We Speak No Americano

Saturday 22nd December 2012 - 01.14am

Good evening, or good morning depending on which time zone you are currently residing in. I am speaking to you from a luxurious double bed adorned with bamboo, in a beautiful open plan L.A. beach house whilst sipping white wine and being full of chocolate fudge ice-cream. Your life sucks, right? This is going to be a blog post to remember as over the last week a multitude of adventure has been had, so bare with me kids.

Previously on wallace's blog...

BG was left
Planes were caught
Sleep was had
Sentimental feelings surfaced
I manned the fuck up
We landed safely in L.A.X Airport.

With high hopes and Rachel Stevens' ancient song 'LAX' embedded in my frontal lobe we wondered down to baggage claim, surveillanceing the crowd for a tour guide with our names inscribed on a piece of paper. No such luck. Consequently a phone call was made - three telephone numbers and 45 minutes later we were finally seated in a shuttle containing a questionable orange peel in the right hand passenger door. KOing at around 6pm meant an early and long night for us sleeping beauties in order for us to rise and shine for our excursion to Las Vegas. The journey there was pretty straight forward with little to report except toilet stops and the occasional nap. That is until we arrived in VIVAAAAAA LAS VEGAS.

Since Mitch had already visited upper class Blackpool this year, we opted out of the $25 tour and painted the town red on our own. A cab ride into Downtown Las Vegas from our hotel, Stratosphere AKA the tallest point in Las Vegas, began my mindless gawking all the way to the Bellagio. We entered and BANG Christmas. Piano's, snow. polar bears, trees, the works. After some questionable posing amidst artificial snow and greenery we exited the crowded hotel to a similarly crowded street leading to the strip. I will admit I was confused at to what the kerfuffle was about until Sinatra's 'Luck Be A Lady' began bellowing from the pond in unison with bursts of water. I had a nice video but we'll get to that.

My mother wont be surprised when I reveal that Las Vegas was my favourite city so far as I am a massive pike at heart and as I said, Vegas is nothing more than an Upper Class Blackpool. Speaking of which it has a fake tower. (See Above) For those of you that reside under a rock with me, Vegas is made up of one strip consisting of various locations themed to be cities: Paris, New York, Rome, Venice. Old Vegas, the outskirts, is littered with pretty little chapels and drunks as its legal to drink on the street in Vegas. And smoke in casinos. Mitch informs me casinos employ psychologists to determin methods to maintain or increase custom such as interior decoration, waitresses bringing drinks and the layout of the building itself. On our travels between shops and casinos we happened to accidentally purchase tower shaped jugs. Full of slushies. With alcohol in them. And another shot for $1. This ended brilliantly for us making the drive to the Grand Canyon the following morning easier as we had the hangover sleeps.

So it's common knowledge that the Grand Canyon is situated in Arizona. Twilight educated me on Arizona climate, it said it was hot. Mitch concurred with this perception. Note the word perception.

Yep, that's snowfall on the ground and the foliage and just generally everywhere. And precipitation of water vapour. When we reached our destination, after 5 and a half hours travelling, temperate disenchantment set in until we rejected sorrow for positivity. Concluding we were superior as many people haven't see then Grand Canyon snowy and covered in fog but instead they are used to it looking a little something like the google generated image below. Every cloud has a silver lining and this lining was an excuse to return.

Back to Vegas for an evening then L.A. bound once again. Very little to report in the way of Vegas antics as unless you are a secret gambling addict or a millionaire there is little to do but get shitfaced and walk the isle with a stranger - something I wasn't keen on exploiting with the company I was keeping so in true Liz and Mitch fashion we navigated the streets to look for a light show and returned to the top of our hotel for an overpriced bevvy in the Sky Bar.

With Vegas done and dusted we set sail for LA once more. In order to divide the 4 hours travelling we came to a standstill at the M'n'M shop, adjacent to a chocolate factory that did not manufacture M’n’M’s. Having visiting an M’n’M shop in Vegas I was beginning to get sick to my back teeth of fucking M’n’M’s. Say M'n'M's, it doesn't even sound like a word any more. What did I care, they distributed free chocolate and there was a cactus garden outside. Shrubbery and dairy compliment one another, who knew? On arrival to LA we partied hard in the land of nodd, like last time but this time instead of being Vegas heading we were en route to San Francisco the subsequent day. We boarded the tour bus and I realised I had left my DSLR on another bus and so exited again. After running around hapharzardly for a few minutes I came to the conclusion the tour guides could not be less interested or less helpful. We then got abusively carted onto another bus, thrown out of our seats and then assigned new ones. We resolved to formulate a stern-worded letter. Then a man adorned in a yellow sea gull tours jacket boarded our coach equipped with no English but 'my dear friends'. This strengthened our resolve. Though the distance between San Fran and the City of Angeles is a little too far to combat in one day we had a lovely little day out. First stop, Solvang which is synonymous with mini Denmark where Mitch and I found some tasty cheeses and a nice little cake shop.

