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

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