Days 24 & 25: Gaol and Glass

Two more days, time is flying, and another two days spent on placement at MIPT.

Tuesday Morning saw us take a visit to the County Jail. Funtimes! I always thought that prisoners in the UK get a fairly cushy time when they're in a detention centre. If my thoughts are indeed true, then they really need to take a leaf out of the County Jail's books. Prisoners are basically in their cells for 20 hours a day, often with 3 other cellmates, in a cell meant for 1 person. We think overcrowding is bad. Oklahoma's County Jail is only meant to house up to 1200 inmates, at it's peak, apparently it housed around 3000 inmates... now that is overcrowding. And in all fairness, the bastards deserve it if they're willing to bend the law to themselves, good riddance is what I say.

Anyways, we were taken around by two guys, one a Sgt and the other a Cpl of the County Sheriffs office. Both were, to coin a phrase, built like a brick shithouse. Seriously, these guys were huge. If I was an inmate, I'd have been scared of them! One of the guys was a member of the prison's internal swat team, and showed us a variety of the weapons that they use. At first I was under the impression that they did fire live ammunition, but then it became apparent that they fired paintball like projectiles. These projectiles hurt more than paintballs, and instead of housing paint inside them, house pepper dust, much like the stuff in pepper spray, but more effective.

Perhaps the coolest piece of equipment was the taser shield, which shoots something like 75000 volts through the inmate if they're trying to be funny. We wanted Jonny to have a go on it, but Jonny, being the wimp he is, bottled out as he didn't want to look like this:

Unfortunatley, due to that wonderful thing called Health and Safety, we didn't get to subject Jonny to it! What a shame!!!

After the tour of the Jail, we went back to MIPT, via Hoagies for lunch, a deli that we'd visited the previous week, that was en route back to the MIPT building. It was a pretty good lunch, but not the best. At the end of the day though, we can't complain really.

Back at MIPT, we had a couple more hours to spend doing our projects, getting basically nowhere, but we'll get there!!!

If I'm perfectly honest, I can't remember what we did on Tuesday night, possibly went swimming or something, but yeah, onto Wednesday.

Wednesday and we all went off to the Oklahoma Arts Museum. Me being the art enthusiast that I am, went with high expectations and looking forward to it. Of course, sarcasm really doesn't work on the internet, so that actually sounds like i meant it. Art in general bores me, especially the gobshite they call modern art. The Arts Museum was not different, there were some awesome exhibits, but in general, the rest was a load of crap. Can you seriously call a square of red on a white background art? In my eyes, no. This is art:

Not this:

What a load of crap. Period.

There were some awesome exhibits though, such as an exhibition with movie costumes in it. Pretty wicked, especially when they had stuff like Keira Knightley's Green Dress from Atonement, possibly the hottest dress ever worn by anyone in the history of like forever!!! It was soo cool!

Perhaps my favourite exhibit was the glass exhibit they had there, some of the most amazing glasswork I've ever seen:

Before you query this. Yes it is made of glass!!

After the museum we had another afternoon at MIPT where we once again attempted to do some work, and mostly failed as we were having too much fun playing with the camera... sports mode on it is good, but a PITA as then, instead of getting maybe 1 photo of something, I'll end up with 5+

So concluded another two days in the USA. The next post is basically going to summarize the last few days as I'm getting too far behind on the posts!!!

x

Days 20, 21, 22 & 23: Brilliance, Bulls, Baseball & Bloody hell that hurts

Five more days in Oklahoma City, Five more days where the weather is trying to take me from a blue meat right up to well done within seconds. Thankfully I'm now acclimatised to it, so I'm not suffering quite so much as I was on the first day.

What a three days it's been. Seeing two great American sporting traditions, as well as a day of doing more or less nothing.

Starting with Friday then:

Day of relaxation. Not much more can be said really, we really didn't do much. Except play some volleyball and basketball. The basketball once again saw my skills as a basketballer on show, Kobe Bryant has absolutley nothing on me, out of all the shots that I took, maybe 2 went in, beat that! LA Lakers will be after me in no time at all!!!

So after about 3 hours worth of basketball in the midday sun, we were approached by a group of Americans who wanted to know if we'd play some volleyball with them. HELL YES was my reply, the others were like, "yeah alright okay then", we will. So we did.

First time in ages that we'd played volleyball and the game was pretty good, until a group of seemingly amazing players came along and requisitioned the court. Not good times =(

In the evening most of the guys went off to some party, but me, being in an exercisey mood decided to go and play some more volleyball with some random people, but they turned out to be the seemingly amazing players, who were pretty amazing. Getting bored of this, I clocked the guys that I'd been playing with later, and within minutes had made pretty good friends with them, as they accepted me as another volleyball player. As both of the courts on campus were taken we ended up playing at a frat house, for what seemed like 2 hours. I thoroughly enjoyed their company, despite my team of 3 (nicknamed something along the lines of the Statics?) losing most of the games.

So onto Saturday, and an early start, leaving UCO by something like 8.45am in order to go to Fort Sill, a military base surrounded by perhaps the most amazing landscape full of all kinds of creatures, from Buffalo, through to Rattlesnake. The journey down was pretty boring, with the minibus out of action due to some mechanical failures, so instead we headed off in convoy on a 2 1/2 hour journey down to the south west of the state.

Around lunchtime we stopped off at this place called Meers, which is apparently really famous for its burgers. Wow were they big, but I'll get to that in a minute. The queue to get into this place was fairly long, but constantly moving, illustrating just how popular this place really is. The seating area didn't really paint the best picture of the restaurant either, with plastic seats similar to those you get in a primary school.

The food like I've already said was amazing. a few of us had the Seismic Burger, myself included. The name said it all really... 16oz of pure beef in a bun... good times. Lets just say, it didn't defeat me, although I was pretty full afterwards. After the meal, I was stupidly challenged to eat 3 whole pickled Jalapeño Chilli Peppers without a drink. Me being the fool I am, took up the challenge, easily succeeding, much to the onlookers disdain, I think they wanted me to suffer... that'll show them hehehe. Then disaster strikes, we leave the resturant and some asshole biker basically tells flick that if I don't take my t-shirt off, someone will kill me. Stupidly that morning, I'd put a t-shirt with Che Guevara on it, forgetting that rednecks and bikers are the most narrowminded people in the world. Ever.

So we get to the next place, a nature reserve, and I'm forced to change my t-shirt incase the threat is followed through, I value my life quite a bit, so risking it over a t-shirt seems pretty unnecessary... but still, 1st amendment and all.

The reserve was ok, not too much to see, as it was in the middle of nowhere, but there were some cool animals dotted around, such as these two cute prarie dogs:

After this we moved off to Fort Sill, a US Army Artillery training area which also has a museum. Fairly boring to be fair, the exhibits we went were still largely under construction, which sucked. But on the whole the exhibits that were on show were pretty good, for example a painting that was worth the small sum of $23million (or so we were told). As well as a wide range of artillery pieces which resulted in near orgasm for Jonny when he saw this particular gun:

After this we headed back, with a detour to Geronimo's grave. For those that don't know, Geronimo was some badassed indian guy, who was arrested, held and died at Fort Sill. His grave wasn't the most awe inspiring thing in the world, but it was still pretty cool. The journey back saw us still completley and utterly full from the massive hunks of meat from lunch. Again, it was a fairly uneventful journey with most of us comatose in the back of the vehicles, travelling in relative comfort.