Mmm Danish pastry. On the other hand we tried devilishly hard not to spoil our lunch that we would eat on the Californian beach. In true to English tradition we ate pre-packed cheese and ham cobs on the beach whilst vigilantly defending our nutrients from an overly keen seagull. The rest of the tour group visited Hearst Castle, one of very few castles in American culture due to its well lack of culture. The castle was constructed for William Randolph Hearst. I can't tell you a lot about it a part from it has palm trees, mosaics and a pool. The geezer owns a zoo so there was some stripey oss's in the surrounding fields and his son got kicked out of Harvard for trying to sell his tutor weed. 

Early start, surprise surprise but off to Stanford University. It is situated in the middle of Stanford which is a huge as university town, pretty certain we entered it 10 minutes previous to the drive of the university. While we did ascend the town we were told a bit of  a back story regarding the establishment. The full name of the uni is Leland Stanford Junior University in memory of Leland Stanford's son who died of typhoid two months before his 16th. His parents were so distraught by this tragedy that they founded their own private research university in attempt to fill the void. It is the second largest campus in the US after Ohio State, Ohio represent. Stanford also proved to be a hotspot for athletics as Olypic medals have been won by Stanford athletes annually since 1912 including 129/244 gold medals. They excelled every other univeristy in 2008 at Bejing. 

Onwards to San Francisco, the city in which That's So Raven was filmed, home of Alcatraz, the Golden Gate bridge and shitty clam chowder. Many said the Gold Gate should not be built, however interesting fact - it is constantly being painted by two men. Once completed, it is about time to start repainting the other side. While photographing the monstrosity that is the Golden Gate we spotted Alcatraz, let me re-enact it for you.


Mitch: "Is that Alcatraz? It is now" *takes photo*. I died of laughs. 

We decided to explore the coast and Alcatraz via my favourite method of transport - boat. I just love boats. Mitch just attached an unecessary Freudian association to boats - everything's been tainted. Initially we approached the bridge to allow our Chinese population to get a better scope with their fancy flash photography. Since my camera had gone AWOL I was content posing and watching the seagulls and pelicans follow the boat and intermittently landing in the foam. We circled Alcatraz, a solitary island where notorious criminals were banished and is the most likely source of inspiration for J.K.Rowling's Azkaban home of fictional villain Sirius Black. Alcatraz houses more evil villains such as Machine Gun Kelly and Al Capone. During its 29 years of operation, the penitentiary claimed that no prisoner successfully escaped. A total of 36 prisoners made 14 escape attempts, two men trying twice; 23 were caught, six were shot and killed during their escape, two drowned, and five are listed as "missing and presumed drowned". September 1961 Morris, West, and the Anglin brothers were planning an escape attempt, which they carried out on the night of June 11, 1962. They fabricated dummy heads from a mixture of soap, toilet paper and real hair, and left them in their beds to fool prison officers making night-time inspections.They escaped from their cells by crawling through holes in the cell walls which they had dug with spoons over a year's time. This put them into an unused service corridor. West could not make it out of his cell and was left behind.From the service corridor they climbed a ventilation shaft to reach the roof.

The trio then climbed down from the rooftop, scaled the prison's fence and assembled a raft from the prison's standard-issue raincoats and contact cement. They pumped up the raft on the northeastern coast of the island. At around 10 p.m. they climbed aboard, shoved off, and started paddling. To prevent freezing to death a car and clean clothes would have been required to get away alive yet no thefts were reported. Food for thought.

Later that day we visited Lombard Street, the twisty and turniest street like ever. Mitch told me an advert launched ping pong balls down it for laughs, but I'm sceptical. Once all the structured activity was complete we did what we did best and went shopping. We made a compelling observation that San Francisco's ghetto is rather central to the city whereas in most cases you find the ghetto on the outskirts.

The venture back to L.A. was divided with a visit to Yosemite National Park. This was a beautiful beautiful location that I would love to see the contrast between by visiting in the summer. There isn't much to say about it besides its an absolutely stunning view that cameras don't do justice. Well, I could probably google it but I'm kind of tired of regurgitating information now. 

You, as a devoted reader, will be glad to know. That concluded our week scaling the West Coast but not our time in California.

