So finally after what felt like ages I was finally ready to go to the United States of America. My suitcase was all packed, I was awake and roaring to go and then I had the faff that is getting a plane. Just why is there so much faff involved? Someone would think airports were designed by CF or something. Just so much waiting around but after a couple of hours killing time I was on my plane to America.
Oh I should also mention my clustery panicky moment of hell. "What's your final address in America?", "You know what, I have no idea!" *panic texts and calls Kyle for his address* I ended up speaking to a very sleepy Kyle not really knowing what was going on in the World and we had some awful connection but we got there in the end which was great because it would have been worse if I got to the States and the security peep asked me, instead it was just for the flight thingymabob. Still, I had a bit of a panic attack that I can now laugh about, there's always something that amongst organising everything else is just accidentally forgotten about. Silly me.
Now through security and everything I was sitting on the plane playing around with all the free things (pillow, blanket and earphones). There was then that anxious moment when I was waiting to find out who I'd be spending the next 9 hours with. Turns out everyone wasn't too burdenous and most people were just happy to be going to the States and/or really tired. I killed time on my flight by watching copious amounts of TV shows and films. The food was alright but I didn't like how the staff just randomly appeared in my face and went "chicken or beef", my first thoughts were "chicken with what? Same question goes for the beef" I ended up just spilling out the word Chicken and hoped for the best. I can't really remember what the chicken came with now but it was edible which was nice. The flight was rather smooth apart from the occasional moment of insane turbulence. There was a moment when we were near the States and I'd just been given a glass of water when major turbulence struck and it was nigh on impossible to not spill it everywhere, was the most ridiculous thing ever and my lap managed to enjoy some water too, how burdenous.
The flight actually went by quite quickly so before I knew it I was at Newark airport in New Jersey. This is where I was to change plane to continue travelling down to Richmond, Virginia. The whole going from one plane to the other process was actually a lot easier than I was expecting apart from the whole where to take your suitcase part. Luckily some random gentleman (he worked at the aiport) stopped me and went "Richmond International?" and I replied with a confused "yes" as to which point he went to grab my bag and put it through some door thing, "well that was odd" I thought. Just no signs this was going to happen or it was a certain point for the suitcase drop-off or anything it just...happened. Oh well, as long as I get it back at the other end I'll be alright.
Newark's waiting lounge had an Earl of Sandwich place, I wasn't hungry which was really annoying as this ended up being the only one I saw on the entire trip. Oh well it was soon time to have fun on my 1 hour connecting flight to Richmond. This plane was tiny and amusing, everyone just kept banging their heads on the ceiling and even after trying to learn from everyone's mistake I still managed to heavily bash mine against the bag thing when getting up at the end of the flight. There was actually quite a nice jovial mood on the flight, I have no idea why but it just felt like a happy place and everyone was in high spirits.
So yeah that one hour went by very quickly and I was soon walking around Richmond 'International' airport wondering where Kyle and Joey were, turns out we somehow walked past each other in one of the large and very open corridors but we soon found each other. After hugs and general chit chat we moved over to the car which smelt of pizza. It smelt of pizza because they had just purchased some from Papa Johns. It was a Cheeseburger pizza because that's possible in America apparently. Turns out Cheeseburger just stands for bits of meat on a standard pizza lol.
After only like a 5 min drive we were at Kyle's house, it was really nice and so typically American, I instantly loved it. I was greeted inside by his Mom and her bf who were really nice and friendly. I was then shown the room I was staying in for my time there which was large and filled with very random bits of decor as seemed to be the theme throughout the house (more on that at another time, maybe). We sat around for a bit, tried the pizza and then headed for bed.
Friday 1st June
Kyle works on Fridays so Joey and I were just left to entertain ourselves for most of the day. Joey showed me around the house and we just chilled out and that. At some point Kyle's friend Kara came round to take me and Joey for some lunch. We ended up at some local Mexican joint. It was really random inside but after ages of trying to understand the menu we made some orders and soon after we had food. It was pretty good, well I enjoyed it, Joey didn't seem to really approve though but that could be because he is a fussy son-of-a-betch.
Kara only lives around the corner from Kyle and despite it looking like it was going to absolutely chuck it down Joey and I decided to walk from her house to Kyle's. By the time we had gotton to Kyle's road the heavens opened and we were just drenched in seconds, we thought it was hilarious at first. This odd heavy rain storm that just came out of nowhere and was really warm, then it got really heavy and started to become unpleasant so we ran as fast as we could and then panicked until we finally got inside. We were so drenched, it was quite funny.