The evening was awesome, having got back to UCO, we had about an hour to get ready to go to the Rodeo. A feast of horsemanship and ultra cool cowboys doing mega cool stuff, like jumping from their horses and wrestling a cow to the floor. Pretty hardcore. The best event was the bucking bull event, which saw competitors literally thrown from the back of the bull onto the ground, risking serious injury and potentially even death!

If you want to see all the pictures from the rodeo, take a look here.

Onto Sunday, a truly fantastic day with no heartbreak whatsoever (Or none that we talk about) and another no move until around 1430 when we were meant to leave to go to the baseball. However, delays saw us leaving at around 1500.

Having never been to a baseball game in my life, I was unsure quite what to expect. My basic understanding was that it was basically Rounders, but Americanized. So most probably boring. As it stood, it was an awesome game. The rules were pretty easy to pick up as the game progressed and we witnessed a thorough thrashing of the visiting team by the Redhawks (Oklahoma's team). To top it all off, we were sat in the all you can eat seats. Yes that's right, we were able to stuff ourselves with what can only be described as crap for the entirety of the game... which was a good 3 hours long. Still, not as bad as one of the boys sat in front of our group. Blue Candy Floss turns you blue. So this kid, who must've been 12 or something, and about a billion stone sat and ate around 15 bags of this stuff, literally going away looking like something out of avatar, like this:

But without the beard.

The evening saw the group split with 4 of us chilling up in one room, with the rest in another. What they got up to I shall never know, but we had a pretty awesome evening chilling. The original plan was to watch "The Pacific" but that fell through as Jonny started telling us another crazy and ultimately made up story. We must've been up there for about 4 hours when we decided to call it a night, with placement looming for the next day.

Onto Monday, and another day at MIPT. First of all however, we had a talk with a detective down by the OCPD (Think LAPD but with Oklahoma City and you get the gist) who told us what his job entailed and about the guys under his command. After this and a really filling lunch, we wandered back to MIPT where we spent until 3pm continuing our projects, which should look pretty good by the time they're finished! Come 3pm we'd all just about had enough, being told that we could leave any time after this, we decided to call it a day and waited to get picked up.

The evening saw just about everyone make a trip to the University swimming pool where I was once again challenged to several races, which I can safely say I won. Part of me still wishes that I'd continued swimming, as It was the only sport I was ever any good at, representing my county and such.

After a good 2 hours in the pool i emerged, with my eyes looking vaguely like this

Just slightly redder. For some reason, despite spending much of the first 15 years of my life in a swimming pool, my eyes get really badly affected by Chlorine, meaning that I spent most of the next 3 hours laying down on my bed with my eyes streaming under a damp flannel. I woke up this morning and my eyes were still sore. Even now they're still slightly sore. I shall not be swimming underwater there for a while!!!!

So that's the last four days, I could write about today, but I imagine that the post will be even longer and I'm bored of this post now!

So until the next one.

Tchuss

x

Day 19: Results

Hey guys!

Ok so today is possibly the best day so far of the trip. Not really because of the excursions or anything, but because it was the day that my degree results came.

They were meant to come earlier this week, but Royal Mail being what they are, they came slightly later, but in all fairness it wouldn't have made any difference, what with me being 4500 miles away! As a result, I'd instructed mum to let Auntie Lizzie know to let me know as soon as they had the results. So at around 7.30 this morning I got the call I'd been dreading.

Ok so results aren't really something that I usually get worried about. However, these were much different, owing to the fact that they basically will shape my future. I was kind of worried, knowing that I'd need something good to get a 2:1 as my grades the previous year had been kind of crap. So, anyways, I got the call.

I know I say this a lot, but words can't describe my reaction when I was told my grade. Over the moon would be one I guess. I got my 2.1, which now means that I can definitely now apply for postgrad studies. Even better than that, my dissertation, which I'd worked the hardest I've ever worked on, got a 1st! So so so so happy.

Today's adventure saw me leave in high spirits, feeling the happiest I'd been for a while. We were going to a place called Bartlesville or something. To a wildlife reserve and museum, and then onto another museum. The downside to this, a 3 hour journey there and then 3 hours back. Not fun, particularly in this heat!

So anyways, after a nice long nap on the bus, we arrived, with my spirits still high. I think we were all slightly apprehensive about quite what this wildlife place would be like, but in all honest, it was pretty cool. There was a wide range of free roaming wildlife about, including Ostrich, Bison and Longhorn Cattle. Those beasts had major horns!!! Take a look!

That Ostrich loved having it's picture taken! Bloody Poser.

After we'd eaten lunch, in my case a BBQ Buffalo Sandwich, which was lovely, we all went off to do our own thing around the museum. Myself and Flick went on a Photo taking spree, up a tower and around the museum. It was a really interesting museum to be fair, with loads of artifacts and paintings, as well as quite a few animal heads!

With that museum out the way we went on to the Price Tower, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Apparently, this tower is meant to look like a tree. In my opinion, it looked like a tower, with green copper on it. Good effort.

In my opinion, forgive me all architects and interior architects, the building was a load of crap, totally impractical for any use at all, it didn't even look good on the inside. Despite this, our tour was pretty funny, thanks to Lewis' efforts to try to not look as big a pratt as possible. First of all he went to sit down on a one of a kind piece of furniture, and then on the lift on the way down, said to everyone "oh right, 5 guys and 1 girl" to which the girl, our tour guide said as we got out "well that was the most awkward 32 seconds of my life!" Lewis, you fool, that was funny!

The journey back was pretty boring again, with just a stop off for dinner at McDonalds seeing us back into the University. The evening's entertainment was in fact awesome. We all went out as a group to a local place, where our mentor, Isaac's cousins were playing in a band. It was such great music, and a privilage to have been there!

Anyways, must dash, having a nosebleed... oh well, first bad thing to happen today!!
Today's lesson. No matter what, you can reach your goal if you work like hell!

Love and hugs

x

Days 16, 17 & 18: Memorials, Motivation & Mission Accomplished

Monday saw the start of week two of the placements. This week went off without a hitch, unlike the previous week, where we were subjected to a slight rainfall and a smattering of thunder. Instead we were subjected to the low temperatures which saw mercury levels drop to around 100degrees farenheight. Lovely, especially when one is in a suit!

So this week our placement has been at MIPT (Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism). As the name suggests, this place is a facility dedicated to preventing terrorism, through increasing the efficiency of intelligence gathering at a grass roots level.

We were given a tour of the facilities, small compared to those which we'd been used to at the OSBI headquarters. With only 9 members of staff, we had effectively added half their workforce into their office space, luckily, there is room enough for us all.

