Rugby and my International Travels

Last week on a Zoom call for my institution's Incident Assessment Task Force (IATF), the Chief of Staff to the President said to everyone that our daily IATF Zoom calls allow us to learn a little more about each other and one example he gave was that I'm an England Rugby fan because I was wearing their jersey.  I just happen to have the England jersey and it is one I randomly bought back around 2000-2001 when I saw it in the store!

I got into rugby (but have no idea what the rules are) when I arrived to my hotel in Auckland ~1:30am after beginning my journey from the 2017 AIEC conference in Hobart, Tasmania and at that time of night the check-in was in the bar. The All Blacks were on many of the TV’s so I decided to help the local New Zealand brewing companies and hydrate while watching the match before ever going up to my hotel room!

I also got to watch Ireland crush Scotland (27-3) in the 2019 Rugby World Cup group stage over a full Irish breakfast in Dublin back in September which was an incredibly wonderful treat!