All right, I'm back writing again! It's been a while. Not that I haven't been itching to do so; I've written a bunch of short stories and the like, but I've also been fairly caught up in 'real life' which has been a bit of a bummer. But now, with university looming ahead and the terrifying risk of losing my friends to distance, I've found myself in America for three weeks, with nobody around but myself and my wonderful, beautiful mind. And my family.
So, that's a good start: my holiday. Yesterday, we flew from Manchester to Heathrow on a lovely little short flight (at only 35 minutes, I can say that it was the closest I have ever come to actually enjoying flying) and then on from Heathrow to Newark in New Jersey. That flight was a hell of a lot different, and a bunch of things began to bug me.
Firstly, I was forced to sit with a stranger. Being entirely unsociable, the idea of such a meeting with another human being is the stuff of nightmares. The thought of a situation where I was stranded next to one in a confined space for seven and a half hours made me practically suicidal. But when I sat down in my seat, I found myself next to a girl more or less my age, perhaps a few years older. My 18 year old misogynistic mind immediately leapt to 'I'm not attracted to her!' but my preferable, mature and I suppose slightly adventurous side thought, 'hey, maybe this is an opportunity to make a new friend! You can leave your shell slightly, broaden your horizons and listen to all the interesting stories that this woman has hidden inside her perfectly average looking head'. So I sat down and waited for her to say something. She said hi, and perhaps that was my window to jump in with a conversation starter, but I didn't. I wasn't that adventurous. So, for seven and a half hours we sat in silence and I watched hour after hour of films on a shitty aeroplane screen.
I started with the film 'Wanderlust', a film about hippies starring the handsome Paul Rudd which was fairly average. I then moved on to 'Young Adult', a film which I've decided that, if by some off chance I become Prime Minister, I shall screen to all teenagers, so that they know how shit their life will turn out if they decide to continue to behave like idiots. And finally I watched 'Love Actually', which I instantly moved into my list of 'films I should not like because I am straight, but totally do and make me cry', a list that also contains 'Titanic' and '500 Days of Summer'. Apart from the excessive nudity and the sexy Martin Freeman, I particularly enjoyed this scene (skip to about 1 minutes in):
My God. If my three weeks here does not end up like that, I will be sorely disappointed.
Half way into the journey, the guy behind me started to snore. Loudly. In fact, it was so loud that after a characteristically nasally snort, the woman next to me jumped awake. The whole situation was wholly comedic, like I was living in a cartoon and the people around me were caricatures. Again, perhaps this was another opportunity to make a witty comment, or perhaps we could have shared a few banterous back and forth's, slagging off Mr. Snore. But alas, she simply wiped away the dried drool from her bottom lip and curled to the side, ignoring the elephant sitting behind her.
What really pissed me off was that when coming into land, the seat-belt signs were switched on early and an announcement by the Captain told us passengers that we were going to be landing in some stormy conditions, so we should be aware that there may be some turbulence. While we were lucky in the fact that our plane managed to stay airborne, we were subjected to some lightening. With the first blue flash of light, the woman next to me sat up and grabbed my arm, you know, because she obviously saw me as some sort of masculine figure, able to protect her from the all-so awesome power of Mother Nature. 'Sorry', she whimpered, embarrassed, releasing her claw-like grip from my arm. I grinned at her, a sexy grin that showed her that I knew what I was doing, that women all around the world felt protected just with me in their presence. 'Haha, don't worry', I told her, 'I was on the way to Italy one year and lightening actually hit the plane, they're designed to take it'. I guess I'm paraphrasing because her response wasn't exactly warming: 'Haha, okay'. And that was it. I practically just saved your life, you ungrateful bitch! Urgh.
So we landed, safe and sound and I was happy because I could go to the hotel and finally sleep. Then 'woman sitting next to me' started clapping. One of my most hated pet peeves is clapping on a plane. Why do people clap?! Are we celebrating the fact that we aren't dead? The pilot's job is to fly is to our destination! You don't applaud a taxi driver when he successfully manages to take you to your house after a night out in Manchester, do you? It's the equivalent of saying to him, 'Nice one! Thanks for not crashing and thus preventing us from dying a very fiery and painful death!' Idiots. Have some faith in the pilot - it's his job after all. But the damaged was already done. The woman had started a revolution against logic and common sense and the whole plane started to clap. 'Yey, we're still alive!'
Finally, before we left the plane, I managed to assault a woman. Accidently of course. The fact that it was Mr Snore's wife didn't change anything. Basically I opened my over-head locker (that, by the way, had been stuff to the brim by Mr Snore's family's shit) and my laptop case, complete with heavy laptop and books, came crashing down to assassinate Mrs Snore. She wasn't happy. Mum yelled at me to apologise, which I did. Only to then yell back that it was their fault in the first place because they decided to over-cram the compartment. Mr and Mrs Snore, with their little Snore-lings, looked on in distaste.
After parading around the airport getting lost like tourists, we stumbled into the hotel at four in the morning, UK time. I died into my pillow.
