Sunday, 5 December 2010
Friday, 19 November 2010
3 (Random) Things I Miss.
1. Bread that isn’t sweet.
No, seriously. All bread here is sweet. Yeah. Even white, sliced bread. Which isn’t so bad if you’re eating it with a bit of butter and jam (“jelly”). But a tuna mayo sandwich? It’s just not right.
2. TV.
I miss Jeremey Kyle. I miss Coach Trip. I’ve never not watched Eastenders for this long in my life. And now the Christmas episode is not going to be nearly as exciting for me as it usually is, but such is life eh?
I have been keeping up with The X-Factor though; Rebecca Ferguson I lovelovelove she is right up my street. BIG fan.
I’ve also been watching…..The Only Way is Essex! I noticed everyone’s been talking about it and so I had to see what all the fuss was about. Gotta say, it’s made my list of guilty pleasures, it’s hilarious.
3. Shopping.
Primark. H&M. New Look. Tesco. I feel like I can’t shop properly here. I know England shoping, I’ve had 8 years of practice and Birmingham (UK) is a shopper’s dreamland. I even miss Bedford town on a Saturday. It’s not that the stuff is awful here, it’s just different and harder for me to get to… so I’m pumped to come home and hit the shops. Maybe get some Fish n Chips on the way home ;).
2 things that make up for the things I miss:
1. Cheap food.
When I say cheap…I mean ridiculously cheap. Mo’s has a $25 cent chicken wings night every Monday. I went last night and got 5 chicken wings in barbeque sauce and a bottomless drink for $1.29. Now, if you’re unsure on the exchange rate, let me tell you…$1.60 is a £1.
It does make me think though; if I’m able to buy them that cheap then how cheap are they buying them for? And why is it as cheap as they’re buying it for?
2. The weather.
It’s crazy, I just bought a winter coat and this guy was like “Why? It’s going to be 27 degrees (celcius) next week. WTF!? We’ll be lucky to get 27 degrees in England in August! It has got colder generally though and it’s rained a couple of times…but NOTHING compared to England. I’m sleeveless most days and can get away with a cardigan in late afternoon...hoodie at night. I’m gonna freeze when I come hoooome.
3 Things I’m looking forward to:
1) Las Vegas.
We’re leaving Wednesday next week and I cannot even describe how excited I am… watch out for that blog (which I hope will be up as soon as I’ve recovered from the trip!)
2) Roasted chestnuts.
This needs no further explanation…you know I love my roasted chestnuts.
3) Coming home for Christmas.
I love this place, I really do and I have to say the whole semester has flown by. But. I’m sooo ready for some home time...I miss you guys like crazy, I’m craving Nonna’s food and I need a break from work, these are some long ass semesters!
** 24 days till I fly home!! **
1. Bread that isn’t sweet.
No, seriously. All bread here is sweet. Yeah. Even white, sliced bread. Which isn’t so bad if you’re eating it with a bit of butter and jam (“jelly”). But a tuna mayo sandwich? It’s just not right.
2. TV.
I miss Jeremey Kyle. I miss Coach Trip. I’ve never not watched Eastenders for this long in my life. And now the Christmas episode is not going to be nearly as exciting for me as it usually is, but such is life eh?
I have been keeping up with The X-Factor though; Rebecca Ferguson I lovelovelove she is right up my street. BIG fan.
I’ve also been watching…..The Only Way is Essex! I noticed everyone’s been talking about it and so I had to see what all the fuss was about. Gotta say, it’s made my list of guilty pleasures, it’s hilarious.
3. Shopping.
Primark. H&M. New Look. Tesco. I feel like I can’t shop properly here. I know England shoping, I’ve had 8 years of practice and Birmingham (UK) is a shopper’s dreamland. I even miss Bedford town on a Saturday. It’s not that the stuff is awful here, it’s just different and harder for me to get to… so I’m pumped to come home and hit the shops. Maybe get some Fish n Chips on the way home ;).
2 things that make up for the things I miss:
1. Cheap food.
When I say cheap…I mean ridiculously cheap. Mo’s has a $25 cent chicken wings night every Monday. I went last night and got 5 chicken wings in barbeque sauce and a bottomless drink for $1.29. Now, if you’re unsure on the exchange rate, let me tell you…$1.60 is a £1.
It does make me think though; if I’m able to buy them that cheap then how cheap are they buying them for? And why is it as cheap as they’re buying it for?
