The Beast with its characterful bodywork
A few people (okay, just one really) emailed me to ask for a bigger photo of my new car… the 1986 Subaru GL 4×4, or as I like to refer to it as: ‘The Beast‘. So here it is, pretty sexy eh! Click to see a larger image.
American football lasts a long time!! Sunday is ‘football’ day here and there are no men in the streets. I tried to watch it, I tried to like it… but the games last almost three hours because they stop and start all the time, it’s so frustrating! I was watching the “New England Patriots” versus “The Pitsburgh Something-or-Others” and there was eight minutes left to play… that eight minutes lasted over half an hour!!
Crazy game, and one which I vow never to watch again. From now on I will stick to watching ‘soccer’ with a Mexican commentator, and they don’t half get excited… GOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAL!!!!!!!
So I’ve finally found a place to live… Woohoo!! It took a lot of searching around and visiting a lot of rip off merchants / dives / weird holes… but the place I’m in is nice. It’s a bit of a way out of the centre of Denver (about 3 miles), but the house is nice, my room is large and clean and my flat mates, Jaime, Marco and Jerry are really great! Which is the main thing after all. There is a trend for rooms to come unfurnished here so I have no bed as yet, but I’m picking on up for $30 tomorrow from some bloke, so that’ll be nice. Ahh, the luxury of not sleeping on the floor excites me just thinking about it.
And I got a car too!! I went to a car auction yesterday, and knowing nothing about cars it’s not usually a good idea. But, while I was there I asked where the toilets were and as soon as the nice lady detected from my accent that I was from England she told me to go and meet ‘Cocky Willie’ – an English bloke who buys cars at the auction, does them up and flogs them for more. Turns out Willie spoke no more like an English person than George Bush does – he had a thick American accent – he has been here 22 years. So he drove me to his garage where I bought a heap of junk for about £270. It said $995 on the windscreen so I think I did well with the bartering. We’ll see how long it lasts. It’s got their equivalent of an MOT though (an ‘e’ pass) so if it lasts me 5 months I’m laughing!
The house and the car - Yay!
Until I get my insurance sorted out though, I’m bussing it…. And the bus to university (or school as it’s affectionately known to as here) takes about 30 minutes, but it allows me to indulge myself in my latest hobby of phone Monopoly… I’m addicted! That and Dr. Pepper, I just want more of that stuff everyday, but it’s evil so I try and stay away.
I had my first day at school on Tuesday – not the normal language of someone who is 27 in a week. It was good, I made some more friends, and they seem really nice! We were talking about going to the mountains to ski next week so that should be really nice. The classes are different though… they actually do WORK here! I’m a student, surely they can’t expect me to work?? But they do, and I have to write an small essay pretty much every week for each of my four modules… And there was me thinking these Yanks just slacked off all the time.
And one of my lecturers, who used to work as a film director with some Brits, now calls me Teabag. Apparently that’s what he calls all us Brits, so seeing as I’m the only one in his class he’s taken to calling me it. Normally I wouldn’t have taken to kindly to it, but compared to names you can get from Blowman, I think I got off pretty lightly :)
Talking of teabags, I fancied a brew the other night, so I went to the 24 hour supermarket (which is the size of Wales), and bought a selection of English teas… ‘Earl Grey’, ‘Lady Grey’ (which I’ve never heard of), and ‘English Breakfast Tea’… went back to my new house and low and behold… no kettle!! Three coffee percolators, bean crushers and all sorts of coffee jiggery pokery, but no kettle. So I made it in a pan. There’s something which makes me think I’m camping, making tea in a pan. I like it.
Hey, are you, like, from London?
In all American dictionaries, the word for England or Britain = London.
If I’m English I must be from London, surely!! And I know the Queen, etc.
Nobody’s ever heard of Hull, so I am now officially from York. “Oh ya, York.. like New York!” – Yep, they named it after New York.
Pints Pub - The British Pub in the heart of Denver
And I find myself repeating myself several times when a sentence includes a word like “Church” or “Third“… I have to put on this pseudo-Yank accent so they understand me…
I say “Theee’d” and they look at me like a little confused puppy. I say “Thrrrd” and they understand. It’s getting a bit annoying.