So to start off with, we had an introductory talk from the Director of MIPT, about the state of the world and giving a brief introduction to how the entire US system of Law Enforcement works. It's a damn sight more complicated than the UK's, I can tell you that much already! If things weren't so complicated within the US, the 9/11 attacks may well have been able to have been stopped, as it seems that each department had gleaned enough intelligence to be able to piece together a possible attack, with multiple suspects. However, Federal Law, prohibited (until the Patriot Act) this information to be shared across organisation.

Anyways back on topic.

After the talk we broke for lunch, having been given money to go and buy our own. Being adventurous, we settled for the Deli across the road from the MIPT headquarters, it was Okay I guess, the food wasn't bad, but at the same time it wouldn't win any Michelin stars (mainly because the portion sizes were bigger than half a mouthful!). But at the end of the day, food is food and it was edible.

Having literally just exited the Deli, we were stood on the pavement waiting for Jack to come out from the bathroom, when our attentions were turned to a US Park Ranger coming towards us telling us that we weren't allowed to loiter on the pavements outside the MIPT. Any of us there at the time will testify that we completely bricked it, stammering our apologies and saying that we'd move once our friend was out of the Deli. Only then was it that a cheekey grin and a laugh from the ranger, who then took his sunglasses off, revealed him to be Mike Washington, the Dean's husband. The look of relief on all of our faces was immense as we realised that we'd just been made to look completely and utterly stupid!

Mike then gave us a really quick tour around the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial, which was located literally 30 metres away from our building, telling us of the significance of the 'chairs' and the exact position where Timothy McVeigh parked the truck and left it to explode. A real poignant moment, when one considers that just over 15 years ago, there was a building stood there, unaware of what was going to happen to it.

With our lunch break over, we went back for our final talk of the day, from the Deputy Director of MIPT, who told us what the mission of MIPT. It was a rather hurried talk as she had an important call that could've come at any time whilst she was talking to us, but nonetheless it was a highly informative talk.

This left us with around 2 1/2 hours to kill before we were to be picked up. So rather kindly, the MIPT paid for our admission into the Memorial Museum. Words cannot actually describe the emotions that ran through me whilst going around the museum. It starts off with a timeline of the day of the attack in the first room of exhibits, finishing up at 9am, just 2 minutes before the attack took place. What came next will live with me forever. We were taken into a room, where a recording was played to everyone inside it. The only recording of the explosion itself, recorded in a building close by to the scene of the bombing. It was horrible, sat there listening to it knowing what was about to happen. Luckily those in the recordings survived. Unfortunatley they were some of the lucky ones, with 168 people perishing. I don't really want to say much more about the museum as I believe it has to be experienced rather than described, but I shall include some news footage of the aftermath of the bombings.

The Museum was a deeply moving experience, on which I hope everyone gets the opportunity to live, as it shows the hurt that many people went through as well as how the Law Enforcement Agencies worked to apprehend McVeigh.

Back at University we had just about enough time to change before heading out for dinner to a BBQ All You Can Eat place. I was stuffed after 2 decent sized plates, with everyone else eating more or less the same. Once again, I was subjected to just how amazing US Ribs are compared to UK ribs, as the meat just fell off of the bone!!! I did take my camera to this, and it made the rounds around the table a few times, with people taking random pictures, some which were awesome, and some which weren't quite so good. I'll put my two favourites up anyways:

That's a pretty epic amount of food if you ask me!

Having got back from the BBQ place, we all changed and went to play the sport of the trip. Yep yet more volleyball. I'm getting pretty good now, all I need to do is learn how to jump properly and I'll be able to spike the ball.

This was the first time that us Brits had played with any American's, as we found ourselves mixing up and playing 3 games with a bunch of Americans who lived locally. It was pretty awesome fun, which I'd love to do again. The Americans were really pretty good at Volleyball, and put us to shame with their plays, however, they did lose to us (although I was playing on the US team to even out numbers). For the first time too, We managed to get some pretty decent pictures, despite the mosquitos coming out in force and trying to reduce us to a pile of bones!

Now onto Tuesday, and Day two at MIPT. This would see the start of our research project that we will be undertaking throughout our internship. The research will see us examine the question "Compare and Contrast differences in UK and US policing systems, pretty awesome. Especially given the amount of resources available. The MIPT library has a huge amount of books on the subjects of Terrorism and Law Enforcement, so much that I didn't really know where to start, and in all honesty, still don't. I could either start off in the 1960s where there was a terrorist attack in the US, 1970s to talk about Northern Ireland or 1995 to start with the Oklahoma bombings. I'll come to that hurdle at some point next week.

They basically left us to our own devices in the morning, planning our paper. So us being students, the majority of our time was spent on facebook and msn talking to people back in the UK. Having said that, a fair amount of work was done (or made look like was done by surrounding myself in a pile of books!)

After lunch at another deli, World War Three nearly broke out between the group, with certain members antagonising others, in a vicious circle. Although it was rather funny to watch at the time, tempers were incredibly on edge whilst we made our way back for a presentation from the JTTF (Joint Terrorism Task Force). This was a really interesting, talking about things ranging from how terrorists operate, through to how organisations are now collaborating together to take down the bad guys. Again, all three of the guys doing the presentation were carrying pistols, it made me think of the questions from Hot Fuzz where Nick Frost asks Simon Pegg: "Have you ever shot a gun whilst diving through the air? Have you ever shot a gun from a car in a high speed pursuit?", which would've been amazingly funny to ask. Maybe the next guy will get them, although he's something like the old Director of the CIA, so he might not find it too funny. But it's worth a try at the end of the day!

With the presentation over we clocked off for the day after another half hour or so of work done. The evening was pretty uneventful really, watched Shutter Island. Apparently its meant to be this thriller, in all fairness, I was bored and thought it was shit. The scariest bit was when there was a flashback to Belsen with the hundreds of bodies lying around. Not nice.

So now onto today.

And England FINALLY have something to cheer about. Final Group Game of the World Cup, England needed to win in order to go through. If I'm honest, after the first two performances, I wasn't holding out much hope. But damn right, England being England, we do it. Ok so we won 1-0, and lost first place in the group to the Yanks, but we're through and that's all that matters.

Hell, us guys were excited, getting to watch the game and all, and we left for where we were doing our placement, some 2 hours away, with several St George Flags adorning the bus.

As we drove off, I could hear in my head this song, as we were pretty raucous and celebrating victory.

Thankfully this didn't happen:

Anyways, after a 2 hour drive we arrived at some police academy training place whose name escapes me as it's another abbreviation, where we were to sit in on a MIPT training session on Information Collection on Patrol. It was pretty interesting, talking about the 8 signs of terrorism, with warnings being given about making assumptions before taking in the entire picture.

We then had another presentation to sit through, and just our luck, it's the exact same one as we'd had at the OSBI last Wednesday, on the Fusion Centre, however this one didn't seem to go on for half as long, despite being the exact same presentation.

On the way home we stopped for lunch, at 4pm. Yes, it was late but who cares. First American Subway, it was lovely. However, having not drunk enough during the day I felt incredibly sick on the bus back, but survived it in one piece, so all is good. Moral of the story is to not drink.