2. The weather.
It’s crazy, I just bought a winter coat and this guy was like “Why? It’s going to be 27 degrees (celcius) next week. WTF!? We’ll be lucky to get 27 degrees in England in August! It has got colder generally though and it’s rained a couple of times…but NOTHING compared to England. I’m sleeveless most days and can get away with a cardigan in late afternoon...hoodie at night. I’m gonna freeze when I come hoooome.
3 Things I’m looking forward to:
1) Las Vegas.
We’re leaving Wednesday next week and I cannot even describe how excited I am… watch out for that blog (which I hope will be up as soon as I’ve recovered from the trip!)
2) Roasted chestnuts.
This needs no further explanation…you know I love my roasted chestnuts.
3) Coming home for Christmas.
I love this place, I really do and I have to say the whole semester has flown by. But. I’m sooo ready for some home time...I miss you guys like crazy, I’m craving Nonna’s food and I need a break from work, these are some long ass semesters!
** 24 days till I fly home!! **
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Halloweeeeen!
I was really looking forward to Halloween this year, normally it just creeps up on me and I'll get some standard cat ears from Claire's Accessories and go to some overpriced club night full creeps who think that because you can't see their face, they can act like bigger pricks than usual. But America, I knew, would go hard on Halloween.
About a week before we went to the Halloween store (yes, there is such a thing) to pick our costumes, get props and decorations and then went to buy a pumpkin from WallMart. Me and Raquael (my flatmate) competed at pumpkin carving, whilst Kolin and Becki roasted the pumpkin seeds and we all watched scary films. I was definitely feeling festive.
We continued to watch scary films all week, old ones with baaaad effects, re-makes and the new ones.. and when the weekend rolled around we ventured waaaay south, to the Gulf Coast on a spontaneous road trip!
Our friend DJ plays on the Alabama football team and he is a celebrity across Alabama and this rich white couple (maaasssive fans) he knows offered us their beach condo for the weekend :D
We drove through Mississippi and there was cotton and corn fields most of the way, it was great to see because that's what I expected from the south, road trips and plantations!
When we got to the beach condo night had fallen and we were pretty scared, it looked like a perfect setting for a horror-movie murder and we'd all been watching too many scary films but it was cool to feel scared on Halloween, it felt right lol
We settled in, ate, and waited for the rest of the crew to arrive..when they rung to say they'd got here, we thought it'd be fun to play a lil prank:
On Saturday we went to the beach, it was a really nice day (bizarre to me, for late October!) and it was sooo good to be by the sea! The sand was so soft and white and the water was clear. We dipped our toes, wrote our names in the sand and collected sea shells (as you do). Then, as we were walking along the shore we notice some washed-up dead fish and some tar balls (from the oil spill) I hadn't expected to see anything like that. When we were stopped looking, I turned to Arie (6ft 5 and 350 lbs- another football player) stared him down and then kicked a load of water at him. I don't need to tell you that I got completely soaked in return, as well as everyone around us! So..we ran into the sea fully clothed and it felt really good.
(Orange Beach, Gulf Shores)
Once we'd dried off, we met the 'rich white folks' and they took us to the best seafood buffet around. Now, I'm not really big on fish usually, but I have to say..it was delicious. There was baked fish, fried fish, shrimp, calamari, clams, jambalaya, mashed potatoes..everything and anything fishy and yummy. I loved it.
That night we donned our halloween costumes and we drove to Mobile, Alabama to go clubbing. We were with DJ so, naturally, we jumped the queue that went round the corner, we all got free entry, we all got '21' wristbands and….you could SMOKE…IN THE CLUB! :-D
People kept coming up to us and wanting photos with DJ, wanting to shake his hand, touch his shoulder etc and they kept buying him loads of drinks…but he's an athlete. A tee-total athlete. And so…we all got drunk for freeee :)
It was a really great weekend, I'll remember it for a looong long time. It's good to have friends in positions of privilege ;)
About a week before we went to the Halloween store (yes, there is such a thing) to pick our costumes, get props and decorations and then went to buy a pumpkin from WallMart. Me and Raquael (my flatmate) competed at pumpkin carving, whilst Kolin and Becki roasted the pumpkin seeds and we all watched scary films. I was definitely feeling festive.
