California

I decided since I have never been, to go to Sione's rugby tournament down by SanDiego, California. We left late Friday afternoon for our 12 hours trip. We went with Sione's friend and former Provo Steeler player Vou. Trip started out pretty good...I had the whole back seat to myself, tried to sleep since I was pretty tired already but of course could not. On our way, we stopped in Vegas. I forgot how BRIGHT it is!! It really is kind of a neat city to go to. Anyway, yes, they wanted buffet even though I knew it wouldn't be worth the money for me but whatever, they paid for it.
At around 3 a.m, Vou I know was getting pretty tired and had to keep his window all the way down for the coolness to stay awake and ya, I was freezing in the back. Couldn't get comfortable so I said I would drive even though I was tired, but couldn't handle that window down any longer!!!

So we finally got the Chula Vista around 5:30 am to catch about 3 hours of sleep. This is the view from our hotel room when waking up.....ya, cloudy?? Say what? But don't worry, sun came out with a nice cool breeze for watching rugby so it turned out perfect.

Here are the boys in the parking lot, playing music and tossing the rugby ball around.

They played there games at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista.

Went for a walk because of two reasons: my butt hurt from sitting on the bleachers for so long and needed a little shade.

So the team lost the first game:( I think there nerves got the best of them. It was a weird game, they didn't play horrible but something was just off. 4 of there starters got injured, including Sione.

So after the games, we headed back to the hotel to hang out and eat. Sione and I went to bed a little earlier and woke up around 2:30 to the sound of Vou snoring like a chainsaw and it wouldn't stop!!!!! Could not stand it!!! So we walked out to see what everyone was doing and looking down at one vehicle where players were chilling, there coach was hanging out right with em. lol. We went to another room where it was full of people drinking kava and listening to music. We stayed up for a little, decided to give sleeping a second go around but not even my music player and pillow would cover up that snoring so we decided at 5 am to grab our pillows and blankets and drive to the beach and sleep in the car and wake up there...and yes, some of the players were still up!

We went to Pacific beach. Don't look to closely at my picture please...mind you I was on very little sleep and just woke up from sleeping in the car. Cool beach though.

We headed back because they had a game soon and what do ya know, all it took was a little mixing the night before and they came out winning the second game, even with replacement players. There was one who was atleast over 6 foot, 350 lbs and man he laid out players on the other team...it was awesome!

So after the second game, we all started the caravan home with once again, stopping at the darn buffet in Vegas!!! Would you expect anything different from a Tongan rugby team?? Got back early Monday morning and did not make it in to work that day.

Lessons learned:

1. Rent own vehicle so we don't have to rely on waiting for others.

2. Own hotel room!

3. Go back to Cali....but stay for longer next time!