Having eaten dinner (just an hour after lunch), we all congregated in the commons clubhouse for Isaacs birthday, having bought him a card, cake and signed volleyball.

That there's the whole of our group, bar Eliot with Isaac, 2-r next to Kristina. He's awesome. Happy Birthday Isaac!!!!

With the group then dissipated, we noticed on the TV that a storm was coming our way. So 5 of us decided to go and watch it, not realising that the further we got to it, the faster it was coming towards us. Having said that, we were there for around 2 hours I think. Of the 200+ pictures I took, I think about 4 made the final cut. Here're my faves:

They don't look quite as Impressive down small, but they are pretty good in my opinion, especially the one of the fork!!!

So that's been the last 3 days really, I think the title sums it up. Memorials, Motivation and Mission Accomplished

Memorials: MIPT, OKC Bombing Memorial

Motivation: Motivation to work and produce an awesome research paper & also to take some awesome pics

Mission Accomplished: England got through, and I got some amazing picss!!!!

Love to you all

xx

Days 14 & 15: Margaritas & Movies

2 weeks in already, that seems completely and utterly insane in my books. The time out here is flying by.

So yesterday was a pretty much relaxing day. We all were able to have a lie in, due to the days activity not starting until around 4pm. So we pretty much bummed around for the majority of the day. With me, Jon, Lewis and Chris taking a fairly early lunch at Buddy's before going over to see what was happening in the Football Stadium, as before we'd left for lunch, we'd seen a load of football players in their pads. Unfortunately when we got there, it looked like we'd walked in on a school tag football game. Not what we'd come to see there, so we decided to go back towards the accomodation, where just as we were crossing the car park we saw Isaac arriving on his motorbike. After a quick chat with him, asking if he could take the three of us (at this point, Jon had left) to the mall so we could have a look around.

Didn't get very much at the mall in all honesty, we didn't have that much time to do stuff as we needed to be back at the accommodation by 4pm to go to a theme park. I did get a rather nice pair of shorts from Abercrombie & Fitch, but that was about it.

Tell a lie, we went to get a drink, and me being the spontaneous buyer that I am, I bought myself a gallon of lemonade from Chick Fill-a, which is still in my fridge as I speak.

After a quick change when we got back from the mall, we were all set to go to Frontier City, a local theme park. As I'm a rollercoaster fanatic (or not) I was particularly looking forward to it. However I endeavoured to do at least one of the rollercoasters that I wouldn't particularly have done, on the condition that I got completely and utterly soaking on the water rides first. So that was what happened. First me and Jon rode on the Log Flume together, singing some Journey on the way around, followed by a bit of Bohemian Rhapsody, to pass the time before the big drop. Didn't get too wet, just a bit damp then. So the whole group decided to go on the Rapids. We had to split into two groups as we were too many to fit into one boat. I was getting pretty disappointed on the way around until the final corner, as I'd avoided EVERY bit of water, not much good. Last corner comes up, and I get soaked, as the boat thing went under a waterfall, it timed itself until the last I was under it to unleash it's entire contents on me. All I can say is thank goodness I didn't have my camera on me.

So there we have it, I'm now ready to dry myself off on a rollercoaster. We go on one called Silver Bullet. Here's a video of what it's like:

Pretty immense I thought, being the world expert on rollercoasters that I am!!! One small jibe I had with it was that at a couple of points, such as the first corner, I did fear for my life and more specifically my head, as the track passed by my head pretty damn closely. But I survived it, and completed my first ever loop the loop on a rollercoaster, there is hope for me yet!!!

After a couple more rides we headed off to a mexican resturant called Teds. I'm a massive fan of the Mexican and so was particularly excited for this. And I was not disappointed, a HUGE meal, accompanied by the biggest margarita I've ever seen in my life. Seriously it was massive. And to top it all off, was deadly strong.

Damn it was good! I had this triple burrito thingy, which was amazing. So good in fact, that I consciously made the decision to save the rest of it for breakfast the next morning.

Having finished dinner, we all once again headed back to the University for another fun filled night, resulting in a fairly late night, with me feeling slightly hungry so I ate the rest of my dinner. Hey I did eat it in the morning, albeit at 0230!!!

So today we all woke up significantly later than previous days, again having nothing really to do until the afternoon where we were all off to the mall again! This time however, we were going with the sole intentions really of watching a movie at the cinema. For most of us, the movie of choice was the culmination of our childhoods. Toy Story 3. It's difficult to put into words just how awesomely amazing the movie really was, I mean it was just WOW! I wish I could say more, but seeing as it's not out in the UK for another month (HAAAAAAAAHAHAHA) I can't say anything, except that come the end, I had a massive lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. Lets' just say, it was amazing! So I shall just let you watch the trailer =)

After that, we had about an hour to kill until we had to leave for food, so once again we hit the shops, where I did get a couple of new t-shirts, flip-flops (as mine are about 4 years old) and a shirt. Once we were done, we left again, this time going off to a pizza restaurant, which did the greatest pizzas I have had in a while.

Another relaxing evening later and here I am, sat in my room, listening to the Toy Story soundtrack, man I love that movie!
One final note before I go, delivered by the legend that is Mr Randy Newman.

What a song!
Night guys

x

Days 12 & 13: Museums & Native Americans

Wow, what a couple of days we've just had. A lot of culture to take in around Oklahoma city, as well as some huge meals out.

Yesterday saw us take in a visit to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage museum as well as a partial tour of the campus, which should've happened on Monday, but got rained off by a slight rainfall.

When I say a partial tour, I do mean partial, none of us could frankly be bothered to be taken around the campus being told that the Commons was accommodation, when we knew that as we'd been staying there for a week already. I tagged along with everyone for about 20 minutes before we all did a tactical withdrawal from the tour, to give ourselves some free time before our excursion later on in the day. On the plus side from the tour, I took the opportunity to take some photos of the campus.

We then left to go to the Cowboy Museum, funnily enough, a museum dedicated to the Cowboy. Again, this could've been really really interesting, had it not been for the really really really really dull tour guide we had. It was almost, to an extent an art gallery, dedicated to the cowboy, in that virtually everything there was a painting or sculpture of some sort. However, there were some awesome sculptures, such as this one, situated just inside the building:

Pretty Epic in my opinion.

We must've been under the command of this tour guide for about two hours, being told about how such and such a person was called this because he was so laid back. It really wasn't the greatest tour I've ever had. But Beggars can't be choosers at the end of the day.

Some wise words from Flick, when asked what we wanted to see next, saw us all heading towards the gift shop, and more importantly the exit.

When we got back, we had around an hour to get changed and ready to go out for our first all-American experience meal at a place called Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill. This place is basically a steakhouse. And the portions are HUGE, and for what you're paying for, really fairly priced. I mean, a 20oz Rib-Eye steak with 2 sides costs a mere $32.99. But then again, it's not quite as impressive as the 72oz steak challenge in Amarillo, which if the person eating it succeeds in an hour of less, they get the steak for free. Crazy!

