Only In America

United States flag and Texan flag

(its a country and western song!)

This past weekend has been the Best Weekend EVER! In order to fully understand and get the recent events in some sort of understandable order for the first time since 'blogging' I will give you a day-to-day account of what happened.

THURSDAY


So Mike (who's family I am staying with) had college on Thursday. I went with him and had a look around his campus. Really puts the education system in the UK to shame. It was very clean and smart. Whilst he was at his class I did what every English man would do with about a hour to kill, I went to the pub. His college is in downtown Fort Worth. I was recommended a bar called the Saucer. This place had the largest selection of Real Ales that I have experienced since being in the States, they claim to have over 200 beers on tap. I settled down with a Fullers ESB and it was heaven. After Mike had finished college we then went to visit his fire station where he is based (he is training to be a fire-fighter and working as a volunteer fire-fighter at the moment). This was cool. I got to sit in the engines and try on the suits.

FRIDAY


I just chilled in the day. It has been so good to be able to have somewhere to relax and a comfy sofa to sit on. Around 16:00 we headed to Grapevine Mills. Now in the States they like to do things big, and this shopping mall was no exception. It is in the shape of a square and each side of the square is about a mile long, this thing is HUGE! However, the sole purpose of going to the mall was to try and pick up some St. Louis Rams shirts & hats (a hat is needed as my hair is now getting to the stupid long stage) and this place didnt have any decent rams stuff. I did manage to pick up some t-shirts for $5 each and a Green Bay Packers hat for $13 (Dad, I know you would be proud of me). After we had walked around the mall we then headed to Irving, and the chaos began.

Me, Laura and Mike ready for Cowboys!

The plan for Friday night was to have a 'cook-out' (basically a BBQ) round one of the girls house who I met when I was last over. Most of the friends that I made on my previous two trips to this great State came over. Now they have kids and wifes and distractions like that but it really was great to catch up with them all and see where their lives have taken them in the 9 years that I have been away.

This cook-out was a typical Texan evening. It was hot, most people (not the scrawny English guy) were getting bitten by mossies and the thing that I got most excited about was the fact that we drank out of red plastic cups. Like that kind you see in all the American college movies. RED PLASTIC CUPS! How cool!

After I had introduced the phenomenal drinking game that is 'fives' to the unsuspecting Americans they saud that they had a game that could beat it. Well as you and I know dear reader, 'fives' is THE best drinking game ever and how could this nation that drinks Bud Light possibly beat it? They did. I was introduced to Beer Pong. The idea in its simplest form is to chuck a ping-pong ball into a cup and then your opponent has to drink said cup. I teamed up with Mike (as he had lived in the UK I therefore instantly threw down the 'world championship' gauntlet. Britain vs USA) and I am very proud to report that Britain is now the un-official world champions at beer pong. My professional career record stands at 1-0. We rocked! The rest of the night was done catching up with friends, drinking more and declaring that if the Americans wanted their world championship back then they would have to come over to the UK and get it!

Oh and at one point I was fed watermelon, whilst lying on a sunbed, by a blonde Texas girl, from her mouth. It was a interesting moment in my life.

SATURDAY


Woke up with a fuzzy head, not really surprising. So when an 'all you can eat' breakfast for $8.99 was thrown out there I jumped at the chance. The place was interesting. I got to watch Stoke draw with Arsehole. The food was just what the doctor ordered however, this place had a jukebox. Nothing wrong with that, except that it started playing Christmas music, and because of that it drew our attention to the fact that this place hadnt bothered to take down the christmas decorations, we did at one point wonder just how hard we had partied last night and weather our hangovers had been so great we had slept till christmas. This was not the case though

So after breakfast we did the right thing and got straight back on the beer (well I say beer, it was Bud Light) and basically sat in the hot, hot Texas sun and put the world to rights whilst I introduced the Americans to different music such as Frank Turner and Afro Celt Sound System. As the day got on more and more friends joined us in the back yard until the night drew closer and we started getting ready for 'Cowboys'.

Me and my future wife!

Cowboys, I have been thinking for the past few hours the best way to describe this place so here goes. Its a nightclub, but it is unlike any nightclub I have ever been to in my entire life. It is situated in Arlington which is about a 20 min drive from Irving. When you walk in, the first impression that you get is that it is just like a normal nightclub (although instead of the CHAV's that you get over here it is full of Cowboys & Cowgirls) and then you see the dancefloor. On the dancefloor there are many many cowboys 'two-stepping' with their partners. The place had a live house band that rocked out country music. It is what they do here in Texas, and it was amazing fun. About halfway through the night the music changed into a kinda Rap/R'n'B/Country mix and all the bargirls (who were AMAZING) jump up on the bar and start dancing 'Coyote Ugly' style. It was during this song that I clocked quite possibly the most amazing girl that I have ever had the fortune to see. She was amazing, however she was also a bar girl who walked around the club selling Jelly Shots. $15 later (best $15 I have ever spent) I had a brief, blubbering conversation with her and off she trotted, I did get my photo taken with her even after she had turned down my offers of a kiss and if she played her cards right a English visa. Guess my accent doesn't work on everyone over here.

It was really weird that you can smoke in the clubs over here, didn't feel right, I kept wanting to 'pop out' for a ciggie. We danced the night away and although I didn't 'two-step' on the dancefloor I did bust out a few moves to 'jump around', we then headed back and chilled on the patio until the wee hours of the morning.

I know have a strange fetish for women in Cowboy boots wearing skirts/cut off jeans.

SUNDAY

BDD and Mike, the morning after the night before.

Having a obligatory hangover I woke and sat on the patio with a coffee with some of the 'crew'. After a few hours of chilling we decided that another cook-out would be on the cards. Off to Walmart we trotted and stocked up on so much food. BDD said that he would do the cooking and we had it over at Tony's family house. The food was amazing, BDD did a awesome job on the seasoning of the burgers, boiling the bratworst's in beer and jerk chicken. We then proceeded to drink more, play football (both kinds) in the back yard. Then we settled down and watched the start of the baseball. Around 22:00 and when the beer ran dry we headed back to Mikes house.

This weekend has been amazing for so many reasons. I feel that I have had an experience that no tourist would ever have. I have hung out with some amazing old friends and just lived as a 'Texan'. I love this state, yes there are bad points (guns, capital punishment to name a few) but Texas will always have a very special place in my heart. I am here until Thursday and I will be sad to say bye, but I will be back.

I have noticed that there have been quite a few readers hailing from Germany, Welcome, Willkommen.

Please, if you enjoyed reading this then feel free to drop me a email - tom@tomswayround.com
I would love to hear from you.

Until I blog again,




Tom