My supervisor Jeff kindly asked me to stay over at his house this weekend. Getting home from work was pretty exciting, given that I was riding on the back of his Harley! We stopped off to pick up a few beers and then headed off to his house. The house is in a pleasant leafy suburb area and looks like something you might see in a story book. Once I had the tour round his house (including the massive basement with all sorts of cool stuff in it) and met his welcoming wife Cathy we settled down in the back garden to have a few drinks and shoot the breeze. Jeff and Cathy’s garden is home to a whole host of wildlife, the most interesting of which were undoubtedly the humming birds. I had never seen one of these creatures close up in the flesh and the way they maneuver is fascinating. It was great to get a home cooked meal and to relax with some new company. I also learned how to play ‘Hillbilly Golf’, which is a backyard game played over here. It involves throwing two golf balls attached by a piece of string towards a wide 3 runged ladder with the aim of getting them to wrap around one of the rungs. There are different scores for landing on the specific rungs. It takes a bit of time to get used to, but (probably down to beginners luck) Scotland managed to proudly triumph over the US!
On Saturday I enjoyed a trip to see some “peewee football”. This is basically American football played by kids, in this case Jeff and Cathy’s grandson Braden. It was pretty cool to see the scale of the whole operation, with 100’s of kids all rushing about defying the vain whistles and shouts of the coaches. Suffice to say I didn’t actually learn much about the rules of the game, but the experience as a whole was pretty enjoyable. I think I’m going to need to do a bit more research before I go to see the Indianapolis Colts in a week or so.
In the afternoon Jeff, Cathy, their two grandchildren and I went to the Indianapolis Zoo. It was brilliant! I don’t want to seem unpatriotic but it really puts Edinburgh Zoo to shame and makes Blair Drummond Safari Park look like a pet shop! I don’t think that they could have assembled a wider variety of animals if they had enlisted Noah as a recruitment officer.
After a great day at the zoo we all went back to Jeff’s house for a barbeque out on his deck with good food, drink and conversation. Following that we watched the Olympics, including Michael Phelps record breaking gold medal win. I’m no swimming expert but I recon that boys got a bit of talent, he could probably do pretty well if he sticks at it!
It has been a bit strange watching the Olympics from an American perspective as apposed to a British (or even Scottish) one. It is obvious that each nation’s coverage will hold some bias toward their own athletes, but the USA seems to take this to the extreme! Often in races the leaders will be almost completely ignored in order to follow an American athlete’s progress no matter how unimpressive. Phelps has also been mentioned around 1000 times in each broadcast no matter what sport is being covered, but I suppose in fairness his performance was quite special. In general it has been necessary to keep glued to the BBC Sport website to keep up to date with our athletes’ excellent performances. It is also worth noting that the States t.v. networks and press tends to arrange the medal table in anyway possible to make sure that they are at the top! Every other source I have seen ranks the teams on the basis of gold medals won, conversely the US (conveniently) arranges them on total number of medals won. Unsurprisingly that leaves the US at the top of the medals table, it would seem that like in so many situations over here there is an attitude of quantity = quality!
Luckily on Sunday there was extended coverage of rowing and cycling, two sports that Britain are superior to the US in, so it was good to be able to gloat for a short while at least. Sunday was a really peaceful and relaxing day. We went for a bicycle ride around the local area and chilled out on the deck talking, reading newspapers and generally taking it easy. In the evening Jeff and Cathy were kind enough to take me out for a meal with some of their friends which was a great way to round off the weekend.
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