The food at Toby Keith's was pretty amazing, Having gotten a liking for shrimp at Owen's BBQ the previous week, I opted for an 8oz steak with grilled shrimp, and wow was it good. I've never eaten so much in my life before, so much in fact that my plate still had quite a bit of food left on it.

Having stuffed ourselves to bursting point, we all went back, got changed and for some really stupid reason, having just eaten the worlds biggest dinner, decided to go and play volleyball. One of our student mentors, Isaac, came along too, to show us how the game is really played. I believe he was on the winning team during every game.

With everyone heading off to bed, a few of us stayed outside for a bit to play some basketball with the volleyball, was pretty good fun. Before we headed in for bed, a few of us went to check the score of the NBA finals, having gone down to the last game. Needless to say, the favourites won it again, with the LA Lakers taking the NBA title. Good times in LA!

Ok, so going on to today. Today we went to Red Earth, a Native American gathering within Oklahoma City. I was looking forward to this trip immensely, with the immense culture difference that would be present. Having left at 0930, we arrived at the convention centre with plenty of time to spare before the parade. I wish I could put all of the pictures of the parade up on here, but I think I took around 200 alone during it, so here are three of my favourites.

The parade was, a sea of colour, far from the stereotypes portrayed in Westerns. And as the parade moved by, it did become apparent to me just how there is such a huge number of overweight people in the USA. Just about every single float was throwing some kind of candy onto the floor around it for the kids to pick up; whilst some were throwing things such as Frisbees into the onlooking crowd.

With the parade over, we went inside the Convention Centre where there was to be a demonstration of Native American singing and dancing from some of the different tribes that were represented there. Before we actually got into the centre however, Scott introduced us to his tribal chief, who allowed us to have our photos taken with him, and invited us down to where they're from for a couple of days on the trip. I don't know if we've got the time, but it would be such a cool thing to do.

The singing and drumming was really relaxing, as the dancers in the middle of the stage did their thing. What with all the bright colours and plumage, it made for quite a spectacle. However, after a while we decided to go down to the exhibition hall, where there were a multitude of different exhibitors around, selling everything from artwork, to arrows and the like. As we wandered around the centre, a familiar face from during the week sprung up as we saw Harvey Pratt, the forensic artist from the OSBI with some of his artwork on show.

All I can say to his stuff is wow! So realistic, but then again, I guess being a forensic artist does help big time when doing portraits. Unfortunatley, his pictures cost a huge amount, possibly due to him being such a famous artist with some great pictures, so I was unable to buy one, what with the cheapest picture weighing in at a fairly hefty$75, but it was fantastic if not on the small side!

Having left the convention centre we then proceeded to part two of the days adventure, seeing the group split up with most of the boys going to watch the England vs. Algeria game, whilst the rest went to the mall to go shopping. Having actually missed the game due to being downtown when it was on, the Dean and her husband kindly recorded it to us, meaning we had to keep ourselves in an environment where no score could be relayed to us at all. Much in the same way that had had to have been done last week after James' game (I should add at this point, that he had won his final game of the season). The less said about the game the better.

When we got back from the deans house, most of the guys went out to play football on the football pitch, where we were joined by a guy named Victor whom we introduced to the concept of Wembley. Basically an all vs all game where to proceed through to the next round you needed to score just one goal. Victor gave us all the run around with his tricks but lacked the finishing touch, and just as the girls arrived with the volleyball ready for the day's games. Having played volleyball, and basketball four of us went over to the commons, where we played pool for about an hour, with a couple of Americans, the banter between us was immense.

I can't really think of much else to say, about the last couple of days, it's been immense fun in parts and some of it is best forgotten. However, what can be said is that at the end of the day, life goes on, and it's far too short to hold grudges.

I shall love you and leave you now, as I really should shower and get dressed.

Before I go, I shall leave you with my favourite quote in hawai'ian.

E Hookumu Maua Ka Hale Puni Maua Ohana Me Ka Pumehana A Me Ka Oiloli Kealoha

Day 11: OSBI

Ok, so I've now decided that doing two days of blog is far easier than doing one a day. I can't actually believe it's been 11 days since I left England. The time has properly flown by!

My alarm sounded at 0715, way to early for my liking, but I guess it has to be done at some point, and after showering and getting dressed I was ready for the day.

Moving to our RV by 0800, it seems that I was the first of the C.T. guys to be ready, despite us needing to be there by 0830, not that that would matter. With Jonny wanting a shower, sods law reared its ugly head, as just as he was getting ready to shower, one of the guys who didn't need to be ready before us took a 20 minute long shower, saying just after he got in "I'll be out in a minute". Yeah right!

So what does Jonny do, takes a 500ml bottle of water, and splashes it over his head to wet it, and then proceeds to dry himself with a filthy towel. Ah well, if needs must!

With us all ready to go, we wander over to the place where we were told to go, the same place as yesterday, the OSBI Forensics Lab. When we got there, it turns out that we're not actually meant to be there, but at the OSBI headquarters some 5 miles away, somewhere along the line, we'd been given the wrong information. After a frenzied call and a lift, we eventually arrived at where we were meant to be, around an hour after we should've started. Not bad considering the events that had led to this.

Having been checked in and everything, we were led upstairs into the classroom where we were introduced to the director of the OSBI DeWade Langley, who gave us a brief introduction to the OSBI and what it did, before handing us over to the next few speakers. I have to say, everything which they said to us was incredibly interesting.

Next we had maybe the most incredible guy in the world... ever. A guy named Harvey Pratt. Ok, so his name doesn't sound too convincing, however, the stuff that he does is incredible. However, you know when you're an awesomely fantastic person, when you have your own page on wikipedia, and this guy does! He's apparently the worlds most accomplished and worlds best forensic artist. This means that in the event that a suspect is unknown, he'll be called in to draw an impression of what the suspect looks like through descriptions given by witnesses. Some of the likenesses that he showed us was amazing when he showed us photos of the perpetrator after arrest. As well as that sort of stuff, he's also been employed to do things such as stuff like ageing, so that they can get a fair representation of what a fugitive on the run would look like after a period of time, as well as what a kidnapp victim could look like after a period of so many years. On top of this, he also does skull reconstructions, if they find human remains that are so badly deformed that the face cant be used for identification. Real interesting stuff!

The next guy we had ran us through the procedures for Polygraphing. The art of lie detecting. Apparently, although they are allowed to do it to retrieve fairly accurate results, the results are not allowed to be given in evidence in court, despite a 98% degree of accuracy. What was said however was that the pre and post interviews can be used to testify for or against a suspect in the event that it could provide vital evidence for within the courts. Unfortunatley though, we didn't have the time to have a demonstration on one, which would've been awesome! I could forsee Jonny's turn being something like this:

Only joking Jonny, love you really!

Having gone for lunch at a local sandwich place, where I had a Santa Fe Chicken sandwichy thingy. We went back for 3 more talks. Firstly from a Crime Scene investigator. This was possibly the most interesting talk of the day, and definitely not one to have had before lunch. Some of the pictures she showed us, of murder victims, were horrific, and I must admit to feeling a tiny bit queasey when she showed us the maggot infested body. Despite it being so disgusting, her talk was quite possibly the most informative of the day, and for someone to have experienced so much mutilation and brutality in her job, she seemed not to show any form of stress or anything. I have new-found respect for that job, having had my opinions moulded by shows such as CSI, which does not depict the brutality involved.