We continued to watch scary films all week, old ones with baaaad effects, re-makes and the new ones.. and when the weekend rolled around we ventured waaaay south, to the Gulf Coast on a spontaneous road trip!
Our friend DJ plays on the Alabama football team and he is a celebrity across Alabama and this rich white couple (maaasssive fans) he knows offered us their beach condo for the weekend :D
We drove through Mississippi and there was cotton and corn fields most of the way, it was great to see because that's what I expected from the south, road trips and plantations!
When we got to the beach condo night had fallen and we were pretty scared, it looked like a perfect setting for a horror-movie murder and we'd all been watching too many scary films but it was cool to feel scared on Halloween, it felt right lol
We settled in, ate, and waited for the rest of the crew to arrive..when they rung to say they'd got here, we thought it'd be fun to play a lil prank:
On Saturday we went to the beach, it was a really nice day (bizarre to me, for late October!) and it was sooo good to be by the sea! The sand was so soft and white and the water was clear. We dipped our toes, wrote our names in the sand and collected sea shells (as you do). Then, as we were walking along the shore we notice some washed-up dead fish and some tar balls (from the oil spill) I hadn't expected to see anything like that. When we were stopped looking, I turned to Arie (6ft 5 and 350 lbs- another football player) stared him down and then kicked a load of water at him. I don't need to tell you that I got completely soaked in return, as well as everyone around us! So..we ran into the sea fully clothed and it felt really good.
(Orange Beach, Gulf Shores)
Once we'd dried off, we met the 'rich white folks' and they took us to the best seafood buffet around. Now, I'm not really big on fish usually, but I have to say..it was delicious. There was baked fish, fried fish, shrimp, calamari, clams, jambalaya, mashed potatoes..everything and anything fishy and yummy. I loved it.
That night we donned our halloween costumes and we drove to Mobile, Alabama to go clubbing. We were with DJ so, naturally, we jumped the queue that went round the corner, we all got free entry, we all got '21' wristbands and….you could SMOKE…IN THE CLUB! :-D
People kept coming up to us and wanting photos with DJ, wanting to shake his hand, touch his shoulder etc and they kept buying him loads of drinks…but he's an athlete. A tee-total athlete. And so…we all got drunk for freeee :)
It was a really great weekend, I'll remember it for a looong long time. It's good to have friends in positions of privilege ;)
Homecoming Weekend.
First and foremost I wanna apologise for not updating this in a while.. I've been really busy with uni work and things happen so quickly around here that it's been hard to keep up.. I wrote this one a while back but I'm gonna keep them coming until we're up-to-date!
Okay. So the football season is in full swing and this week was the Homecoming game; people had been talking about it for while and girls were campaigning like crazy to be Homecoming Queen (I know..very American!)
On Friday night there was a 'Pep Rally' on the Quad and thousands of people turned up to hear the football coach, Nick Saban (a legend around these parts) and some of the best players talk and rally up the die-hard fans.
It was…interesting haha. Americans, especially American football fans don't really hold back and everyone was chanting and whooping and it was quite intense to be honest..but it was fun nonetheless.
Then we moved over to the other side of the Quad where there was a HUGE bonfire. I swear, Americans do not do things by half! It was so big that I could feel the heat to the point where I could stand outside, on an October night, sleeveless and be warm.
On Saturday there was a big pre-game Homecoming parade; the weather was beautiful and again, thousands of people turned up to see the 'Million-dollar Band' (who really do sound like a million dollars), baton twirlers, cheerleaders, military, pageant queens etc as they made their way down University Boulevard. I've added some photos to this post so you can get a feel of what it was like.
Despite the fact that I had tickets to see the game in the stadium..I didn't actually get the chance to do so. The security man (I swear, people in positions of authority hate me!) refused me entry because my bag was too big. Typical. So I walked alll the way back to my apartment, then back to the stadium with a smaller bag- 20 mins each way. I thought "Oo let me get a drink out here were its only $1.50 rather than $4.00 or whatever ridiculous price they charge in stadiums. The machine only went and swallowed my money. I was getting really fed up. So I get to the stadium and I couldn't get back into the section where my friends were sat, they wanted me to go all the way to the very top. I thought fuck that, I could see the game better on TV. So I sat on the wall outside, hungry, tired, frustrated. I cried a little bit, rolled a cigarette and walked home..
