Tsunamis and Pride

First off, I just got back from watching a taped version of the Mens hockey finals at a Canadian friends. We sat together, 4 Canadians and a wider group of kiwis cheering on our boys. And they won. We cheered, and we felt proud- from the other side of the globe. Early in the games they were de-crying the Canadians lack of performance. If our medal count started slow, it certainly didn't finish that way - especially with our strong gold performance. The only Olympic event I was lucky enough to see was this hockey game. It was the last event, and as I heard the anthem played I felt proud... Just as I did when I saw "with glowing hearts" on the ice at GM place. Well done, athletes. Well done.

In other patriotic news, I must say I felt strangely proud to be Canadian yesterday. I got up after a well deserved sleep in yesterday morning (the kittens didn't get me up early for once! Celebration!) I logged into my email and the government of Canada was the first to inform me of the tsunami warning to NZ. I then checked on stuff.co.nz and found out sure enough waves were due to NZ, however after researching what had happened elsewhere in NZ it sounded like we had nothing to fear as long as we stayed out of the water and off the beach. Since I've done a bit of reading about the waves- it sounds like a really interesting phenomena. According to todays Nelson Mail, the tsunami caused tidal surges of close to 1.5M in Napier and more than a metre in Canterbury. One of the quotes: "I was blown away by how low the tide was and 15 minutes later it was all back again. The river dropped 1.5 metres in 10 minutes. It was really scary." There wasn't much impact in Nelson.