The next talk saw all of us flagging, despite it being the only one that was properly linked to our course, about the evidence network that had been set up in the wake of 9/11. Sure the stuff would've been incredibly interesting, however with an 84 slide powerpoint to get through in 45 minutes, so much information was darn near impossible to digest so quickly. I believe we all found ourselves falling asleep at some point, mainly due to the heat and humidity, but also partly due to the monotony of the presentation.

The final presentation was probably the most poignant one of the day, on Child Protection. I have complete and utter respect for this guy. The stuff that he's had to see must be sickening, having to deal with countless cases of Child Pornography and in general, Child Abuse. It was interesting to note, that he was the only guy that openly swore whilst talking to us. But then again, it's par for the course there.

That more or less concluded the day's work, with us heading back to the campus to freshen up and get ready for the evening's activity. A western movie, that just so happened to be the most boring movie ever produced, named Cimarron. Apparently it was remade with John Wayne in it, now that would've been so much better. I mean, it's John Wayne for crying out loud!!! I kind of got the gist of it, the Americans come and take over some land and develop it into what was to become Oklahoma City... pretty simple, but really strung out.

Having sat through all 131 minutes of it, we all went off to McDonalds to get a bite to eat, with the guys going back to IHOP to get food whilst the rest of us went to get some cheap crap from McD's. On the way back, Jon decided to piss everyone off with some choice words, which in all fairness he didn't mean the way he said it, and I had immense fun pretending to tell him off, whilst he seemed to be getting more and more worked up, deciding to go for a run in penance.

Jonny telling a story (but with slightly more hair) ->

As it was Jonny, that of course did not go off without at least one story to tell, as he came back telling us how three distinct things had happened:

1. He'd fallen and twisted his ankle about 30 seconds into the run

2. He'd witnessed a drugs deal

3. He'd then had stuff thrown at him by those involved in the deal

3 things struck me about this:

1. If he had fallen that early, why didn't he turn back

2. Ok that could've happened

3. What the hell was thrown at him, surely in a state where it's legal to carry a concealed weapon, they'd have shot at him, and not thrown a stone... but who cares, it made a good story! Oh how it would've been great to have him linked up to a polygraph at that point!

Having said I was going to do two days, I shall leave today's post until tomorrow when I might be more awake to actually do two days!
Until then,

Tchuss

x

Days 9 & 10: Floods and Forensics

Ok, so now I'm kinda getting the hang of this blog malarkey! And I've nearly caught up with myself, which is always a great thing.

Yesterday, Monday 14/06/2010 was meant to be the first properly structured day of the programme. But someone up there decided differently, and as such, we didn't get a whole lot done. Coming here, I thought that Swansea was possibly the wettest place on earth, what with the near enough constant rain. In fact, it is officially the wettest place in Britain according to the Met Office.

So what does it decide to do on the first day in Oklahoma, it rained. Actually it didn't rain, it stormed, pretty much for 24 hours solid. I remember falling asleep on the Sunday, and stirring at around midnight just as the first roll of thunder was sounding in the night sky. Being the optimistic Brit that I am, I thought to myself, "Oh well, the storm will soon blow over". Again, famous last words there.

Waking up in the morning saw the storm still ever present and worse than ever, throughout Oklahoma, a state of Emergency had been declared, as scenes such as these greeted television sets across the state; and to an extent the nation I guess:

If I could say something relatively funny about these events, I doubt I would, owing to the fact that as far as I'm currently aware, around 20 people lost their lives yesterday.

Because of the extreme weather, we were unable to undertake in the day's activities, meaning that there was one hell of a lot of sitting around, playing pool and twiddling our thumbs to be done. I did go for a swim at the University's pool, clocking up around 1k before getting out to brave the rain on the walk back. With hindsight it was probably not the best thing to do, drying myself and getting changed, before going back out into the rain, only to get wetter than I had been when I'd got out of the pool, but oh well, c'est la vie.

There isn't really a whole lot more to write about yesterday's antics really, owing to the immense lack of activities we had available due to the weather. If anything, I experimented with my camera to get some fairly decent shots of the guys playing pool, such as these:

By the time I'd got to bed last night, the storm had just about burnt itself out, with the odd rumble of thunder, interspersed with some light rain, but nothing compared to what it had been. By morning, there was virtually no sign of it at all. Although there were some puddles, the roads and pavements were certainly not the rivers that we'd been wading through the day before.

A 9am start saw the Counter-Terrorism and Politics internships join together for the day, with us firstly watching a video upon the build-up to the 9/11 attacks, which prompted a debate amongst ourselves as to why the hijackers did what they did, and whether the actions taken by the US government in the build up, and the aftermath were justifiable or just one giant cock up. This picture sums things up quite nicely I reckon:

Had the intelligence services actually collaborated together in the build up to the attacks, we can but speculate whether the outcome would have changed for the better, as so much has been found out, but none of the intelligence was passed around, owing to inter-service rivalries.

After this, we went for lunch, before moving off to our first port of call outside of the University setting, to a place called OSBI, or the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations. Kind of like a state version of the FBI. The OSBI is a forensics lab, which takes in countless pieces of evidence each year. The eight of us were taken on a tour of the impressive facilities, which cost upwards of $30million to build, taking in areas dedicated to toxicology, ballistics and DNA analysis. All in all it was pretty interesting: made even more so when I found out, after talking with Auntie Lizzie, that F&F supplied some of the equipment that was being used in the facility.

With the tour over, we went back and changed, before heading out to play some soccer, I'm not gonna lie, it was too hot to play and none of us could really be arsed to play. At least with volleyball you don't actually have to run miles. The remnants of yesterday's rainstorm were still all to apparent upon the ground, as it was fairly difficult to remain standing if changing direction at speed, as I found out after falling into a huge puddle of mud. Not good when we were having dinner with the Dean later this evening.

However, having showered and gotten changed into something a bit smarter than sports gear, we all wandered across to have a "traditional southern dinner" which consisted of Chicken Fried Steak (steak which is fried and coated in much the same way as Southern Fried Chicken), Fried Chicken, as well as a variety of salad and vegetables. All in all it was a hugely filling meal, with great company and great conversation.

My brain is now dying, however, and I do believe we have a busy day tomorrow, with the internship for the CT lot starting at 0830. So I shall love you and leave you with these quotes from this man:

"Bring them on."

"It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas"

No Shit Sherlock!!!

Night

x

Days 6, 7 & 8: BBQ's, Soccer, Volleyball

May I start, with many apologies about the tardiness of the last three days worth of posts. Things have been so hectic that I've not had a chance to get on here to write anything

So anyway, Friday was my penultimate day mk.2. in Ashburn with my family. So I got a small lie in, until 8.30 before getting up and ready for another day in Virginia. Having got up and such, I checked my United account, just to confirm that my flights had successfully been changed. There was some good news, and some bad news. Good news, yes all the flights had been changed. Bad news, they'd changed them to saturday, meaning that I'd arrive in Oklahoma missing the England Game, and James' two soccer games today.