Okay. So the football season is in full swing and this week was the Homecoming game; people had been talking about it for while and girls were campaigning like crazy to be Homecoming Queen (I know..very American!)
On Friday night there was a 'Pep Rally' on the Quad and thousands of people turned up to hear the football coach, Nick Saban (a legend around these parts) and some of the best players talk and rally up the die-hard fans.
It was…interesting haha. Americans, especially American football fans don't really hold back and everyone was chanting and whooping and it was quite intense to be honest..but it was fun nonetheless.
Then we moved over to the other side of the Quad where there was a HUGE bonfire. I swear, Americans do not do things by half! It was so big that I could feel the heat to the point where I could stand outside, on an October night, sleeveless and be warm.
On Saturday there was a big pre-game Homecoming parade; the weather was beautiful and again, thousands of people turned up to see the 'Million-dollar Band' (who really do sound like a million dollars), baton twirlers, cheerleaders, military, pageant queens etc as they made their way down University Boulevard. I've added some photos to this post so you can get a feel of what it was like.
Despite the fact that I had tickets to see the game in the stadium..I didn't actually get the chance to do so. The security man (I swear, people in positions of authority hate me!) refused me entry because my bag was too big. Typical. So I walked alll the way back to my apartment, then back to the stadium with a smaller bag- 20 mins each way. I thought "Oo let me get a drink out here were its only $1.50 rather than $4.00 or whatever ridiculous price they charge in stadiums. The machine only went and swallowed my money. I was getting really fed up. So I get to the stadium and I couldn't get back into the section where my friends were sat, they wanted me to go all the way to the very top. I thought fuck that, I could see the game better on TV. So I sat on the wall outside, hungry, tired, frustrated. I cried a little bit, rolled a cigarette and walked home..
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
"Viva La Revolución!"
Let me tell you about another 'only in America' situation which I encountered today..
I have this class called Social Inequality, its discussion-based so we just talk for an hour and a half and there's this dude Demarcus (we call him Che) who's like a political activist; he's always really vocal and argumentative and he's reeeeally hung up on racial inequality.
So there was this test today where 6 people from the class make a panel and raise various topics and then put questions to the floor… 5 mins into the lesson Demarcus walks in and the panel asks: 'Does anyone have any questions?'.. Demarcus raises his hand.
Now, this white girl cuts in and starts speaking and then realises and goes: "Sorry Demarcus, did you have something to say" and he replied: "Yeah, don't worry, its only been 400 years"
(since slavery, for those of you who missed that..)
He continued to say: "ANYWAY. The point I was trying to make is this is all bullshit. None of you know what you're talking about. Fuck your opinion, fuck yours, fuck yours and fuck yours" (Pointing at all of them)
"Cos this aint gonna change anything... the white man is still the richest, the top 5%, they hold all the power"
And a boy on the panel was like "What about Obama?"
Demarcus: "Obama don't mean nothing, black employment has not changed since the 1980s" etc etc He was getting really loud and telling everyone they didn't have a clue etc
The teacher stood up and was fuming. He was like listen, I let you lot talk freely but you're disrespecting people. Get out." Demarcus: "No. It's bullshit. You don't have any power either"
So the teacher left. He came back with two campus police officers and they escorted Demarcus out .
On the way out he was like: "If I have to get arrested, if I have to get shot. Do it. I'm starting a revolution. Get up. Stand up for your rights"
Now only 20 mins into the lesson the teacher looks like he's about to kill someone. He said to us all: "I really can't deal with the rest of the day. I'm fed up. Just go home."
It was extremely entertaining... I enjoyed it anyway. I doubt we'll see Demarcus in class again and we're all anxious about our teacher going militant on us to re-assert his classroom authority.
But this brings me nicely onto the next post I wanted to write.. about issues of race which I have noticed day-to-day so…stay tuned!
Love y'all!
I have this class called Social Inequality, its discussion-based so we just talk for an hour and a half and there's this dude Demarcus (we call him Che) who's like a political activist; he's always really vocal and argumentative and he's reeeeally hung up on racial inequality.
So there was this test today where 6 people from the class make a panel and raise various topics and then put questions to the floor… 5 mins into the lesson Demarcus walks in and the panel asks: 'Does anyone have any questions?'.. Demarcus raises his hand.
Now, this white girl cuts in and starts speaking and then realises and goes: "Sorry Demarcus, did you have something to say" and he replied: "Yeah, don't worry, its only been 400 years"
(since slavery, for those of you who missed that..)
