interesting. It has a cult following however, because it is so Irish and unique. The fans are extremely dedicated, and like football,  (European football) each Irishman or woman has their club (or team.)The match was attended by all ages. Kids had their faces painted, covered head to toe in their team colours. Cuala was the team we were rooting for, some of Laura's friends played on it, I guess they've played better games...
I also had the great privilege of not only experiencing the game during the afteroon, but also celebrating (yes, celebrating) their loss at the clubhouse in Dalkey later that evening. North American athletes take note-- even though the team had lost, quite badly actually, they still managed to have their spirits up and
celebrating at the pub with all of their friends and family. This would never happen in Canada....
Men of all ages, fathers, sons, and friends were all gathered in this small, warm, and pub-like atmosphere, drinking to good health and good times, and hoping that next time they'll have better luck.

It was a really neat experience, one that was very Irish and one that I hope to have again soon.
There was such a strong sense of camaraderie among everyone, anyone was welcome.
We didn't leave the GAA (Gaelic Football Association) clubhouse until 5am...leaving behind a good number of people still continuing on the celebrations...