Ex-pat fever strikes your correspondent.

This place (Vietnam) does funny things to you.

As most of you will know I am from Noo Zulland but live in Malbourne, Oxtraylia (which, funnily enough, is actually how the Vietnamese spell Australia!). By extension, I should be a one-eyed rugby fan. Sacrilegiously however, I had only watched one full game of rugby in my life (a live game in the 1990s when Noo Zulland got its arse kicked by the French which was quite funny – although the lone Frenchman in our stand with an airhorn shouting ‘vive le france’ was in danger of being lynched by the end)… until I came here that was.

Somehow, believe it or not, I have managed to find myself watching all 3 of the recent Lions vs. Noo Zulland tour. What’s more…and I hesitate to admit this…I found myself whooping along with the others who were watching as the All Blacks smooshed the Lions into the mud. The fact that Daniel Carter is damn hot in that little All Blacks outfit had nothing to do with it (well, maybe not ‘nothing’ but not ‘all’ of it) either. I always used to wonder what it was about being overseas that got people (especially Canadians for some reason but kiwis are a close second) sewing their flags on their backpacks and generally becoming scruffy ambassadors for their country of origin. I still don’t know what it is but I have obviously acquired a touch of it (living in Oztrailer didn’t seem to trigger it but Vietnam definitely has). The fact that I think rugby is a vile, violent sport played by meatheads seems to have been overtaken by some sort of chest-thumping chick-overseas-knee-jerk patriotism.

What’s more (and I REALLY hesitate to admit this one), I have now watched the first two episodes of desperate housewives (Vietnam is one year behind – the show has just started here)…even going along to our local bar to do so. Now the rugby watching was accidental – I saw the second test because I was hiding from the torrential rain in a café that was playing it (which is kind of weird in itself), but this is conscious desperate housewives watching!

I think I will need to go into some sort of ex-pat detox when I get back ‘home’ to Oztrailer, unless some of the people who know me well decide that this is completely out of character (which it is) and send a rescue squad my way to provide on the spot ‘get a grip girl!’ therapy before then – and if you do decide that, can you bring some plastic tikis, paua necklaces, pavalova, buzzy bee toys, a few bottles of L&P and some pohutakawa pictures with you? ;-)