We then spent the afternoon faffing about some more around the house and I got introduced to the two cats they've kind of adopted, BAM and the derpy one. Bam was amazing and was always after attention but from I hear it is rare that they get any so I suppose he was just trying to make the most of someone that gave him some
BAM
Joey chillaxing on one of the rocking things
Before long Kyle was back from work and we spent some time faffing around the house with him. We drew up a list of all the food places I had to apparently try at some point during my time in the States. From that list we tried to decide where to go in the evening but it just caused more faff, too much choice! It was then decided that we would go over to Short pump, browse some shops and then go to BDubs for what I was told were the best boneless chicken wings ever. I was doubtful and intrigued. To Short pump we went.
We browsed a few shops like Yankee Candle (of course!) and just milled around a bit before heading on to BDubs. It had quite a nice sports-bar atmosphere, just peeps chilling out with mates watching one of the billion screens showing lots of different sports. We looked at the menu for quite some time even though there aren't many options, it was either boneless wings or like 6 other boring items. However the menu for what sauce your wings are covered in was interesting. There were about 20 different sauces with a variety of levels of how spicy they are. I wanted something towards the boring end, something not very spicy. I got Sweet BBQ sauce for mine and OMG they were actually really good. Just really good bits of decent chicken covered in a really nice (yet gooey) sauce. Obviously we did it the American way and ordered too many so we could take them home in boxes for another time. Oh and the ranch dressing to dip them into was amazing (I already miss it
).
Kyle luckily had found out earlier in the evening that Krispy Kreme were having a free donut day so we went in search of the nearest one and were greeted by queues! It was like, I dunno, 10pm and there was a massive queue for the drive-thru and inside the actual store, we were astounded to find so many in search of their free donut (I don't blame them though). We joined the back of the indoor queue and after quite a long wait we all got our free donut hot off the thing. We took them back to the car to eat. They were omgnomnomnomomg, just like the UK ones that have just been made but it was better because it was FREE!! Yay.
It was decided that I needed to go into Walmarts. It was massive and sold just about everything. I didn't see any odd peeps like you see on peopleofwalmart.com, I felt a little let down about that tbh lol. I did have to check out the guns though just for the whole surreal situation of that even being possible.
Once back at Kyle's house Joey decided that we should stay up and try and see some exciting critters like Possums and Racoons. I really wanted to see a racoon so we put out some unloved apple pieces and sat out on the porch awaiting something interesting to turn up. For ages nothing but the local cats were present. Bam was getting bored of not getting attention so decided to have a hissy fit at the derpy cat and then they ran off. After ages of waiting we did get to see two separate foxes. Joey thought they were silver ones but we're not very sure because of the light. We gave up a little while after they turned up and headed to get some sleep.
Thanks for reading this non-coastery start of the trip report. I'll be writing up the next day some point soon which includes more Kara and lots of animals.
Oh I should also mention my clustery panicky moment of hell. "What's your final address in America?", "You know what, I have no idea!" *panic texts and calls Kyle for his address* I ended up speaking to a very sleepy Kyle not really knowing what was going on in the World and we had some awful connection but we got there in the end which was great because it would have been worse if I got to the States and the security peep asked me, instead it was just for the flight thingymabob. Still, I had a bit of a panic attack that I can now laugh about, there's always something that amongst organising everything else is just accidentally forgotten about. Silly me.
Now through security and everything I was sitting on the plane playing around with all the free things (pillow, blanket and earphones). There was then that anxious moment when I was waiting to find out who I'd be spending the next 9 hours with. Turns out everyone wasn't too burdenous and most people were just happy to be going to the States and/or really tired. I killed time on my flight by watching copious amounts of TV shows and films. The food was alright but I didn't like how the staff just randomly appeared in my face and went "chicken or beef", my first thoughts were "chicken with what? Same question goes for the beef" I ended up just spilling out the word Chicken and hoped for the best. I can't really remember what the chicken came with now but it was edible which was nice. The flight was rather smooth apart from the occasional moment of insane turbulence. There was a moment when we were near the States and I'd just been given a glass of water when major turbulence struck and it was nigh on impossible to not spill it everywhere, was the most ridiculous thing ever and my lap managed to enjoy some water too, how burdenous.
The flight actually went by quite quickly so before I knew it I was at Newark airport in New Jersey. This is where I was to change plane to continue travelling down to Richmond, Virginia. The whole going from one plane to the other process was actually a lot easier than I was expecting apart from the whole where to take your suitcase part. Luckily some random gentleman (he worked at the aiport) stopped me and went "Richmond International?" and I replied with a confused "yes" as to which point he went to grab my bag and put it through some door thing, "well that was odd" I thought. Just no signs this was going to happen or it was a certain point for the suitcase drop-off or anything it just...happened. Oh well, as long as I get it back at the other end I'll be alright.
Newark's waiting lounge had an Earl of Sandwich place, I wasn't hungry which was really annoying as this ended up being the only one I saw on the entire trip. Oh well it was soon time to have fun on my 1 hour connecting flight to Richmond. This plane was tiny and amusing, everyone just kept banging their heads on the ceiling and even after trying to learn from everyone's mistake I still managed to heavily bash mine against the bag thing when getting up at the end of the flight. There was actually quite a nice jovial mood on the flight, I have no idea why but it just felt like a happy place and everyone was in high spirits.
