The Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens seemed to be the most popular activity with the expatriate community. Fans of rugby were excited, because they got to see their game live, and non-fans like it because of the social atmosphere and, well, the drinking involved.
Now I profess to know well, nothing about rugby, but our neighbor is from New Zealand, where rugby is the national sport and their team (the All Blacks) is ranked the second best in the world. I asked him what a "Rugby 7" was and he told me it's where the teams each play with only seven players instead of the traditional ... um, amount of players, and each match is only fifteen minutes long instead of the traditional ... um, length of gameplay.
I'm still a little fuzzy on the details.
I'd know more about the specifics of the Dubai Rugby Sevens, but we didn't go. Yeah, right now we're a hair away from the end of the semester, and next week I have two projects due and a final, then another final the week after. So I spent the weekend trying to figure out mergers and net present value and just exactly why I thought an MBA would be fun.
Thus I was studying one afternoon this weekend and I heard this ... well, bizarre noise. Quite honestly, it sounded like someone was podracing like they do over in Mos Espa, you know, on Tattooine.
(That's a Star Wars joke, in case you didn't get it.)
Turns out it wasn't little Annie Skywalker competing in the Boonta Eve Classic at the Mos Espa Grand Arena (brought to you in part by Jabba the Hutt) but rather the 2007 World Professional Powerboating Association Class One World Powerboat Championship.
See, and I had to look this up on that map of Dubai we found last year, but where we live is only six or seven hundred meters (less than a half a mile) from the water. Specifically from Le Meridien Mina Seyahi Beach Resort & Marina. Apparently the race was being held at the 'Marina" part of the Mina Seyahi.
So what I heard wasn't floating anti-gravity pods propelled by turbine engines, but just big-ass powerboats driving in circles about 2000 feet from our house.
Good to know.
Now if I could only figure out the after-tax weighted-average cost of capital, we'd be in good shape.
Oh, and for the record, New Zealand won the Dubai Rugby Sevens.
Here's a clip from Gulf News about the win. I have no idea what half of these sentences even mean:
- World champions New Zealand took advantage of Fijian indiscipline to record their first win at the Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens since 2003.
The islanders had a player sin binned early in both periods and New Zealand ruthlessly made their extra man advantage count on the way to romping 26-0 clear.
But that was merely the signal for Fiji to launch a breathtaking comeback, rattling up 21 points without reply in just three minutes.
Yet just when the mother of all shocks appeared to be on the cards, Fiji made a hash of the restart and handed possession back to New Zealand who eventually worked a match-winning try for Steven Yates despite the suggestion of a knock-on.
Huh. How about that?
