Ok so it might have been a typo by Megann, but it works well. Here are the picutes of Clark and Amelia.
Oh I’m so maternal. Actually after Amelia’s initial reservations of me, we got on extremely well.
Clark and my dad would get on very well. Clark knows an awful lot about trains for a nearly 4 year old. Megann is reading him a Thomas the Tank Engine story before his nap and judging from the super yawn it’s working.
Saturday
On Saturday morning Megann got up to study for a test on Monday morning. I knew there were advantages of not being a student anymore. When I got up we watched the rest of the film that we had fallen asleep to the night before, Chasing Liberty and then Sliding Doors. We also played Farkle, it’s a dice game. It came from ICYC in Jordanstown and then Megann and I played it loads when we travelled in 2002. Since ICYC I’ve never really played it with anyone else, nobody else seems to take to it the way we did! Megann was kicking my butt, but I rallied a bit, but she still won. Just in case you are interested.
For lunch we had left over Chinese. Two men would be lucky to have us! Megann’s mum, Tina was coming over to go out, but first of all showed me my tax forms that she’d filled out for me. Being a proper grown up sucks! (Until you discover that you might get your tax back)
We went ice skating in downtown Detroit. Yes, I realise saying ‘downtown’ before a town/city name is horrendously American but it really is a good way to describe it. I suppose we’d say Detroit city centre or something, anyway you get the idea. The rink was outside and needed no refrigeration to help with the freezing process. Brr.
Megann and Tina had their own skates, the pretty white ones. I always wanted a pair of pretty white ice skates, but alas I had to make do with the hired blue ones. One day I’ll get my own pretty white ice skates.
Our finishing pose for the short programme in the cabin-mate pairs. Sadly there are no photos of the actual routine.
All that hard work ice skating meant we had to stop hot chocolate. This is Megann and Tina (not me obviously!)
After ice skating we went to the Fisher Building, a beautiful old building in Detroit. It is lovely, pure class and a relic of aul dacency. After dinner, in a cool restaurant (I had ‘Londontown Fish and Chips’, no really that’s what was on the menu) we went back to the apartment and played a Nintendo game with Megann’s friends Chris and Sarah.
We never have a Nintendo growing up. Sega Mega Drive II the Park’s video console of choice. We all had one and many a summer, Hallowe’en, Christmas and Easter holiday was spent playing Sonic, Micro Machines, Streets of Rage (which brought about the infamous quote in the Park ‘I know how to get the bitches!’ Oh two swear words in as many days!), California Games, Ecco the Dolphin amongst others. How sad is this, we would even pair up and one person would have the controller while the other shouted instructions. The twist was the person with controller would have a duvet thrown over them. Blindfolds were for wusses.
Anyway, one of mine and David’s favourite things to do was to let my dad have a go. This was nothing to do with being generous with our toy, but everything to do with laughing at how crap he was. Seriously, you need to understand how crap my dad is with computers. He’s an intelligent man, he really is, but computers, especially computer games! Forget it!
But right here, right now, I’d like to apologise to Father. On Saturday night I got a little insight to his world. I had not a notion what I was doing. We were playing Mario Party for those of you who know it. It’s kind of like a board game on the computer, with a board that you move round and each round of turns bring up a new challenge, with witty titles. The other three had played them before and so each title that came up there would be a cry of ‘I hate this one!’ or ‘This is my favourite!’ I had not a clue and while the others would try and help me telling me to hit the grumbos or whatever they were didn’t really help me a whole lot. So sorry Dad. Telling you to run, collect the rings and jump into the lollipop thing in Sonic 2 probably wasn’t the help you were looking for either. But it was a good night all the same, even though I lost.
On Sunday there wasn’t much time for anything other than breakfast at Megann’s grandma’s. Tina made us waffles. Mmmn mmmn. On our way to the airport we stopped at a Seven Eleven. I suppose it’s a bit like Centra only better, better for one simple reason. Slurpees. If you have never had a Slurpee I think you should buy a ticket to America right now just to experience it. Imagine a nicer, better, bigger Slush Puppy but in proper flavours, like Pepsi, Cherry Coke, Mountain Dew, Diet Coke etc. At camp there were many reasons to volunteer for the shopping trip for food for cook outs. Chief amongst them in my mind was the stop at the Seven Eleven. There are no Seven Eleven in my area of North Carolina so it was important we got as many in as possible to the weekend.
All too soon we were at the airport. I said my goodbyes to Megann and Tina. I still had my Slurpee going through security at the airport. I am such a classy traveller. Some people have their double latte tall mochachinos going through security. Not me, I have a Coke Slurpee. It turns out there’s a good reason why you don’t see more people with Slurpees going through security at airports, the x-ray machine ate my straw.
I sat by this fountain and finished my Slurpee. I think I am all too easily impressed with fountains, especially airport fountains. This one was tres cool.
I love airports. I love everything about them. Except maybe the uncomfortable moulded plastic seats that are all too common. But I especially love moving walkways. Who remembers the one at the International, ‘please push you trolley over the ramp’?!
I will never understand people who don’t use moving walkways like these fools. ‘Hello? Yes excuse me, you seem seem to be carrying a heavy laptop and trundling a suitcase and walking at the same time. Do you know this walkway moves and will make that much easier for you? You can even walk on a moving walkway, you nearly appear to be walking like a 50km Olympic walker when you do that, it’s fun. But just be careful at the end that you don’t do head first into the passenger infront of you as you adjust to walking on boring normal ground again.’
So that was it, I was back on a plane to North Carolina. Going home isn’t half as exciting as going somewhere. And to make matters worse the stewardess gave me the customary glass of Pepsi, not the full can.
8 comments:
Agreed!
Ah, the memories of the Aldergrove mini-walkway. The first half of the sentence: "You are approaching the end of the moving walkway..."
Tina, you're going to have to clean up your language before going to Korea. What will Sunday think?
i thought so too! I had a SNES when i was wee but my uncle had a sega so i got the best of both worlds. Why do they not tell you to push your trolley over the ramp anymore...? Really was the highlight of the airport...
im such a copy cat. i got a weather pixie too because i always like looking at your weather!
Oh some horrendous spelling there!
Anyway, yes, Megann really does look like Katie Holmes in that photo!
Re: My swearing. Should I chance upon a meeting with His Eminence I won't swear! Don't really eff and jeff anyway so it shouldn't be a problem. Sometimes it is just funny though!
The Streets of Rage incident was hilarious for one simple reason, it was said loudly in front of Karen Next Door's mum. When you were twelve, that was quite serious!
miss barnett what would your mother say or do if she heard you talking like that? i know what mine would do get the bar of soap and wash my mouth out- she has done it (twice) to me when i was little!
In fairness, although he'll hate me for saying it, it was my dad who taught me the fine art of a well placed swear word.
Sadly therefore, my mum would not be surprised.
'scuse us Tina, for having a conversation on your comments board.
They don't tell you to push your trolley over the ramp anymore because now there's a big pole at the start that stops trolleys from getting onto the moving walkway.
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