So, I got on the phone to United again, and after getting highly frustrated with the silly automated call system, I got through to a human!!!! Who was highly nice, I think his name was Mike or something, but after a lovely phone call to him, I managed to change my flight to the day I'd originally asked for. So now, I'm flying at 0600 on Sunday 13th June. So a lovely early start, but one which means that I can stay here to watch all the soccer. A good outcome if I ever saw one!

After sorting the flights out once again, me and A. Lizzie went to Wegmans to get some groceries, whilst also getting some breakfast to munch on whilst going around the store. I had this egg bacon and cheese roll... was pretty good for store food, and the most gorgeous Mango Smoothie which lasted me around the whole store.

Having gotten around the store and arrived back home, we unpacked the bags and I phoned home to let the parents know what had been occurring in the previous 20 hours or so, having confused mum with my Facebook status the previous night. So having set the record straight with the parents, we moved out to et lunch to take into Hannah at school. As it was their 'Field Day', basically, a day of fun activities based, I'd been asked by Auntie Lizzie and Mrs Polly to take pictures of the 5th Grade for their final presentation thingy. After eating our McDonalds in Hannah's Classroom, I was tasked with taking pictures of groups of the kids before we moved outside for the afternoon's activities.

The highlight of the afternoon's activities saw Hannah getting completley and utterly soaked by her vice principle, see picture below.

After Hannah had gotten completely soaked, I went on a photo taking spree trying to get photos of all of the fifth grade classes before getting a group shot of the fifth grade. One of the teachers came up to me asking me if I was a professional photographer who'd been hired in for the day,purely based on the fact my camera was the best one there. I took that as a compliment! Maybe there's a future career there!!!

Anyways, after this was all over, we went home where I was asked to provide some form of critical advice for Hannah's skit for them. The main piece of advice was that they were talking way too quietly and quickly, so I basically told them to imagine that they were talking to some kind of stupid person (the original example being James, much to their amusement).

Once we'd got rid of the girls, there was just about enough time to get ready to go to Uncle Dave's Co-worker, Owen's, Birthday BBQ at his house.

It was possibly the weirdest thing, being in the USA at a BBQ where the majority of people had English Accents, but that didn't stop the party having a distinctly US theme, what with the Stars and Stripes plates and napkins. Enough to make a true red-blooded Brit cringe. Cant fault the food though, burgers, sausages chicken as well as salads and plenty of alcohol, oh the joys of being 21 in the land where having to drink alcohol legally requires one to be 21. This should be a good month ahead!

It was the first time since being here that I'd been properly attacked by mosquitoes, little bastards. Am now covered in bites from them. Owen's niece is possibly the cutest baby ever, her and Hannah got on like a house on fire. Apparently, camera flashes scared her, but the photos that I took because of this, are awesome.

Next day. The Day of Reckoning had dawned, England vs. USA in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The Day which would define the banter with Americans for the rest of the trip. It was an early start for us, with James playing soccer for at least one game during the day. If he were to win, we would put the England game back by an hour, by recording it and watching it when we got back from the second game.

Having arrived in good time for James' game, a scout around the other pitches found that Mrs Polly's daughter Drewanne was refereeing one of the games, much to Hannah's excitement. It must be stated right now, that Hannah actually idolises Drew, and I have to admit, she's pretty awesome!!! Me and Hannah got in a quick "Hi" from Drew before moving back to the pitch where James was playing, hoping that his team would lose, so that we didn't have to put the most important game of football in the history of history back by an hour or so.

So what happens, the team's opposition turn up with 9 players and no subs, meaning that it'd take more than a miracle for the opposition to win. The first half was fairly uneventful, with just the one goal being scored. It must be said, that the team did play pretty well, with some good passes being put together, and some fine saves being made. Come the second half, however, coach decided to even things out a bit and play with 9 players. Something must've been said however, as the team played even better in the second half, going from 1-0 to 3-0. A great score, but at the same time a bloody annoyance, as the World Cup would have to be pushed back an hour in order for them to play the next game.

As there was a fairly long break inbetween the games, we got to go home and prep for the party, which involved me, Hannah and James mowing the lawn on the sit-on-lawnmower. Awesome fun, until I got off of it and relinquished control over to James, who drove off doing a couple of laps around the garden before I had the heart to tell him that the blades were in fact off, meaning that his efforts had been to a large extent, fruitless.

As 1pm drew closer, we set back off for the second game of the day, this time in the scorching heat, knowing full well that by the time we got back from the game, England and the USA would be well into their duel on the pitch. The game was closely fought with some excellent saves being pulled off at both ends of the pitch. The stakes were of course high, what with this game being a tournament game, with the winner going through to play in the final game the next day. Eventually the deadlock was broken, with James' team scoring, finishing the game at 1-0 and ready to play in the final the next day.

A quick drive back home and change into my England shirt and we were ready to watch the game. All I'm going to say is... what a load of shit. Mr Capello, why did you pick Hesky? Robert Green... Why the hell were you so crap. What a waste of a game, we should've won that so easily but no, we hand it to the Yanks on a plate.

Ah well, the company was awesome, seeing all the Pollys, two of Hannah's teachers, and James' Coach and his family. All in all a pretty good afternoon, the Anglo-US banter at its peak just after the US equalised.

A scrumptious BBQ later all our guests dispersed as I descended downstairs to finish packing.

0330 in the morning is not a nice time. But if I wanted to get to Oklahoma on time, I'd have to be up at that time in order to catch my flight at 6am. Not nice, but necessary. If you know me well enough, you'll know that I am by far and away not a morning person. and getting up at 0330 is by far and away the most evil thing a person could ever be subjected to. Having mumbled my way fairly incoherently through check in and security, I found myself at the departure gate, willing there to be a shop open so that I could get some liquid in me, there was, much to my delight, and a drink of water later, I felt sufficiently awake to talk coherently when boarding the plane.

About 5 minutes into the flight, I proved myself wrong, by immediately falling asleep, and not stirring until the plane had touched down on the runway, or as I thought at the time, a spot of major turbulence. How wrong was I there!!

Having caught my connecting flight into Oklahoma, I was met by Isaac who bought me straight to the campus, where I was last to arrive, thanks to the cockups with my flights. Having got my bags up to my room and kind of unpacked and changed, I was immediately engrossed in the first game of volleyball of the day, which I'm happy to say, my team did win thanks to some fantastic teamwork.

A quick trip to Walmart later, saw the fridge in our appartment looking pretty nice and full, good times!!! Upon our return from Walmart we once again engrossed ourselves in a further two games of volleyball... I have to say, with a 2:1 win to loss ratio, I'm happy with that... maybe in a few years some of us could be playing amongst the likes of these people:

Or is that just wishful thinking?

After a relaxing evening, and a fantastic meal at IHOP, it was decided that we'd go to watch Hot Tub Time Machine in one of the appartments. It was a pretty good movie, just in places getting a little bit stuck, meaning that the movie had to be restarted. I must admit that it was around this point that I was starting to flag majorly, having been up since around 0230 local time, travelling for several hours.