It wouldn’t be so bad anywhere else, but these guys have churches everywhere (not an exaggeration)… One on the corner of every block, and one in the middle. And just for good luck, they convert some of the hotels into churches on a Sunday to accommodate the unlucky folk who couldn’t fit in to save their souls in the actual churches.
Gambling on buses
Yep, that’s right we all do it. I know as soon as I get on a bus I just can’t wait to get out my cards and dice and start offering the old ladies a wager on blackjack… but here, they don’t allow it…
No eating, no loud music, no littering.... no gambling
Table football? Yep. Self pleasure? Sure. Gambling? Oh no, no, no!
They really should remove that roulette wheel at the back of the bus. It’s too damn tempting.
Smoking in petrol stations
I was walking back from a car auction with my flat mate, when we both decided we were a bit peckish, so we went into a ‘gas station’ to get a sandwich. On the way out I noticed a lit cigarette burning away on the top of a bin in the middle of all the pumps (literally right near them)… I rushed back in to tell the lady behind the counter about this potential fire risk and she calmly replied that the cigarette was hers and she had left it there to serve us because she wasn’t allowed to smoke inside. Crazy bastard.
They’re still celebrating Christmas!
The Civic Center, Downtown Denver
As if it wasn’t bad enough starting in Christmas in September, it’s now nearly February, and it’s still going on here! A lot of houses still have their decorations up and look at this bad boy in the centre of Denver… They probably leave this up all year judging by the amount of work it probably took them to decorate.
The colour red
So here’s the interesting fact for this entry: Colorado literally translates in Spanish as ‘colour red’, and the reason for that is that Colorado used to be part of Mexico, as did Texas, California and a few other states. In the mid 1800s, the USA invaded and just took half of their country. Very out of character I’m sure you’ll agree.
Well, it’s gorgeous weather outside right now, so I’m going to go out and enjoy it. It’s not often you can sunbathe in January.
The synergy of old and new - how poetic
I’ll leave you with a photo I took yesterday. It’s old and new together. I like it.
It’s hard work trying to find a place to live in Denver!!
But I’ve had a lot of fun meeting people, getting lost and discovering parts of Denver I would have probably never visited if I’d have found a place straight away. So that’s good!
I’ve met some new friends (no Americans as yet). Two French people, Alban and Marie and a Mexican girl called Lidia. This picture was taken on a night out after a long and disappointing day searching the net, trawling the phone books, looking at university notice boards and whatever else we could find.
Left to right: Alban, me, Lidia, and Marie
Alban is adamant that he won’t move into a place without a gym, a swimming pool, wireless internet and performing monkeys on rollerskates… a nice idea, but right now I’d be happy to leave this hotel for a bed and some cupboards and unpack my case!
So tomorrow we’re going to see a bloke who has two rooms spare in the downtown area (which is pretty close to the UCD campus) so I’ll keep you posted on that one!
Food
I’ve just eaten really bad Kit-Kat… imagine a Kit-Kat with that “chocolate flavour” stuff you used to get in advent calendars from the 1980s. You know the type that sticks to the top of your mouth like Netto gravy. Add a wrapper with a sexy 70s mucky orange colour design and there you have it. Tip: don’t buy American Kit-Kats.
Notice the CD for size comparison. I ate that... in 2 sittings, cos I'm a bit wimpy compared to these Yanks.
But the sandwiches… Mmmm! Look at the size of this beast:
Idioms
Not really denvergav but intriguing (if you’re a bit interested in silly stuff like me)… You know when you walk into your living room and your family are sat down, and you leave the door open…. and your Mum says “Were you born in a field?!”
Well, they have different sayings for that particular idiom in different countries…
Norway: “Have you got a dog with you?”
Mexico: “Have you got a long tail?” and “Have you got a big shadow?”
I’ll find out what the Yanks and other nations say and put them on here… cos I’m a bit sad like that :)
Right, I’m going out for a chicken burrito… they’re my new favourite food!