Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, happy turkey day to everyone! The labs are closed for a few days over the holiday period, so I have some days to explore my local area. I'm only out in this part of Arlington for about a week, then I'll be moving to the UTA campus. So I wanted to take advantage of my proximity to Cowboys Stadium and Six Flags, and get my bearings a little.

Mission 1 was Operation: Walmart - Dad loves the website People of Walmart, and Walmart is really one of the things I associate with American culture. Also, I needed to buy some things, and I'm finding it hard to find out where to go shopping - Arlington doesn't have any kind of city centre or shopping district. So to Walmart I went... after a quick detour or two :P

My route for the day

First, I wanted to take some photos of Hurricane Harbor - the waterpark section of Six Flags, right across from my hotel. I have to say that the first part of my walk was kind of creepy - no one was on the street and the closed theme park and wide open spaces under a not-quite grey sky made for an oddly post-apocalyptic feel.

And then... zombies.

I missed special Thanksgiving breakfast times (apparently they stopped serving at 8:00 instead of 10 today), so when I saw an IHOP sign (International House of Pancakes - an all day breakfast place) I detoured along the I-30 service road and headed into the restaurant. This detour did not help to improve my opinion of American eating habits. In fact, nothing I did today helped to improve that... but the IHOP BREAKFAST menu has a T-BONE STEAK with eggs and pancakes! (Don't believe me? Check it out here - second link) It also was my first proper acquaintance with American wait service - the waitress was quite pleasant for someone effectively being paid to be nice to me, but listening to the way that other people talked to her really made me a bit sad. I've found Americans quite polite in many respects - they hold doors, say please and thank you and pardon me, and of course the ubiquitous "have a nice day". But all these rules seem to be off when they are talking to someone in a service industry. People yell from across the room, bark out orders, demand things, forget their pleases and thank yous, and are generally just dicks. It almost feels like a caste system, with the customers able to do whatever they want to the downtrodden underclass, and it doesn't really sit right with me. Pancakes were delicious, though, I have to admit.

Smallest breakfast I could find on the menu that still had pancakes.

Right, so back on the track to Walmart... I met a guy named Gabriel along the walk past Texas Rangers Stadium. Gabriel was a McDonalds truck driver from Sacremento who was on his was to the big Thanksgiving Cowboys vs. Redskins game, and couldn't work out how to work the camera on his phone. Once he heard me talk, he tried to guess where I was from (Current tally is: England - 2, Australia - 1, New Zealand - 1), and we walked to the stadium together. The tailgaters were just starting to set up in the carparks nearest the stadium (this was about 10-10:30am for the game starting at 3:30), and there was BBQ smoke and excitement in the air. Everyone was wearing Cowboys gear (with a few brave souls in the Redskins red), and when I got into the Walmart right across from the stadium it was PACKED with football-goers buying more football gear - they must have sold hundreds and hundred of jerseys.

Cowboys Stadium

Tailgaters tailgating

Redskins vs. Cowboys - the Thanksgiving match

The stadium is HUGE! Almost as big as my ear!

So I had made it to the promised land - WALMART. And it was everything I thought Walmart would be, with a few extra special surprises :) First, it was full of large, red, frustrated Americans all clamouring for some kind of frozen whipped creamy product for with their pumpkin pies. Secondly, THERE WAS A GUN SECTION. YOU CAN GO TO THE SUPERMARKET AND BUY A GUN. I took a sneaky photo, but worried I'd get into trouble or get shot, so I didn't go too close.

The sports section in Walmart

This pic is just for Fletch and Sam - guess what I got to play with early? :)

I bought my bits and pieces, watched people buy pre-packaged wholesome home-cooked meals and take out their Thanksgiving frustrations on the poor Walmart employees working the holiday, then back to watch the tailgaters.

