Unfortunately I won't be blogging about the rest of our Californian trip because my wife took the camera with her and all our photos along with it. They say a picture paints a thousand words and I'm not interested in substituting an equivalent number of words in lieu so that post will have to wait. But we've been busy since we got back - and most of that business involves sport!
Firstly, the race for pink has begun - the Giro d'Italia - the world's second biggest bike race! And it all started here in Belfast. Stage 2 is half way down the Antrim coast en route to Belfast right now as I type and let me tell you Ireland is not like they paint it in the promo video. I don't know which sucker on the organising committee they fooled with this video but he had obviously never been to Ireland before.
The rain is practically horizontal for the riders at the moment. Stage 1 yesterday had better weather, which was good because I skipped some work in the morning so Erin and I could ride the track just after the closed the roads and before the pros hit it.
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| Jon's Giant in Belfast - The beginning of a new, much more hostile life for the bike. In the background the start line. |
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| Pre-race set-up |
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| The finish line in front of city hall |
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| BMC team village |
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| Ormeau Road action |
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| Samson and Goliath (the cranes) watching over proceedings |
Last weekend we headed to Naas to catch up with my fam. But before we headed down I brought Erin to her first Ulster rugby match. She has been giving me a hard time for never taking her even though she has lived here for 2 years and we can see the stadium from our balcony. So I got us tickets to Ulster v Leinster (Erin is a Munster fan from her days in Bruff fyi).
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| This guy (Johann Muller - South African) goes to our church and retired after this game |
Luckily for us we got to see this try (touchdown for you yanks) right in our corner:
After that we headed to Naas to attend something very Irish and very Kildare specifically - the horse races. All the photos from that day are on the big camera as well so the only one you'll get to see is from my phone. As you can see from Erin's expression we didn't fare too well. $60 worth of bets were placed and not a single winner in the bunch!
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| I forgot to show you - even my lunch was Giro-themed on the day |
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| So was my lovely waitress |
Lastly, but by no means least... anyone who was over at the Dohm's house while I was there would know that I monopolised Jon's TV at times to watch basketball - probably the one sport he doesn't have an interest in. I'm sure this bothered all involved but I had a rare opportunity to watch my team, the Blazers, play in the playoffs live on TV! I had to take it. A bit of background - every since I've been a Blazers fan they have rarely made the playoffs. And they have never in that time made it past the 1st round of the playoffs! So just to see them play would have satisfied me. But down 2 points with 0.9 seconds left on the clock clinging on to a 3-2 series lead this happened:
Oh I would have paid so much to be there!
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