Falcon's Finally Fly The Nest

Saturday 15th December 2012 - 6.19am

So, I’m chilling at Gate D16 of Frontier Airlines in Detroit Airport, Michigan. Not been sat down ten minutes and I’ve resorted to drafting a blog post in Microsoft Word. I have deduced my tedium stems from the fact I’m currently migrating to Los Angeles and I am irrepressibly ecstatic. Seeing as I have just over an hour to kill, I figured catching up on the last month of BG may be a resourceful use of my time.

Friday evening, two weekends previous to now, a few treasured members of Kreischer Ashley and their honorary guests (myself and Mere) encumbered ourselves into two motor vehicles and embarked on an expedition to Columbus, Ohio. Why Columbus I hear you cry? Cause dat shit has Christmas lights. Chelsea summoned us all to her humble abode in order to get a good look at these sparkly bastards and we for one modestly obliged. We arrived Friday night and elected to spend it celebrating our British vices. I’ll leave the interpretation of that to viewer discretion but let’s just say it had some questionable consequences. The subsequent morning gave light to some stimulating epiphanies and several offensive tummy aches. Even so, the warriors that we are, we invaded and explored Columbus mall. I for one indulged a little too much but that’s neither here nor there. Mitch consoled his tummy ache in the car with the window cracked – no treats for him.

I lost my camera so my trusty-friend google helped out. Columbus Kinda looked like this.

Evening approached meaning it was time to face the 2 hour traffic. Mere and I entertained ourselves by desecrating her car decorations and playing piggy in the middle with them, the piggy being the car roof. The divide in cars caused a rather awkward segregation resulting in the two of us being segregated from the remainder of the group however this didn’t prove too disappointing as some vagabond accosted us with an agreeable BOGOF coupon. We wondered aimlessly around the display with chipper little grins on our faces, that is, until we discovered the aquarium when we launched ourselves in its general direction. Retrospectively, this was favourable as we ran literally into the men of our dreams – Zach and Reed. Though nothing but a free meal actually came of it, we were pretty enthusiastic about it.

On our return to Chelsea’s brought me a new experience that I’m pretty sure I’m going to want to relive – making my first smores. Mmmm mmmm, who knew a melted chocolate, marshmellow and gram cracker sandwich would taste so delicious. And so, this concluded our penultimate weekend at BG. Time to depart home and essentially do a degree of work. Our final weekend in BG doesn’t bear thinking about so I’m going to lightly skim over it. In summary, Columbus was a test run and this weekend was British vice in full force. Again, reader discretion applicable. With the weekend over, the goodbyes began. Though we’d only been in BG for a semester and we had our own established friend group to return home to, the goodbyes were many and difficult but for the sake of my dignity I shan’t go into that as I disprove of public crying. With everyone else homestead, we were about the only ones remaining on Friday evening but not for long as 2am rolled round and so did our taxi to Detroit Airport.

Farewell BG.

So, here I am, coming to the end of my Study Abroad experience, running on approximately 20/120 hours sleep, wearing 2 pairs of leggings, 3 pairs of socks, a pair of Nike airs, a scarf, a vest , t-shirt, long-sleeve shirt, hoodie and a coat in order to save space in my luggage and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

The British Are Coming...To Thanksgiving feat, Boston

Thursday 6th December 2012 - 22.17

So it's the last week of classes meaning Winter Break is imminent and I've still not completed Thanksgiving's blog update. While I have some time on my hands (pahaha, who am I kidding, I'm ludicrously busy) I thought I'd fill in the gaps for the fans back home. Here goes nothing, Wednesday 21st December marked the start of Thanksgiving Break at BG and the British had a plan in store. Mitch got up at the crack of dawn to retrieve the hire car we would spend the following ten hours in. With all our baggage satisfying to trunk of the Chevvie and a majority of the back seat we embarked on our journey to Albany, New York. I’m going to level with you, I can’t really report on the voyage there as I was unconscious for drive across Ohio, the board cross to Pennsylvania and the following state line breach into New York. I did regain consciousness for the final stretch to Albany but even then very little antics can take place in an enclosed space when it is mandatory for your seatbelts to be fastened and you’re securely penned in by belongings.   

We arrived safely yet encapsulated in darkness at Seamus’ household just in time to gorge on some tasty home-made burgers and appreciate some refined banter about college campus and the like. Thanksgiving morning rolled round and I awoke, slightly disgusted at the fact I had once again passed the fuck out but this time fully clothed. Once I was showered and as presentable as the sore-thumb adorning fuchsia hair can be, we assembled alongside Seamus’ friends at the local park in preparation for Thanksgiving breakfast. The American youth, being the tradition rejecting rebels they are, have devised an additional practise to Thanksgiving entitled Friendsgiving. As I understand it is Thanksgiving dinner with friends that may or may not involve the inclusion of copious amount of alcohol. Though we did not partake in this event I think to assume Thanksgiving breakfast at Denny’s is a similar approach.

