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I returned to Auckland on Sunday afternoon after a congested three-hour drive from Taupo and got a motel room north of town, where I spent that evening unpacking and sorting through everything. After my two-month trip around New Zealand, I had a lot of organizing and packing to do before flying to Australia, four days later. I was taking some of my things with me on the plane, mailing excess items to myself in Sydney that I wouldn't be able to carry on the plane, and mailing still other items, including most of my New Zealand souvenirs, back home to America. I wasn't flying to Sydney until Thursday but I wanted to get everything taken care of beforehand so I could spend a couple days visiting the northern tip of New Zealand, which is called, not surprisingly, The Northland.
I continued packing in my motel room on Monday, which happened to be Super Bowl Sunday (or, because of the time difference, "Super Bowl Monday" in New Zealand). I watched the Patriots beat the Rams that afternoon while packing two big boxes of camping gear to send off to Sydney and another box to mail back to the U.S., which included all sorts of useless souvenirs of this Kiwi country.
Unfortunately, as I discovered, New Zealand television stations broadcast only the "European Version" of the Super Bowl. They're the same video feeds as the American version but they use a couple of second-rate American announcers and some hyperactive Scottish guy for color commentary. Folks in Europe apparently understand football better if it's translated by a guy who sounds like Scotty from "Star Trek."
Throughout the game, the announcers painstakingly described many of the game's intricacies, such as the "subtle" difference between Holding and a First Down, since football is, I'm sure, a mystifying sport in Europe, just as cricket is in America. I was disappointed, though, that they didn't show any commercials, which is undoubtedly the best part of any Super Bowl broadcast. Frankly, without the commercials the game was pretty bland, despite both the close score and the energetic sputterings from Scotty: "Captain, the Patriots have just lost their dilithium crystals! They can't take much more of this!"
Despite the announcers, it actually turned out to be a pretty good game, which is unusual for a Super Bowl. Still though, it just wasn't the same without the ads.
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