So yeah that one hour went by very quickly and I was soon walking around Richmond 'International' airport wondering where Kyle and Joey were, turns out we somehow walked past each other in one of the large and very open corridors but we soon found each other. After hugs and general chit chat we moved over to the car which smelt of pizza. It smelt of pizza because they had just purchased some from Papa Johns. It was a Cheeseburger pizza because that's possible in America apparently. Turns out Cheeseburger just stands for bits of meat on a standard pizza lol.
After only like a 5 min drive we were at Kyle's house, it was really nice and so typically American, I instantly loved it. I was greeted inside by his Mom and her bf who were really nice and friendly. I was then shown the room I was staying in for my time there which was large and filled with very random bits of decor as seemed to be the theme throughout the house (more on that at another time, maybe). We sat around for a bit, tried the pizza and then headed for bed.
Friday 1st June
Kyle works on Fridays so Joey and I were just left to entertain ourselves for most of the day. Joey showed me around the house and we just chilled out and that. At some point Kyle's friend Kara came round to take me and Joey for some lunch. We ended up at some local Mexican joint. It was really random inside but after ages of trying to understand the menu we made some orders and soon after we had food. It was pretty good, well I enjoyed it, Joey didn't seem to really approve though but that could be because he is a fussy son-of-a-betch.
Kara only lives around the corner from Kyle and despite it looking like it was going to absolutely chuck it down Joey and I decided to walk from her house to Kyle's. By the time we had gotton to Kyle's road the heavens opened and we were just drenched in seconds, we thought it was hilarious at first. This odd heavy rain storm that just came out of nowhere and was really warm, then it got really heavy and started to become unpleasant so we ran as fast as we could and then panicked until we finally got inside. We were so drenched, it was quite funny.
We then spent the afternoon faffing about some more around the house and I got introduced to the two cats they've kind of adopted, BAM and the derpy one. Bam was amazing and was always after attention but from I hear it is rare that they get any so I suppose he was just trying to make the most of someone that gave him some
BAM
Joey chillaxing on one of the rocking things
Before long Kyle was back from work and we spent some time faffing around the house with him. We drew up a list of all the food places I had to apparently try at some point during my time in the States. From that list we tried to decide where to go in the evening but it just caused more faff, too much choice! It was then decided that we would go over to Short pump, browse some shops and then go to BDubs for what I was told were the best boneless chicken wings ever. I was doubtful and intrigued. To Short pump we went.
We browsed a few shops like Yankee Candle (of course!) and just milled around a bit before heading on to BDubs. It had quite a nice sports-bar atmosphere, just peeps chilling out with mates watching one of the billion screens showing lots of different sports. We looked at the menu for quite some time even though there aren't many options, it was either boneless wings or like 6 other boring items. However the menu for what sauce your wings are covered in was interesting. There were about 20 different sauces with a variety of levels of how spicy they are. I wanted something towards the boring end, something not very spicy. I got Sweet BBQ sauce for mine and OMG they were actually really good. Just really good bits of decent chicken covered in a really nice (yet gooey) sauce. Obviously we did it the American way and ordered too many so we could take them home in boxes for another time. Oh and the ranch dressing to dip them into was amazing (I already miss it
).Kyle luckily had found out earlier in the evening that Krispy Kreme were having a free donut day so we went in search of the nearest one and were greeted by queues! It was like, I dunno, 10pm and there was a massive queue for the drive-thru and inside the actual store, we were astounded to find so many in search of their free donut (I don't blame them though). We joined the back of the indoor queue and after quite a long wait we all got our free donut hot off the thing. We took them back to the car to eat. They were omgnomnomnomomg, just like the UK ones that have just been made but it was better because it was FREE!! Yay.
It was decided that I needed to go into Walmarts. It was massive and sold just about everything. I didn't see any odd peeps like you see on peopleofwalmart.com, I felt a little let down about that tbh lol. I did have to check out the guns though just for the whole surreal situation of that even being possible.
Once back at Kyle's house Joey decided that we should stay up and try and see some exciting critters like Possums and Racoons. I really wanted to see a racoon so we put out some unloved apple pieces and sat out on the porch awaiting something interesting to turn up. For ages nothing but the local cats were present. Bam was getting bored of not getting attention so decided to have a hissy fit at the derpy cat and then they ran off. After ages of waiting we did get to see two separate foxes. Joey thought they were silver ones but we're not very sure because of the light. We gave up a little while after they turned up and headed to get some sleep.
Thanks for reading this non-coastery start of the trip report. I'll be writing up the next day some point soon which includes more Kara and lots of animals.
