The realization

Hey everyone.

As most of you are aware by now i haven't been updating the blog. This is mainly for 3 reasons.

1. You'd be surprised how much effort i try to put into each post, explaining points and adding a bit of humour, it takes about 45 - 60 mins per post. as such, i don't feel as motivated to write as before
2. This quarter i'm taking 3 classes, all of which have an increased workload over last quarter. I'll be dedicating a lot more time to my studies than before.
3. Since some of my friends have moved back to their representative area i'm going out and about more to meet new people, getting involved in more activities and of course, the gym!!!

The combination of these 3 factors almost made me stop completely, but i will persevere. Instead of short essays for each day, i'll be writing bullet points on a weekly basis, therefore this saves me time to enjoy my time here, (when i'm not writing up short essays for my classes) and it also saves you time reading through tons of script just to find out what i ate that particular day.

I will still be available on Skype on a regular basis, the best times to catch me are on weekends between 6:30pm GMT and 11:30pm GMT. I'll use this time to happily discuss in detail some of the points i have made.

skype name: phillip.bowes

Until we meet again..........

2 days travel and no sleep

Monday 19^th December

The start of 2 long days: waking up at 6:15am to finalize my packing. The plan for today was to visit Chrissie’s office at World Vision in the morning, then at some point we’ll drive over to LAX and I’d go from there.

We’d set off at 07:20am to go to work, saying my goodbyes to Greg as we went. We reached the office by 08:00am, just enough time for a quick tour and a tea run before the morning caroling sing-a-long. I’ll save the singing for my proper session in a few days time. I also met up with Alastair and Liz from the office party; while I occupied an empty office stall to work on the blog.

By 10:30, I’d caught up on the majority of the blog and was planning on nipping out to get Chrissy and Greg a present. Borrowing Chrissy’s car, I headed out for a few hours of shopping, only to settle on a $60 kitchen and candle set, as I remember the current ones from yesterday almost disintegrated.

Upon my return, Chrissy had a more convenient idea. I’d take the train to Union station and a bus to LAX, which would save a considerable amount of time, which I’m all for :p So at 2pm, we set off, nearly missing the turning off the freeway and misplacing the sat-nav and said our goodbyes. Chrissy wanted to give me $20 for the time in LAX, but thanks to a sneaky move, I left the money in the inside car handle.

The first leg of the journey would be the train to Union station. The train ran in the middle of the freeway, and it’s brilliant to watch all the traffic stuck and barely moving while we glided along in the middle of the freeway. An hour passed and the train reached Union station, so from there, I had to get to the other end of the terminal. In comparison, it felt like running through the center of London with the amount of people.

Nevertheless I bought my ticket and boarded the bus to go from Union Station to LAX. Just like the train, we had a special lane just for buses, so we simply sailed past the lanes of traffic jams and reached LAX by quarter to 4. Plenty of time saved already, only to waste 3 hours in the terminal after a quick bag drop. Through security and I thought I’d be wasting a lot of time in the duty free. Turns out that in Terminal 7, it’s the size of a corner shop, along with 2 book stores, a pub and a McDonalds. Considering there isn’t any choice, I had to do something I never wanted to do. And no I don’t mean look around a book shop, I meant going to McDonald’s

6:20 came and time for me to board the plane, I was hoping to experience the same as last time. Sitting in between a couple and get chatting. No such luck. I was in the middle seat on the left hand side; at the window was a woman in her early 30’s visiting her cousins in Liverpool. But in the aisle seat was a 330lb all American who smelt worse than a farm’s supply of manure.

Despite asking to be moved, the plane was stuffed to the gills so I was stuck in for the long haul. All 10 ½ hours of them. Just like the flight over the food was pretty good and tons of entertainment. Plus with the fact that the American and the entire row behind me was snoring, there was no way I’d be sleeping on that flight.

Sometime later, the flight ended and we landed 20 mins early due to a huge tailwind. And I mean HUGE; the screen registered a record of 103km/h. The problem however was that Heathrow wasn’t ready for us, so we spent 20 mins on the ground waiting for a gate to open up. I literally ran straight through customs and picked up my bag in quick succession. The rush was so that I could get over to Victoria in time for my bus.