He continued to say: "ANYWAY. The point I was trying to make is this is all bullshit. None of you know what you're talking about. Fuck your opinion, fuck yours, fuck yours and fuck yours" (Pointing at all of them)
"Cos this aint gonna change anything... the white man is still the richest, the top 5%, they hold all the power"
And a boy on the panel was like "What about Obama?"
Demarcus: "Obama don't mean nothing, black employment has not changed since the 1980s" etc etc He was getting really loud and telling everyone they didn't have a clue etc
The teacher stood up and was fuming. He was like listen, I let you lot talk freely but you're disrespecting people. Get out." Demarcus: "No. It's bullshit. You don't have any power either"
So the teacher left. He came back with two campus police officers and they escorted Demarcus out .
On the way out he was like: "If I have to get arrested, if I have to get shot. Do it. I'm starting a revolution. Get up. Stand up for your rights"
Now only 20 mins into the lesson the teacher looks like he's about to kill someone. He said to us all: "I really can't deal with the rest of the day. I'm fed up. Just go home."
It was extremely entertaining... I enjoyed it anyway. I doubt we'll see Demarcus in class again and we're all anxious about our teacher going militant on us to re-assert his classroom authority.
But this brings me nicely onto the next post I wanted to write.. about issues of race which I have noticed day-to-day so…stay tuned!
Love y'all!
Sunday, 19 September 2010
ATL babyy
Ok. I apologise for not updating this in a while… I got caught up in the Freshers vibe and on the rare occasion that I did get time to myself, I napped to re-energise for more party time or did some uni work.
But! I'm back on it and soooooo, lemmie tell you about Atlanta. (It might be a long tale, I've never experienced so many crazy events in such a small time)
If I've not said it before, lemmie tell you now, I am a terrible traveller! I'm unorganised, I do minimal research, I'm bad at using maps or taking directions and so, Atlanta could have been more of a disaster than it was but it was definitely…interesting. Haha
Me and the other English girl, Becki took thought it'd be a good idea to take the Greyhound coach over to Georgia, it's famous and it's cheap. Bonus, right? Wrong.
In America, everyone drives. Those who don't drive and those who cannot afford to drive and those people are known as 'trash', usually coupled with the word 'trailer.' Catch my drift?
I was hugging my Macbook to me like a mother does to protect her young and hoping than no-one tried to talk to or touch me!
We took a break at Anniston, Alabama before we crossed over the border to Georgia. When everyone filed back onto the bus, our driver announced (no joke these were his exact words):
"Listen up y'all. Today is September 11th and someone has stolen my phone."
He proceeded to tell us that we were locked on the bus and no-one was getting off and we were not moving anywhere until someone handed it back.
No one handed it back.
He then announced that the police was on their way to conduct searches to find the phone.
As time dragged on and people got more fed up, passengers started heckling the driver. He got maaad. After 3 full blown arguments with passengers he was like:
"Ok, you wanna get smart with me? You're all gonna get strip-searched by police"
Me: WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?
People started quoting their rights and after a chat with the policeman, the driver decided to carry on our way and we got to Atlanta about 2 hours late.. great.
Me and Becki made our way to the hotel downtown. We showered and changed and went to grab some food at HOOTERS!! Which worked out perfectly because the Alabama vs. Duke football game was on and by now we are die-hard fans with friends on the team :D
Eating my wings and curly fries, sipping my margarita and watching the game. Bliss. UNTIL…
This stuuuupid idiot walks in, already well on his way to being drunk, and sits with his friends under the screen we were watching. Me and Becki are sitting alone, looking pretty presentable, watching the game and looking- technically- in his direction. I knew it was only a matter of time..
So I was rolling my post-food cigarette and he seized the opportunity to come over and chat gibberish:
"Is that weeeeeeed you're rolling?"
"No."
"Is iiiiiiit tooobaccco?"
"Yes."
"I'm Paul by the way"
"Hi Paul. We're trying to watch the game."
"Wooow. You're Bama fans?"
"Yeah."
He carried on like this until it was painstakingly obvious to him- we thought- that we weren't interested. I went for my cigarette and when I came back, he decided to try again!
"Soooo can I have your number?"
"No"
"Really"
"Yes, really"
"Oh. Ok. You have a boyfriend?"
