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

Making the Trip

Wednesday 14^th December

Today’s the day I leave San Bernardino, but not leaving the US. Ooooh no, I still have a few days to gather the American experience. After listening into my Bradford friends radio show for the last time, I still had a bit of time to kill. The plan for today was to get the bus at 2:50 getting into 4^th street at 3:20, with a 20 minute walk to the station with 20 minutes to spare.

After the radio finished at 1pm, I headed down to a restaurant called Farmer Bro’s for a burger to set me up for the day. As planned I got the bus down to 4^th and the walk across, bought the ticket and waited for the train. Also as expected was at least one person begging for money to get on the train, which I ignored completely.

An 80 minute train ride, including a 10 minute delay for a freight train to pass. I finally arrived at El Monte, waiting for Chrissy to pick me up. The traffic was immense so I was expecting a little wait, but boy was I relieved to see Chrissy again. Nothings better than catching up while in standstill traffic.

During the conversation, we somehow got onto the topic on radio shows and I revealed to Chrissy that I used to host “The Love Show” on Wednesday nights. How she didn’t lose control of the car from laughing I’ll never know, but in hindsight it proved to be a good conversation starter later on. After a trip to the library and the grocery store, we returned to the Casa de la Auntie. Chrissy had explained that they had bought a 70’ HD TV. As soon as I entered, it was truly amazing. I was mesmerized and wouldn’t turn away from it.

When Greg arrived from work, we had a tortilla night, where we could make our own tacos, burritos and “any other way you can make em” o’s with bbq chicken, salad, salsa and guacamole. And just to top it off, we watched X-men origins on the big screen. A proper movie night, where we just missed the popcorn for a perfect evening. Bring on tomorrow.  

Isolation makes you pay

Monday 12^th December

The only object of today way to pay for my next installment of my housing. I would get from today until Friday, after which the late fees would kick in. It meant I had to venture out to the administration building next to the student union. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but it was absolutely chucking it down. And I mean it chucked it down so much it felt like a million power showers just bearing down on you.

Moaning aside, I made it to the bursar to pay off my debt, but as always there’s a problem. They don’t accept Visa cards (and mines a Visa Electron). They only accept MasterCard and American Express. The only other way I could do this would be to borrow my parents card and pay through the online portal. Many of you think why I didn’t just try it this way first. Well the portal is only opened up via the bursar when initial payments are unsuccessful.

I sent an e-mail to my dad asking for the details, but I had to wait until early morning in the UK for my dad to read the e-mail and watch me input all the info through Skype. I’m now up to scratch on the bills, so I could relax for a bit.

Tuesday 13^th December

Just a quickie for today, just needing to do my laundry and pack for the trip over to Whittier to catch up with the unofficial Auntie and Uncle. Enough said.

The Quarter Warmdown

Sunday 11^th December

Now that the major fun has been had, it’s time to wind down before my return to the UK. The next few days would be very slow paced, but not without a couple of twists and turns. The lunchtime run saw me and Zack drive down to the new In and Out burger restaurant. However today saw a HUGE twist, since Zack felt brave enough to hand me the keys. This is it, my first drive in the US!

Bearing in mind that Zack drives a manual truck, this wouldn’t be too much of a problem, just that all the controls except the pedals would be reversed. The plan was a simple drive down to the I215 and down a few miles to the exit on 2^nd/5^th street. Everything went off without a hitch……until we found that the 2^nd/5^th street exit was closed for refurbishment. This resulted in a slightly longer drive down to the next exit and back through the streets.

The maze navigated, we parked up and entered the newly built restaurant, and it’s such an improvement over the previous restaurant. Looks just like a 1950’s diner, in so many ways. After getting our fill, we headed back to campus. Zack drove back this time, since I thought one drive was enough. Zack somehow missed the turning onto the freeway and got us lost in the unpleasant suburbs of gangland San Bernardino.

After finally finding our bearing through the seedy underbelly of San Bernardino, we made it back to campus, where I said my temporary goodbyes to Zack, (won’t be seeing him until I get back) and I began my 3 days in isolation, with hardly anyone to talk to and the food court no longer open meant I had to walk at least 15 minutes to get anything to eat.