Time wise it was now half 2pm GMT. Ignoring the 30 mins of intermittent sleep, I’d been awake for 26 hours and just wanted to get home and go to sleep. I was expecting on a 20 minute underground ride, but I was amazed just how far Heathrow was from Green Park, about 40 mins. From Green Park, 1 stop down to Victoria and my trip at this stage was about an hour.

Skipping ahead, it’s now 8:30pm; I’ve been awake for 32 hours, being unable to sleep on the coach. Regardless, I have finally arrived in Leeds, and awaiting the choking sensation from my mum when she met me at the station. I stepped off the coach and next thing I know, I can’t breathe. So I’m back home and I’ll now home for crimbo. In total, 35 hours awake with an hour and a bit of shut eye. Updates begin again on the trip back J

My last full day – v1

Sunday 18^th December

As the title suggests, this is my last full day in California before I go home. Naturally this started by packing for the trip home, I’d actually started this the night before and just needed some washing that was going on overnight. Chrissy was very insistent on going to church today, and to be fair; why not?

In hindsight, I’m glad I did. The church was full of singing and scripture-related comedy: a truly brilliant service. But just as my mind is being blown, I’d told that Lisa’s husband Craig actually wrote one of the songs. Simply amazing, enough said

My last night in California would be a big one, since Chrissy and Greg were playing host to the neighbors. We drove around several different food stores to gather the right ingredients for the meal. We first hit Trader Joe’s, an exotic food specialist, followed by Target and Costco. While at Costco, picking up 2 huge bags of shrimp I picked up some packs of 5 hour energy as gifts for my friends back in the UK.

We had to make it back in time to watch the football, with Chrissie’s idol, Tim Tebow. Unfortunately his team lost 41:23, which was good news for Greg, who needed Tebow’s team to lose and his San Diego Chargers to win to stay in the playoff places. Luckily, they did which improved the mood for the rest of the night :)

At the same time as the game, we prepared the food. While Chrissy cooked and Greg set up, I was put on salad duty, cutting up, mixing and marinating the salad, and helping in any way I could. I even researched a quick method of napkin origami which I applied to the table.

6pm came and we welcomed the neighbors in.

Roll Call:

o   Reuben, Gaby,

o   Lisa, Craig, Emily, Nathan, (15 yr old twins)

o   Henry, Dorothy, Lily, (16 month old)

o   Michele, Rudy

o   The last family in the group couldn’t make it

At first, everyone was asking “who’s this then”, but this quickly turned to amazement when I told them ‘my story’. During the meal, the food went down a treat. Shrimp Pasta, Lasagna and my fresh salad…yum yum. The neighbors had brought desserts, which we split between everyone: Cheesecake, brownies and apple & pumpkin pies!

While most of the conversation discussed family life and work, the rest focused on me, particularly the differences in accent/ words, the different culture and why the hell I was at Cal State San Bernardino. As soon as Chrissy mentioned that I used to host a radio love show, we all pretended to have problems, which I’d have to solve using my best radio voice.

BY 9pm, everyone had enough of teasing the Brit and slowly filtered out. Only Lisa stayed behind to help with the cleaning up, despite our protests. Between the 4 of us, we managed to clean the entire dining space, Lisa could retire to the joys of the teens and the 3 of us got our fill of Fox news. I had to get an early night since the next 2 days would be huge…huge…HUGE I TELL YA!!!

A lesson in traditions

Saturday 17^th December

An early start lined up for the next few days, filled with plenty of activities to keep me occupied.

First off, we’d run out of firewood, the accompanying sight to a remarkable TV, so Chrissy assigned Greg and me to get some more. Since Greg had a truck, we’d be able to pick up a lot. After getting lost again, we made it to pioneer Blvd. (ironically there are 4 of them in Whittier and we only needed one [sort of like who wants to be a millionaire]). We stuffed the truck with a ‘quarter cord’ and headed back.