"No. I really want to watch this game."
OB-viously the boy felt stung by it, because he then was acting the complete fool. Putting his hands over the screen, talking really loudly so we couldn't hear the commentary, flicking the channels.
"I wanna watch the Tennessee game" I mean, the idiot turns around, to me and says "Do you mind if I switch it from the Alabama to the Tennessee game?"
Wrong idea. I got right in his face (the way mum does) and launched into a torrent of abuse, that went something along the lines of:
"No, of course not. I've only been trying to watch the game this whole time that you were acting like a drunken idiot. Change it. Change it, go on. I WANT you to. You've ruined it for us anyway, you selfish obnoxious fool. No-ones laughing at your stupid act, even your friends are cringing. So do whatever the hell you want cos that's what you've been doing anyway."
I took a breath. The whole of hooters was staring at us, they were shocked by the outburst cos they were unaware of the build-up and my accent draws attention anyway.
We got the check and left. We watched the rest of the game in a sports bar, decided it was a bad day and went to bed!
On Sunday we went to the Martin Luther King Center, we took the Marta there. As in:
"Imma beat your ass on the train, we on the Marta and I do ma thang" (I'll post the video link for those of you that don't know..)
Basically, it's full of sketchy characters; crackheads, schizo's, drunks, no tourists.
The MLK centre was cool, there was a massive, colourful mural by different artists, museum, the Ebenezer Baptist Church where he preached, the crypt where he is buried and the eternal flame etc..
Then we went to the World of Coca-Cola, because Atlanta is the home of Coca-Cola, we got to taste 64 different types of Coca-Cola products and with a bloated belly and sugar rush, we attempted to make our way home to T-Town again.
It was fun, traumatic, tiring, but we did it and we definitely have to go back with people who know what they are doing and try again!
Video: http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/411648/
But! I'm back on it and soooooo, lemmie tell you about Atlanta. (It might be a long tale, I've never experienced so many crazy events in such a small time)
If I've not said it before, lemmie tell you now, I am a terrible traveller! I'm unorganised, I do minimal research, I'm bad at using maps or taking directions and so, Atlanta could have been more of a disaster than it was but it was definitely…interesting. Haha
Me and the other English girl, Becki took thought it'd be a good idea to take the Greyhound coach over to Georgia, it's famous and it's cheap. Bonus, right? Wrong.
In America, everyone drives. Those who don't drive and those who cannot afford to drive and those people are known as 'trash', usually coupled with the word 'trailer.' Catch my drift?
I was hugging my Macbook to me like a mother does to protect her young and hoping than no-one tried to talk to or touch me!
We took a break at Anniston, Alabama before we crossed over the border to Georgia. When everyone filed back onto the bus, our driver announced (no joke these were his exact words):
"Listen up y'all. Today is September 11th and someone has stolen my phone."
He proceeded to tell us that we were locked on the bus and no-one was getting off and we were not moving anywhere until someone handed it back.
No one handed it back.
He then announced that the police was on their way to conduct searches to find the phone.
As time dragged on and people got more fed up, passengers started heckling the driver. He got maaad. After 3 full blown arguments with passengers he was like:
"Ok, you wanna get smart with me? You're all gonna get strip-searched by police"
Me: WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?
People started quoting their rights and after a chat with the policeman, the driver decided to carry on our way and we got to Atlanta about 2 hours late.. great.
Me and Becki made our way to the hotel downtown. We showered and changed and went to grab some food at HOOTERS!! Which worked out perfectly because the Alabama vs. Duke football game was on and by now we are die-hard fans with friends on the team :D
Eating my wings and curly fries, sipping my margarita and watching the game. Bliss. UNTIL…
This stuuuupid idiot walks in, already well on his way to being drunk, and sits with his friends under the screen we were watching. Me and Becki are sitting alone, looking pretty presentable, watching the game and looking- technically- in his direction. I knew it was only a matter of time..
So I was rolling my post-food cigarette and he seized the opportunity to come over and chat gibberish:
"Is that weeeeeeed you're rolling?"
"No."
"Is iiiiiiit tooobaccco?"
"Yes."
"I'm Paul by the way"
"Hi Paul. We're trying to watch the game."
"Wooow. You're Bama fans?"
"Yeah."
He carried on like this until it was painstakingly obvious to him- we thought- that we weren't interested. I went for my cigarette and when I came back, he decided to try again!
