The End of the Road(Trip)

Maggie, her brother Jordan and I arrived in Ocala, Florida last night shortly after 6pm. Jordan drives a pickup-truck with a very small cab, and the six hours or so was a tight squeeze. Seems Jordan is a knowledgable chap, and he seemed to know plenty about pretty much every major geographical feature we passed... Still didn't take my focus away from the buttaching, but it helped! We did stop about four and a half hours into the drive, and that inital moment of my feet hitting solid ground was sheer ecstacy; the pleasure shot up through my body, starting with my feet, and ended with the involuntary smile on my face... I looked like quite the pillock.

Today was fun; we went to Silver Springs, and rode around in glass bottomed boats, looking at 'gators, and other 'critters', while I took a load of nature-footage on my camcorder (which you won't be seeing for at least another three weeks, since I decided to leave the gadgetry to put the footage on my laptop behind... probably a blessing)!


This photo was taken on our way out, so it's darker than all the others, but it's nicer than the photo I didn't take going in, so feel free to settle for this one.



The Alligators at the park were pretty cool and pretty dull at the same time; they'd lay perfectly still, hoping not to be noticed (let's ignore the fact that they're in a friggin' enclosure), and watch you with their eyes while not moving a muscle. I was offered the chance to go "'Gator huntin'" with Jordan, but that didn't work out, which didn't upset me too much, as I'm not sure how I'd have fared with the 'boom stick' part of the operation, where after tiring out your prey for a few hours, you finally drive what is essentially a stick with a shotgun shell on the end that explodes on impact into the reptile's skull. I'm pretty sure I'd have set my moral compass aside and done whatever was expected of me, just for the purpose of exploring this bizarre sub-culture.


This picture shows Maggie pouring me a half-glass of Egg-Nog; that strange substance I hear so much about from American TV shows, but know little about... Being the curious type, I thought I'd give it a whack.



This picture right here says a lot of things. It really captured the moment. For some reason, as soon as the ridiculously viscous, sickly sweet 'nog entered my mouth, I instinctively began chewing, so discombobulated were my senses. I'm pretty sure that the look shown here on my face is the exact moment I was thinking "On my next bowel movement, I'm going to crap out a cake!"

It was one of those things I had to try, I suppose - the rather paltry 100ml or so that I drank is still repeating on me, but I also put away an ungodly amount of Ribs earlier on (I like the southern cooking). I should also point out that I also got to eat quail while at Maggie's aunt's house. Unsurprisingly, it tasted just like chicken, maybe a little more chewy. My vigorous gnashing at this white meat prompted a warning from Maggie's stepdad; "you should be biting down very gingerly on that; you don't want to break your teeth on one of the pellets we shot it with!" I wouldn't even dare describe it as an acquired taste; it tasted like cheap, chewy, crap chicken, but of course, that's not the point - it was a great taste of culture!

Speaking of which; I'm going to end this post with another look at the culture here down south; in case you hadn't noticed, Maggie's family seem to have quite the interest in hunting, or as they call it; huntin'. Well, I'm sure this deer feels honoured that his sacrifice served the following noble purpose this Christmas.


"Ho ho ho" indeed.

Random Craving #2

Another day, another project being completed with moments to spare! But the last few days have also seen the resurgence of that feeling of wanting something that I know I won't get here in the States! This one, randomly enough, is me wanting to get in my car, on my own, and drive around for a bit, while listening to some music!

So bizarre things from home that I can't get my grubby mitts on are popping into my head now and again... I won't dare say it's homesickness, but I'm sure that it's happening for a reason. Could be something to do with the fact that as it stands, it doesn't look as though I'll be going back to that Emerald Isle until late April at the earliest, owing to the fact that I've decided to stay on another semester, and my Visa expires this month.

People around here are also talking about spending Christmas with their families a lot, which reminds me that it's the first Christmas I'm gonna be spending away from home (which is an exciting prospect, to be honest, because I want to see how the yanks do it). I'm nine days shy of heading out to see Caitlyn again, which should be a lot of fun, and all I have to worry about in between is one measly "exam" (I say 'exam' in quotes, because it's an open-book test, and we have unlimited time... That's right - limitless)!

Maggie has offered me a chance to see some of the country, by joining her on her unholy voyage to Florida. I'm not quite sure how much time this entails spending in a car, because I refuse to look up the distance from Pittsburgh to wherever the hell it is in Florida we're going! I'll take my camcorder along so I can record anything interesting I see along the way, and my DS shouldn't be too far from my person, should my mind begin to numb from the boredom. Should be a make or break experience for mine and Maggie's friendship (the smart money's on the latter)!

Since I've cleared the backlog of project work (how I don't know, what with the dangerous levels of chronic procrastination I've been afflicted with), I can take it easy for a few days, so I'm going to use this time to watch a few episodes of Scrubs, ring the folks at home (I don't get to do it quite as much as I'd like), and maybe start paying attention to my physical appearance again (as I sit in front of the computer, my hair is scruffy, my face is sporting a heavy fuzz after five days of not hearing from my razor, and my t-shirt, hilariously enough, has little brown stains on the front, from where I dropped crumbly bits off the chocolate covered pretzels I was eating, and neglected to wipe them away before they melted on - so dedicated was I to making my deadline)! I might also go back and fix the pictures at the start of the blog, but all that uploading seems like a lot of work at the moment.



For no good reason, here is a picture of Dermot that I found on my computer, and felt like sharing with the world... What a girl's blouse, eh?