As we pulled up, Chrissy was chatting with one of the neighbors, Lisa. While me and Greg unloaded the truck, we saved a quarter of the quarter to give to Lisa and her family, who I’d be introduced to on Sunday. Manual labor over, we settled down for an afternoon of football. It’s simple: I’m on vacation now, so I don’t need to work as hard :p.

Unfortunately the day’s labor wasn’t over, since we had to deliver a gift off for one of Chrissie’s many relations. While they were just leaving while we dropped it off, we bumped into Chrissie’s old neighbors, Eric and Annette, who have a son Connor who had a brain tumor as a baby and is doing remarkably well since he’s now 15. Also had a daughter Taylor, but I barely caught a glimpse before she went to town with friends.

Our evening plans were to head 20 mins down the road to a wine and cheese party. We weren’t expecting a lot, so we caught a bite to eat. Since it was less than 48 hrs before my flight home, we experienced a British pub with traditional ales and food. Nothing beats a brilliant attempt at fish and chips with a proper pint or 2.

My next port of sophistication was the wine and cheese party. While my parents have had a small attempt at something like this before, this was a lot better. There was a total of 11 different cheeses, some well-known and some local. Most were creamy blues and mature cheddars and each cheese would have a local or well-known wine that perfectly complements it.

During the night I met some more of Chrissie’s friends, one of which included Bob, a self-employed marketing consultant. He was so impressed with my accent; he even wanted me to record his voicemail. I also met Dana who worked as a teacher at the local elementary school. We had a huge discussion about the differences in the schooling systems. Although I can’t remember the names one of the couples was an assistant District Attorney and a County Court Judge. We left the party at half 10 before anyone got too drunk to drive.

Grounded + 6000 miles

Friday 16^th December

Waking up again at 09:30 and with the house to myself, I desperately needed to catch up on the blog. But I also had the last skype session with the parents to do at 10am. Of course naturally we all know which would come first. A shower of course!!!

By 10am I was ready to chat but the internet didn’t seem to  be working. After 15 minutes of re-configuration I finally got it working again, only to find my parents angrily waiting for me. During the chat I mentioned that I’d be driving out to pick up some gifts for the family. This didn’t bode well with the Mr and Mrs i’m afraid and they pretty much forbade me from driving. The gifts they didn’t mind about [naturally]

So with the lone wolf tamed, I set about catching up on the blog. I’d managed to catch up a full week of reporting before Chrissy returned. I explained the grounding to which she wasn’t impressed either. Chrissy explained how the ‘super-insurance’ she has on the spare car allows anyone to drive it, as long as they hold some form of license.

It was just as good because Liz had offered to take me out to see the local neighbor(u)rhood. Chrissy suggested I take the car and drive over to her house. This was an easy task. Despite living 8 miles away, 7.8 of that was on 1 road. The issue was that the car was an automatic, something I’d never driven before.

It’s actually not that hard to do [for all those who haven’t driven an automatic yet]. It just basically a manual but you forget about the gears. They’re still there, but you don’t need to control which gear you need. That’s done by how hard you press the accelerator. I ventured into the Toyota Corolla. Alone and scared [okay I’m exaggerating, but I was understandably a bit nervous] I started the engine, and released the brake. For all those who know manual, the brake would act as the clutch and depending on how much you released it would marginally change the speed.

Technical speech over, I headed over to Brea, a small, quiet town and pulled up outside Liz’s house. Two points at this stage, 1. The numbers didn’t make sense, one house would say 10533 then the next would be 10549 and next 10555. ARRGH!!!. 2. It was actually Liz’s mother’s home but Liz uses it sometimes. I met Liz and her brother Michael before we set off for the evening. The three of us drove into downtown Brea, Liz’s childhood hangout.