"Soooo can I have your number?"
"No"
"Really"
"Yes, really"
"Oh. Ok. You have a boyfriend?"
"No. I really want to watch this game."
OB-viously the boy felt stung by it, because he then was acting the complete fool. Putting his hands over the screen, talking really loudly so we couldn't hear the commentary, flicking the channels.
"I wanna watch the Tennessee game" I mean, the idiot turns around, to me and says "Do you mind if I switch it from the Alabama to the Tennessee game?"
Wrong idea. I got right in his face (the way mum does) and launched into a torrent of abuse, that went something along the lines of:
"No, of course not. I've only been trying to watch the game this whole time that you were acting like a drunken idiot. Change it. Change it, go on. I WANT you to. You've ruined it for us anyway, you selfish obnoxious fool. No-ones laughing at your stupid act, even your friends are cringing. So do whatever the hell you want cos that's what you've been doing anyway."
I took a breath. The whole of hooters was staring at us, they were shocked by the outburst cos they were unaware of the build-up and my accent draws attention anyway.
We got the check and left. We watched the rest of the game in a sports bar, decided it was a bad day and went to bed!
On Sunday we went to the Martin Luther King Center, we took the Marta there. As in:
"Imma beat your ass on the train, we on the Marta and I do ma thang" (I'll post the video link for those of you that don't know..)
Basically, it's full of sketchy characters; crackheads, schizo's, drunks, no tourists.
The MLK centre was cool, there was a massive, colourful mural by different artists, museum, the Ebenezer Baptist Church where he preached, the crypt where he is buried and the eternal flame etc..
Then we went to the World of Coca-Cola, because Atlanta is the home of Coca-Cola, we got to taste 64 different types of Coca-Cola products and with a bloated belly and sugar rush, we attempted to make our way home to T-Town again.
It was fun, traumatic, tiring, but we did it and we definitely have to go back with people who know what they are doing and try again!
Video: http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/411648/
Thursday, 2 September 2010
Football.
Not real football. American football! (And yes, the exclamation mark was necessary)
So, the football season kicks off this weekend and everyone is so excited. UA has the best college football team- they won the championship last year. The campus stadium has a capacity of 100,000 people…bigger than Wembley (90,000.)
The football players have celebrity status, and to meet and mingle with them is the goal of most girls. Naturally, I have already rubbed shoulders with them ;) My roomate’s friend is a player’s girlfriend so she introduced us and they are HUGE! Some of them have already been scouted to play for the NFL (Google it lol) so, essentially they will be national celebrities when they graduate!
Tickets are like gold dust round here, they range from about $30-500 depending on who they’re playing, but I am determined to go to a game because apparently the atmosphere is amazing. They shout ROLL TIDE all the time, in any situation and if you do, you’re guaranteed to get someone to respond or pat you on the back. I also heard that one guy came to this uni from out-of-state (which is very expensive to do) just to get regular tickets to the football games. Serious fans here man.
And not only will there be 100,000 people at the actual game, there will also be thousands of people ‘tailgating’ on the Quad. The Quad is a big green where the university clock tower is and people come from all over Alabama, pitch a tent/marquee where they cook food, drink beer and watch the game on a big screen. This is where I’ll be. And to be honest, it sounds just as exciting as watching the actual game in the stadium!
And….what else coincides with the kick off of football season? My 21st Birthday!!!!! I hit the jackpot again, because I got to turn the big 1-8 (legal drinking age) and I get to do it all again in the US for the big 2-1!!
Because it’s such a momentus occaision here, we are putting in some serious celebration time. On Saturday we're tailgating/watching the game/ going to the after parties. On Sunday we are having a big ‘cook out’ aka a barbeque and on Monday- which is Labor Day and my actual birthday- we are going for a meal and having a block party. Yes, I’m going to be wrecked for 70% of this weekend. Bring it on. (Don't worry mum! lol)
I was also planning to head back to Atlanta to taste some of the nightlife but…we’ll see what everyone can afford etc. The guy who I met in Atlanta emailed me asking us to ‘pass through the studio’ if we do go, which will be siiick. He also told me we’d be working with DJ Scream for the song that he wants my voice to feature on, and he’s quite a well-known DJ in America (well, in the South anyway), so I’m being hooked up big time. How cool am I?
ROLL TIDE!! ;)
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