With our tummy’s reasonably satisfied we ventured back home for some festive fun in the form of Scattegories. I’m feeling real apathetic right now and my bed is just laughing at me temptingly so if you desperately need to know what this is – Google it as I do not have the energy.

After a bit more competitive rivalry and some trivial television it was time to start meeting the family. This was actually a really pleasant experience as Seamus’ family were exceedingly welcoming and by that I mean they fed me and called me Adele so I was content. As I’ve said I’m recapping what feels like a distant memory now thus cannot recall the exact menu nor did I pull my usual hi-jinks and photograph everything, but my good friend Google has once again come to my rescue.

Eventually family started returning to their own hospices and our food began to digest, it was time for the teenagers and old man Mitch to dominate the living room. Some not so light-hearted comedy was presented by my future husband Bo Burnham (this is not an advertising plug but go check him out, you will not regret).

Before we knew it, Friday morning was upon us. I was reluctant to wake up as I had discovered a new addiction to virtually running around slaying deer and wolves then muttering ‘Yama’ as I skinned them – yes, I mean playing Assassin’s Creed – which robbed me of valuable sleeping hours. Nevertheless, Mitch was not putting anything on hold for me so I had to get my shit together and prepare myself for the 3 hour drive to Boston. This time a point of interest arose during the car ride as we entered the densest patch of fog for a noteworthy period of time and if I’m really honest with you I thought the other side would be Narnia or the River Styx. Unfortunately this was also when we released that a majority of the hair dye on my head had transferred itself onto the headrest of the back seat.

As usual we arrived at our destination with very little idea of where our hotel was or where anything was really. We deduced parking up on the nearest car park for photographing opportunity was clearly the best idea. We paid for this mistake, to the tune of $13 for 30mins. Day light robbery if I do say so myself. Surveillancing the SatNav we learned we weren’t too far from Harvard University and so head towards the flashing little dot on the iPhone. With a Starbucks in hand, we were strolling along the street that is home to Harvard Law School when the sleep deprivation kicked in. In a very sophisticated manner we elected to point at Harvard Law School, one of the most prestigious universities worldwide, and imitate Borat’s ‘Eees Niiiiice’. Keele’s finest everyone. Our yobbish behaviour didn’t even there as Mitch encouraged me to climb statues for photo opportunity. Only in retrospect did I recognise this was probably wasn’t a wise move.

With the hotel located, prematurely stocked Christmas store visited and very picturesque setting captured on our DSLR’s, we determined our touristic plan submitting ourselves back into the heart of Boston to follow the ironic named Freedom Trail for the successive hours that followed. I’ve taken the liberty to include an interactive Freedom Trail below

CLICK FOR EXCITING STUFF

I would be more descriptive of what we were educated on during the saunter but much like 90% of American history it mainly consisted of “The British discovered America, then there was a war and we flipped them off in order to become an independent nation…” Trust me, when I can’t mask your accent being the only British on the tour gets awkward.

Seeing as we were in Boston, a city renounced for its fresh sea food, we nominated The Oyster House for dindins. After several minutes of standing in what we thought was a reception area waiting to be served, we realised reservations were a pre-requisite so we exited the establishment hungry with our heads hung in slight embarrassment. That is until we walked 10 foot down the street and entered the next moderately priced eatery. I had clam chowder, it was delectable. Having force fed Mitch some sustenance containing crustaceans, it was time for the train home and apparently some sleep after questionable conversations about sibilance and fricative sounds. If only we had recorded the tête-à-têtes we had that day, we’d be YouTube millionaires. We defined slap happy.

Our second and last day in Boston was a relaxing one. Having had SEPARATE baths the night before and an abundance of sleep we were energised for a day of playing on the beach and shopping. I haven’t concluded whether or not it is regrettable that we didn’t witness first hand brawling on Black Friday I have concluded that my fluffy dolly shoes from American Eagle were a steal at only $20. All shopped out and ready to go we set sail for Albany once again and with that another excursion came to a close. A tearful departure was had on Sunday morning but we all made it securely back to Bowling Green in one piece. Stain remover was bought and luggage was unloaded and that was the end of that.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Seamus’ parents for their hospitality over the weekend from providing us with someone to sleep to feeding us. You certainly made us feel really welcome the whole time we were in your company and I for one am incredibly grateful. You have a lovely home and a lovely set of children and I am proud to think you semi-adopted me. J

With that, it is time for bed. Check back in the next few days to see photographs uploading to this update and Columbus lights blog post is still to come. I also think it's worth mentioning that I can now go to Starbucks without muttering a word and get an tall eggnog latte with my name and a smiley face adjacent to it. Oops.