We were joined very soon by one of Liz’s friends, Angela, as we went to a ‘Gourmet Waffle House’ called Bruxie. How often can you say the words ‘Gourmet’ and ‘Waffle’ in the same sentence!!! Nevertheless it was something completely new to me so I pretty much have to give it a go. It’s basically just a burger, but the burger bun is a syrup coated Waffle. I got a Bacon, egg and Cheese version, which was surprisingly nice. Once again I found myself explaining my US experience and my accent for well over an hour, but who am I kidding, I seem to know the speech off by heart now :p

One we had our fattening fill (not phil), we split up and headed back. I picked up the car and procceded back along the 8 mile straight to my ‘hotel’. I found Chrissy and Greg in the arms of one another……on the sofa…… watching Fox news. Once again I found myself immersed in the TV, but with the channel being Fox News I’m surprised I haven’t been corrupted yet (hehe)

A day in the life of a gorgeous TV

Thursday 15^th December

Refreshed after sleeping in a much better bed, I needed to get back into some form of fitness regime. I’m gonna look like a rolling blob if I don’t pick it up again. So I borrowed Chrissy’s exercise bike for half an hour, working up a bit of a sweat as I did. I’d been out of shape for nearly a week now and you can already notice L

For the rest of the day I’d planned to catch up on the blog. At this stage I was nearly 3 weeks behind, and the only excuse was that I was too lazy to get it done before. Despite allocating 6 hours to work on the blog I got at most 1 ½ hours. The culprit: the 70’ TV which was almost hypnotic. I’m still way behind, but theres no time to lollygag, I have a party to go to.

Chrissy had a works office party, which was supposed to be 80’s themed. Of course, being born in 1990 is a bit of a bummer and I decided not to dress up. Two reasons: 1. I’m a child of the 90’s 2. I didn’t have anything to wear. It didn’t really matter since Chrissy wouldn’t dress up either and Greg would meet us there when he finished work.

The party was in the middle of nowhere. Albeit it’s America so that just means “IN THE MIDDLE OF FREAKING NOWHERE!!!”. If it wasn’t for the sat-nav and my quick reaction to the tiny street we needed to go down, we’d have been circling for hours. Greg had less success, he missed the turning completely and was at least a mile down the road before he knew something was wrong.

Chrissy thought that only 50 or so people would attend, since the event isn’t normally populated

And she was dead wrong

The place was heaving, there must have been at least 250 people there. We just managed to grab a seat next to the stage before the activities began. A simple game to decide who would eat first was first on the list. Each table had a card and they had to raise that card in the air when they knew what the jumbled up name of a Christmas carol was.

e.g eijnlg elbls = Jingle Bells

e.g dgo stre ey mryre neenmgtle = God rest ye merry Gentlemen

…you get the idea

After 6 attempts the DJ held off for a few minutes to let the queue die down. That’s when our table decided to make our move and illegally join the back of the queue. They had a wide range of appetizers and entrées from chicken fried rice and spinach rolls to Pollock in white wine sauce and veg lasagna. Knowing I’d only get one run at this, I piled my plate incredibly high.

While eating, this also gave me an opportunity to meet some of Christines co-workers. I’ve forgotten most of the naes (silly me) but I do remember Chris, who hosts a politics radio show, just like my old love show. I also met Alistair, a Brummie by childhood, but now an American (good on ya). I also bumped into Liz again (woot)

After the food came the ‘door prize ceremony’ where sponsors of World Vision (the company) donate gifts to be won by names picked out of a hat. Thiese gifts weren’t just some cheap novelty item like a $2 squeaky toy, They ranged from gift cards (25 -> 500 Dollors [wow] to Ipods and ipads and the best prize was a week in a 5* Mexico resort. They picked the names and I knew I wouldn’t get picked, which is a real shame since I could really do with any of the prizes offered. Unfortunately, Chrissy didn’t win anything, although Liz did win an ipod nano 8gb [gratz]

Prizes over, it was time for some dancing. Not really my scene where a lot of middle aged women danced to some 80’s tunes. If I wanted that, I’d go to Flares on a Saturday night! By 9:15 however, most of the people had left, leaving only the younger generations to dance it away. Strutting my stuff like some hyperactive monkey, the party eventually finished at 10pm, leaving just the final goodbyes to Chrissy’s friends and heading home, taking the proper routes this time :p