Beer Festival and Irish BBQ

This weekend kicked off the right way with an Irish Barbecue over at James & Paula's. I guess it was more of a Kiwi barbecue since we had pretty much lamb everything - I really like the lamb sausages here. We all had to wear green in celebration of the upcoming St. Patrick's Day. It was a nice evening and we even got to play some P-I-G on the mini basketball hoop. Although I did not win any games, luckily my fellow Americans there did not lose the title to any other nationalities which would have been a slap in the face.
Playing P-I-G at the BBQ


James tending to the BBQ

Saturday was the Auckland Beer Festival. Here at PwC we have coaching managers who we meet with regularly to discuss how things are going and make sure that we are not having any problems, etc. I've been lucky with my assigned coaching manager, John, who is a British guy who came over on secondment here when he was about my level and has decided to stay for the past 5 years. He decided that it was about time for a coaching session for me and Paul (who is also his coachee) so we got tickets for the Auckland Beer festival. John, me, Paul, Jacco, Jeremy, and Phil all met up on Saturday afternoon for a mens' day out at the festival. It was a bit of a rainy day, but fortunately a lot of the festival was indoors. We had to buy tokens for each beer so we all chipped in and bought a big bag. Jeremy kept all of our tokens and allocated them to us for each round. I felt like we were at Chuck E Cheese's getting tokens for the various games.

We had a great day. After a bit of wondering around, taking in the sights and music, and sampling some beers, we found a table and parked it for the rest of the afternoon taking turns getting up to get the rounds. We sampled a bunch and one of my favorites was the Wheat beer from the Waiheke Island Brewery.

After some good fun at the beer festival we caught a cab back in to town and went to where else but a bar. We got some food and played a bit of pool. John brags about how he beat me so badly last time we played so I challenged him again. We put $20 on the game and I beat him! Unfortunately, I gave him a double or nothing chance and he won it right back.

After the bars, we headed up to the casino. Everyone else called it a night, but Jeremy and I played until late. I ended up winning some decent money at blackjack and had a great time as our table had a lot of energy and some big betters. We capped the night off with a late night/early morning burger and kebab before heading back home.

Phil, Paul, Jacco, Jeremy, and John waiting to get in the festival

John and his hopeless coachees

Posing with some of the beer girls - I don't think they were hired for their knowledge of barley and hops...

Since I didn't get to be in the previous photo, I think I deserved one of my own - I already enjoyed Speights Summit beer but I think I like it better now.

Jacco found a fellow Dutch girl

Me, John, and our Miller girl (I guess they were too cheap to hire real girls)

Cheers!

A bit later in the evening - I think I still look OK, but it appears that John is getting a bit cross-eyed.