Harry Potter and the All Blacks

The last Harry Potter book hit the stores today!
I had preordered a book a while ago because everyone expected a huge demand.

In New Zealand, the official time of release was 11:01 am, so a little after 11, I made my way to the store where I had preordered a copy.
However, instead of giant mass of excited Potter fans, I found five bored-looking store employees mingling behind a table full of Harry Potter books!
In fact, I didn't even need to battle little 5-year olds for one of the free, limited-quantity Harry Potter baseball caps...!If I had had a Staples Easy Button, I would have pressed it... :)
The total came to 29.99 NZD, which was 3 NZD cheaper than the bookstore around the corner ;)

On my way home, I saw a lot of people with the books. Some were waiting for the bus, reading the book, some where sitting in the next cafe, eagerly flipping the first pages, and a lot of shoppers simply carried their books in clear plastic bags from a variety of stores.

I actually didn't start reading until later that day, but the first few chapters are pretty good! There is a little more action than in the last few books; the bad guys show up earlier, and they are a little bit meaner. But I won't give the story away... :)


Later that night, I met up with some people from the Lab to watch the All Blacks game at a pub. Today, they were playing the Australia Wallabies in the Tri-Nations Series. In Rugby, the relationship between Australia and New Zealand is similar to the relationship between the Boston Red Sox vs. the Yankees... so everyone was looking forward to an exciting game!

The All Blacks ended up winning the game 26 to 12, so everyone was happy :)

I was glad though that I was watching the game at a pub, because two minutes before the game started, it began to pour sheets of rain! Both my roommates had gotten tickets for the game, and they were soaked through in seconds!

Afterwards, we went to a party at another friend's house. There were a lot of people from all over the world, and I met a few really interesting people :)