Wednesday, July 23, 2008

F-L-O-R-I-D, eh?

Hmm, the "eh?" just doesn't fit in the title as well when the post isn't about Canada. Instead, this one's about the U-S-Eh?

So I've been in Tampa, Florida since last Friday, hanging out with Sue Sorg (Michelle's "mom") and her boyfriend Ejay. They're really cool, and Ejay's a great cook. Which reminds me - I have to write up a post about the food over here sometime in the nearish future. I'll give you a sentence to whet your appetite (BAHAHA, geddit??? Whet your appetite... because I'm talking about food... it's a pun, y'see?): Lots of sugar, massive serving sizes and 49c Maccas cheeseburgers.

Anywho, what have I done since I've been here, you ask? (I'm just assuming that's what you ask - this is more of a monologue than a two-way conversation, so just bear with me here, ok?) To answer your (assumed) question, I shall again use bullet points:
  • First thing you notice as you step out of the airport is that it's hot. It's really quite humid here - it reminds me a lot of the good ol' days of going to Cairns every other weekend. I think we're a similar distance from the equator. I could be wrong. But it feels like it, and if there's one thing I've learnt over this trip, it's to always trust my natural ability to sense how far from the equator I am. (That's a lie.)
  • Second thing I noticed was that Ejay bought us tickets to see The Dark Knight that night - opening night for these silly North Americans who get movies a few days after us. Whooooooo! (Great movie by the way, but as if anyone needed me to tell you that. I thought the pacing was off though.)
  • On Saturday we went out to watch the Flugtag competition. Flugtag is where a whole bunch of people build gliding contraptions to jump off a pier and try to get as far as possible. It's more about the performance and the novelty value than the actual distance though. Tons of people turned up to watch.
  • What was funny was that there was also a fantasy convention on at the same time. So there were a bunch of yobbo's (I'm not sure what they call those here) mixed with a bunch of guys dressed as elves, mages and assorted other Dungeons and Dragons/World of Warcraft characters. It would have been interesting to see a fight break out, but alas, it wasn't to be.
  • I also saw a guy dressed as the Companion Cube. But I didn't have my camera. Man I make a sucky tourist.
  • That night we went to watch the Tampa Rays play the Toronto Blue Jays at baseball. I was cheering for the Blue Jays because they were the only team I'd ever heard of (thanks to Tim Challies - read his blog, y'all).
  • Baseball isn't as interesting as cricket. That game wasn't, anyway. It was nil all for the first six innings, until finally someone hit a Grand Slam (a home run when there's loaded bases). Apparently that's a real rarity and excitement to see, and I got it on my first game. Then it was pretty much nil all for the rest of the game, until the final innings when the Blue Jays got 4 runs to try and match the Rays' 6. But they got out.
  • It seems that baseball isn't as interesting as cricket because the effort is all on the part of the batting team. In cricket, it's the job of the fielding team to get the batting team out, and that's what makes it interesting. In baseball, it's the job of the batter to hit something that DOESN'T get him out. Basically, if the ball goes in the air, it'll get caught, and if it bounces too close to anyone, he'll be run out. If it's a good hit, it doesn't matter what the fielding team does, he'll just get the run.
  • All that to say, cricket has more variation in it. I may have more thoughts on this in the near future if I see some more games that AREN'T just a stalemate for the majority.
  • After the game, MC Hammer came on stage and did a concert. I was surprised to find out that he's a minister here - has his own TV show and everything. I started to tweak on when he was talking about how good it is to get married, and then he came out with "I love being back in the south, because here people aren't afraid to love Jesus". I was quite pleasantly surprised - more thoughts on American Christianity to come.
  • We went to a water park on Sunday. It was fun, and I went down slides and got a little bit burnt (but not much).
  • Yesterday Ejay and I saw Hellboy 2. It was fairly silly, but fun enough I spose.
  • Today I saw Batman again on the IMAX for $12. Did I mention stuff is really cheap here? In any case, every Aussie reading this should immediately head for Sydney to watch the movie on the biggest screen in the world. After a second viewing, I think it may be paced quite right, thank you very much - and I'd ask you not to post such silly thoughts without first thinking them through!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sound's like you are having a great time.... $12 for Batman in the imax,that would have been pretty awesome!!!

By the way..... i really like dot points!

Anonymous said...

i like the dot points too. good work. i think baseball is much more interesting than cricket, though. the points system actually makes sense and i dont mind waiting to see a home run, whereas in cricket i'm just bored the entire time because there's no chance of anything exciting ever happening.

that's amazing you got to see batman at imax. and get to do all those cool things with my mum and ejay. but uhhh
i still stand my ground when i say that riding an elephant is super super super cool.
:D

Anonymous said...

Sounds awesome! I would have to agree on the summary of American food haha. Are portion sizes different in Australia?
The Dark Knight is amazing, I would have loved to see it in IMAX!
Never heard of cricket, but I would have to say I prefer hockey to baseball. Guess I'm Canadian, eh?

Carl said...

Glad you enjoyed your trip to Florida. Now if you'd had come to Tallahassee, you'd probably been bored outta yer skull. This section of Florida is more south Georgia than the Florida of Tampa/Clearwater/St. Pete.

Man, my wife and I haven't been on a vacation in years. The last time we got to go somewhere together was when we went to Savannah, Georgia while they were filming parts of the Tom Hanks movie "Forrest Gump." That was in the early 90's. It's been so long I don't know what a vacation would feel like. I'd probably die from the shock! :-)

Anonymous said...

To my understanding a "bogan" or "yobbo" is similar to the American's "white trash". But don't ever call someone white trash... Americans have guns.

And Oooooh my goodness, you saw MC Hammer!?! Please tell me he was wearing the pants. My friend Nene and I do a rocking SingStar version of "Can't touch this"