Only to be woken up at five in the morning by a knock at my door. I knew it was Dad. I knew that He,
Mum and Emily (who had a different room) had woken up early and wanted to get out. But I didn't want it to be true. So I left him to think Max and I were practically unconscious sleepers and went back to bed, ignoring him. So he rang the phone. Fuck.
Dad, Max and I were off to Six Flags today. Six Flags is kinda like a low budget Universal Studios - I think it may be sponsored by DC comics or something because all the rides were named after the likes of Batman or Superman or whatever. We stopped off at 'Dunkin' Donuts' on the way, which was terrible. I ordered a cheese and egg bagel and received a cheese and 'thing' bagel. It was kind of yellow and spongey. I suppose it's possible that the Dunkin' Donuts staff had accidently given me the 'cheese and Spongebob Squarepants bagel'. It tasted vile, but I still ate Max's when he decided he didn't want it any more.
I was (am) in New Jersey. To all you My Chemical Romance fans out there, I can confirm that I have discovered how your favourite band ended up 'like that'. New Jersey is a shit hole. An ugly, grey, industrialised shit hole. No wonder they all want to kill themselves.
Although, perhaps I was slightly too harsh. Further driving through the state provided a more sightly view of forests and greenery, things I find rather pleasant. And Six Flags is bang in the centre of a huge forest. In fact, on one of the rides, I think it was the parachute one, you can look as far as the eye can see and just look upon trees. It's really quite beautiful. The only problem is, Six Flag's biggest attracting is 'Kingda Ka' - the world's tallest and second fastest roller coaster. So, being tall and all, you'd expect a fantastic view. Kingda Ka is situated next to the largest car-park known to man. It's disgusting, unsightly and distracting. Slightly distracting. I like to complain, but Kingda Ka was the most intense experience I have ever...well, experienced. My eyes wanted to explode out of my head. More than usual.
Wooden roller coaster's piss me off. I can't remember what this one was called, but it was crudely painted white and had evidently been in the park since it had opened in 1970-something. We decided to ride it because the queue was tiny compared to some of the other rides - we basically walked straight on. I nearly didn't walk off again. While Kingda Ka may have been the most intense ride of my life, 'wooden torture ride' was definitely the most insane. At one point, I felt that my head would be severed while simultaneously both my knees would dislocate. Trembling and stumbling off, I was faced with an even bigger, newer wooden roller coaster. Hold on a second. A NEW wooden roller coaster. Wooden roller coasters were made because the technology hadn't been invented to create safer, more stable roller coasters. Why would anybody want to ride a wooden one when more exciting, and safer, roller coasters are available? The only reason I can think of is that while one may ride a modern roller coaster for an adrenaline rush, one knows they are essentially safe, it looks safe and you feel safe. On a wooden roller coaster, you genuinely feel like you may actually die. Different kind of rush.
Another thing I noticed about New Jersey is that, you know how they say that 1 in 5 Americans is obese? In other states I didn't notice it. I did here. It's weird, like every fifth person is that boulder from Raiders of the Lost Ark. This became increasingly more noticeable during the day and especially when I was queuing for a ride and about a third of the way through the queuing area was a food stall. Now, it was a quiet day, so I was essentially walking onto all the rides, but on a normal day, this queue area would be heaving with Americans wanting to ride the roller coaster. This stall was about at the point where a sign would be posted saying 'you have 60 minutes left to queue before you can ride such and such'. Considering on a busy day that most rides have queue times of an hour and a half, the people in the queue would have been waiting half an hour. Half an hour without food. Like one would stop before the stall was created and go, 'Fuck, I've basically just stood in line for half an hour and burnt a bunch of calories. If only there was a place where I could buy deep-friend Reece's Pieces to replenish them.' It's disgusting really. But it made me giggle a little.
Despite this rather cynical view of America and its inhabitants, I do love the country and the people. Case and point: I was wandering around the park and then I bought a Squid Hat. Alright, I lie. I saw the Squid Hat and said to Dad, 'I will not refill this coke unless I get that Squid-Hat'. Fortunately, to win the hat, all I had to do was take part in a game to test my strength because EVERYONE WAS A WINNER! Yey! That meant I didn't have to try. So I risked the embarrassment of looking incredibly weak when smacking a mallet onto a button and received the squid. There were multiple colours of squid: green, pink, blue and orange. I chose pink. You know, so I could be zoologically accurate. Why did I want a Squid-Hat? Because bitches love Squid-Hats.
So, now sporting a black eye, a slightly bust lip and a Squid-Hat, I set off around the park waiting for the American gash to come running. I didn't get much attention from the girls, unfortunately, but many guys came up to me and yelled, 'Nice hat, man!' I suppose that these guys could be taking the piss, but I got the impression that they were genuinely impressed. It was a Squid-Hat, after all. Seriously though, people in the UK wouldn't take something like that as a joke, they'd take the piss and try and steal it or whatever. People in America are just too nice to be like that.
So yup. That's a brief-ish overview of the past two days. I guess I've rather enjoyed them. More tomorrow, mainly because I enjoy writing it all.
Cya.
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