They came, they saw, they didn't play rugby very well.......but shit, the fans spent a lot of money!

For those of you who didn't know the British & Irish Lions rugby team were on tour in NZ for the last 6 weeks. It has been a major deal all over NZ - rugby is everywhere - banners in the High St, posters all over, widescreen TVs in every bar. They have played several NZ teams in many different places - Wellington, Christchurch, Rotorua etc. They won a lot of games but didn't score many trys and lost all three games against the All Blacks. I have no interest in rugby at all but you couldn't help but get swept along with it.

We have had a few Lions fans for the whole 6 weeks but the Team didn't come to Auckland until last week. It has been completely unbelieveable. I am totally exhasuted! I have never seen so many red tops (Lions colours) in one place. The city has been swarming with British and Irish fans all week. Shitloads of them. They have contributed NZ$120 to the economy and a good deal of that was spent in the bar I work at!

The Occidental normally has a doorman on a Friday & Saturday night - we had one every day last week. And on Saturday night we had three! Saturday night was the last game of the tour - Lions v All Blacks. We expected a busy night but we couldn't have predicted what it was. The Occidental made more money that night than it's ever made in the 6 1/2 years that its been open. Friday night is our busiest night normally and we make about $12000-15000, on Saturday we took just short of $27000, $18000 of that from the night alone! I worked the bar from 5pm till 4am. The bar was 4 or 5 people deep all night. We ran out of stella glasses, we ran out of Stolli vodka, we sold 500 litres of Stella in one night! It was totally crazy but so much fun. We had a band on which the crowd were loving - everyone was in very high spirits, singing & dancing, even though the Lions lost. People were throwing money at us all week - I made NZ$450 tips in 5 days - thats a weeks wages! we normally make about $100-150 tips if we've had a good week! Many of the bars in the city had to close early because they completely ran out of beer! Did a bit of star spotting as well - got Gavin Hastings autograph and met Prince Williams photographer, who underpaid his bill, cheeky bastard.

I had to be back at work on Sunday at 12pm and have worked the whole week the Lions were here so although it was a fantastic week, I'm glad to wave the fans off home so I can get some sleep - totally exhausted!

As some of you know, I'm moving next week so the cash I made all week has paid for my bond in my new apartment plus I worked over 55 hours so my wages will be pretty good as well! Off Friday night so I'm off on the piss then! Just need to get through the rest of this week.

Will send everyone my new address, move in Saturday - still haven't packed eek. New apartment is great, 5 mins from work and my bedroom has an ensuite! Had to bloody fight for it but as you all know I don't give in easily. Take care everyone and hope to hear from you all soon. xxxxxxxxxxxxx