First Impressions of the University of Central Oklahoma:

I like it here, if I'm being honest, I thought it'd be a lot more humid than it actually is, but then that's par for the course really isn't it. I've come to expect the unexpected in life. The campus is really nice, great setting and it's actually massive. On the downside, unlike Swansea, it doesn't have a 50 metre pool, which isn't really that much of a downer. The people here are great, I couldn't have asked for a better bunch of people to spend the next month here with. Bring on the good times!!!

Here endeth the lesson

x

Day 5: Delays, Transfers and Python

Ok, so today was my last day in sunny Virginia. Or so I thought!! I’m currently sat writing today’s blog sat in Dulles International Airport’s Departure Lounge waiting for my flight. It’s overbooked. To make matters worse, the flight is delayed by 3 hours due to a “mechanical problem”, but they won’t let us know what it is.
So being the lovely person that I am, I have decided to volunteer to give my seat up on the flight, in order that I can transfer my flight until either Saturday evening, or Sunday Morning. This would mean that I’d be in somewhat friendly territory to watch the soccer game between the United States and England on Saturday. Anyways, I’ll come back to this in a bit.
I am now no longer at the airport, but back in Auntie Lizzies Living room. Here beginneth my tale:

Today was my longest lie in since the day after I had arrived. I woke up at a fairly respectable 9.30am, and after showering and getting dressed I proceeded to start packing my stuff up, knowing that I’d have precious little time when we got back from doing what was needed to pack. All my washing had been done by the washing fairies before I'd arisen, so all that I needed to do was to stick some of it outside to dry and pack the rest. Good times all around!!!!
As soon as Auntie Lizzie had gotten back from work we went out to lunch with Mrs Polly, to a place called California Tortilla, another fast food mexican resturant. I'll tell you what, it was really really good! I had a "California Screamin'" burrito, which was contained a variety of stuff with chicken as it's chosen meat. It was, to quote Gavin and Stacey, "Lush", possibly the best burrito I've ever had... until I got to the airport that is!!! =P
Having bade farewell to Mrs Polly, we proceeded back to Target, to get some final supplies that I'd definitely need in Oklahoma, such as more sun cream, painkillers and moisturiser to use as after-sun (American's don't have such a product), and went over to Uncle Daves work to FAF about and say my goodbyes to him before my flight. I should explain that in saying FAF about, I'm making a pun on his company, Foster and Freeman. At his office I got a FAF baseball cap, as I had been advised by Mrs Polly that I'd need such an item in order to not die of heat exhaustion.
Having left the FAF offices, we went to pick Hannah up from school, got back to the house, so I could literally throw the rest of my stuff into my suitcases before going to pick James up so they could all go to the airport to say their goodbyes. James seemed to take an age getting out of school, but when he finally did, we still had enough time to get me to the airport with time to spare... good times!!
Having checked my baggage in, this time for no fee (despite the website saying there would be). I bade my family goodbye and said I'd see them soon at the airport... well that was famous last words wasn't it...
Got through security okay, I got a bit worried for a second when my bag got stuck in the scanner, well just outside, but the woman behind's had more than the allowed amount of liquid in a container so everything stopped... thanks a lot random woman!!! Having held me up for a good 5 minutes, I went to take the train to my departure gate, was well cool!! It was like the london underground, except not as busy, and gleaming white. TAKE NOTE TRANSPORT FOR LONDON, THAT IS HOW YOU DO THINGS!!!
Having got the the gate, I went to the loo (you really needed to know that) having waited a billion years whilst going through security and such, and then went for my second burrito of the day. I hadn't planned it like that, but the California Tortilla stall was the only place without a long queue, so I had to get one. This time I got the Buffalo Chicken Wing Burrito (not with bones I should have), which was lovelier than the one I had consumed less than 5 hours beforehand.
So at the gate, all set to go, boarding time comes and passes with no seats called. I look up at the board to see the flight's been delayed by 20 minutes, "oh well", I think to myself, that's not the end of the world. 10 minutes later the flight is delayed a further 10 minutes, and we're informed that the flight is also overbooked, and that they were looking for volunteers to come off the flight. The thought hadn't entered my head to do that at this point. Five minutes later, I look back up at the board and the old departure time of 1800 has been changed to 2100. "Great" I think to myself, "Just what we bloody need". So I call my contact in Oklahoma to give him an update on the situation, he says that's cool. Next I call Auntie Lizzie, to let her know the score, and I suddenly twig. Mid conversation I think "hmmmmmmmm they could put me on a different flight as this one is overbooked, which means that I could stay here for the England game", so I outline this to Auntie Lizzie down the phone, who think's that if I could do it, that it'd be a great idea.
I call Eric to let him know that if I could do this then if it's cool with him I'll do it... he says thats ok, let him know what the score'll be once it's sorted... "Will do" I say and try to sort it. By the time this has all been set in motion, two grumpy people have cancelled their seats, because they can't be assed to wait 3 hours longer... so I can't give up my seat, and get the compensation for doing so... "bar-stewards" I think to myself. The lady at the gate suggests to me that I go to customer services to see if I can change my flight for free. So I get my stuff, and wander over to customer services.
My one pet hate, is queueing. It's a Harrod thing apparently, because Grandad hated queueing too according to mum. So what greets me at customer services... a static queue moving verrrrrrry slowly. This queue is mainly full of grumpy people, giving off negative vibes... duuude, your plane is late... GET OVER IT, was what I thought at first. Then I realised, thinking that made me as bad as them, they're grumpy, I'm getting grumpy over them being grumpy... crap! So, I decide to myself, that as well as talking to the lovely old lady next to me who'd been pretty screwed about with her flights, that I'd sing happy songs in my head, my head playlist went something along the lines of this:
Jake the Peg: Rolf Harris

Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport: Rolf Harris

Always Look On the Bright Side of Life: Monty Python


After the last song, i stuck it on repeat, and thus, was stood there for about 30 minutes, looking like a total and utter moron, whistling the whistly bits, and bobbing up and down.

So I get to the front of the queue and lo-and behold, they can change my flight to sunday =D for free, because of the distress that I must've been through, "It's nothing" I say to the lovely woman at the desk. If I can't change my flight for no fee, it's no biggy, I'll just get the one I'm on at the moment. "Oh it's no problem" she says to me "you put yourself forward for it, but then that happened with the guys cancelling, I'm sorry for that" So they got my flights out of the hold, and sent them up to meet me in baggage retrieval. Before I left the desk the woman said to me "You know, it's so nice to have someone in your situation not shouting and in a bad mood with us!" Hey, what can I say, singing monty python for 30 minutes does you some good after all!!!!

So that's been the situation today, it's been fun, it's been eventful... And here I am, still where I started the day, until sunday. Which now means that I'll be able to watch the England Game with my family. On the downside, I won't be there to welcome some of my friends to Oklahoma City, which kinda sucks... but I guess they'll have to do it for me!!!
Until tomorrow guys!!

x