Everything Hurts

Last night I joined Uni Southampton's American football team for their practice--I'm so sore today. First time I've worn shoulder pads and a helmet to play football though. Tackling people hurts a lot less with them on. I trained with their linemen. I've never had formal instruction on how to block or tackle, so I've already learned a lot.

The team, the Stags, was national champion a couple years ago, but last year the league broke the team into two (separating players from another uni, Solent), and they seem to be having dedication problems. Looks like the Stags could be good, except a lot of players didn't show up to practice last night. They're 1-4, but apparently had a tough beginning of the schedule.

Despite sore muscles everywhere, I went out to play with the NOC rugby team this afternoon. The game seems like a lot of fun, but comparisons to American football are hard to make--it's pretty different. I think I'm picking it up, but I had trouble figuring out where to be on the field for much of today. You can't pass forward, so there's little advantage in being in front of the player with the ball, which is something that takes getting used to.

I found a local bus to the New Forest, a national park about 15 miles from Southampton. Hopefully I'll get out there to check it out this weekend.

Boats and Balls

Last Wednesday I got the chance to go out on the RV Callista. We collected water samples in the Test and Itchen Rivers to measure dissolved silicon vs. salinity as a tracer for estuary mixing. The Callista is a 35' catamaran--she's pretty cool, with a huge boom crane on the stern that we used to test a big CTD profiler we'll be using in Falmouth this summer.

That afternoon I took a train to London--I can't wait to go back, because I spent less than 12 hours there, and didn't get to see much. It was exciting pulling into Waterloo Station and seeing the London Eye, though! And after a moment of confusion, even the Underground was pretty simple.

Watched my first Rugby match on Saturday afternoon in Archers--England beat Wales in the Six Nations. Have to admit, rugby looks like a rough game, and they do take a beating. I'm excited to try it out next week.

But, watching the Superbowl last night, you can see why Americans wear pads. Rugby doesn't have anything like the full speed spear tackles in American football. I watched the Superbowl at a club called Wahoo. It was broadcast at 11:30pm on BBC, and announced by a right tackle from London's American football team. He was terrible--he felt the need to describe in full detail a screen play with 11 arrows...one to show where every player went during the play. And I missed the commercials! I ran into some American football players for Southampton Solent (the other uni in the city) walking back, who situated me with a secret 1.99-pound value meal at one of the kebab shops. I think I'm meeting the Southampton team Tuesday, and if I'm lucky I can play in their "match" next Sunday.

Yesterday I also visited the Southampton Maritime Museum. It's housed in an old (600 years!) wool warehouse, turned prison, turned museum, right on the docks. The Mayflower sailed from Southampton, but the main city docks weren't built until about the 1840s. They were knocked down and rebuilt a few times. For a while, it had the worlds largest floating dry docks and the worlds largest cruise ship terminal. The Titanic sailed from Southampton in 1912, and there is a memorial on the water.