Tailgating still going on even a few km from the stadium

I wandered around back past the stadium, took some photos for various enthusiastic fans, walked back up past the Rangers stadium, then kept up past Six Flags Over Texas, the big amusement park. A very over-zealous security guard kicked me out of the carpark, and then headed back out to the road where I was walking to ask me to stop taking photos.

Aww, autumn colours (and it's a star - the logo of Texas. Get it?)

My new hiking boots. From Walmart... Hmm, will I regret this?

Pretty autumn stuff - a squirrel ran up a tree like a second after I took this, I swear!

Hee hee - illicit carpark photos of Six Flags Over Texas

The photo that got me kicked out of the carpark - damn you mustachioed douchebag security man

My spite photo - I took this just because the security guard told me I couldn't.  GO EAT A DONUT, FAILED COP.

After my wonderful Six Flags experience, I got stuck in between highways and freeways, and there were only two options to get back to the hotel - either walk the whole way back around Six Flags back the way I came (about 2 hours home) or walk along a little gap alongside a highway over a freeway overpass (20 mins home). After the advice of a racist gas store attendant (apparently I shouldn't be walking anyway, because I'm white), I decided to chance the highway.

The site of my near death (up the top of that hill)

Back to the hotel for about 30 mins, then I went to a thanksgiving dinner with some friends of Rodrigo's out in Keene (about an hour drive from my hotel, poor Rodrigo had to drive about an hour each way to pick me up). I had turkey, mashed potato, stuffing, and because it was a Mexican celebration, mole, beans and rice. It was fun - the others were playing a game they called Beans. Then played some more card games (Monopoly card game, and a game called Imaginiff) at Rodrigo's house before his friend Enrique gave me a lift home. Oh, and I almost forgot... I GOT TO EAT PUMPKIN PIE!!! (it was OK, but I didn't go for seconds)

The things I am thankful for are: the lovely people in my life, the actual freedom of living in Australia (USA land of the free, my arse!), having a job that lets me travel, and chocolate.

The Lone Star State

Today has been my first full day in Arlington. I'm staying in the Marriott TownePlace Suites, right opposite Hurricane Harbor - the water park version of Six Flags. So far I've been airport, work, pub, hotel, work, hotel, and heavily chaperoned - I think the Americans don't trust me to be alone yet.  However, so far it's been awesome driving (NEVER WALKING - the people here seem to be worried about me walking even a block or two!) around and seeing all of the brands from TV spread out all along the giant roads.

I'm 4 meals into American eating, and looking at the options and ads on TV, I'm really a little disgusted with the food. Last night I tried my first American beer - a Texan craft brew that has pretty wide distribution, called Shiner Bock. It was a decent dark beer - Dad would definitely like it. It was good paired with my first American burger, a cheeseburger from a pub called J.R. Bentley's - a "British" bar near the UTA campus. They have trivia on Tuesday nights, might have to get some people rounded up one week to go along.

You can almost see that this is a beer, right?

Things really are spread out here! Roads are wide, and everything is set back, and there is a lot of parking. Of course, there needs to be a lot of parking, because there is no way to get anywhere but driving.

Tonight I'm experiencing my first American TV - Honey Boo Boo is currently sniffing the breath of her redneck family to identify which ones they are. Weird, and I don't quite get it - decent analogy for my first 30ish hours of being here.

Last note: I've been pretty lucky with jet lag (knockonwood) - getting up this morning (my first morning) was a little difficult, but I got through my first day (and first big dissection) fine, and feel like I'll be able to sleep tonight, even if a bit late. Didn't take any proper photos today, except for a photo of two of the items available from the salad bar of the cafeteria buffet - healthy AND delicious :P

That colourful thing was like spherical fruit loops covered in melted marshmallows. I could only take one bite.

Heading North to the South

In a week from today I'm heading to Texas to work for 2 months. I'm happy to be going somewhere with new horizons to explore, but I am in the "so much to do, oh god nothing is working, this trip is going to be a disaster, one week to pull all this work together" stage. Everything is very unorganised and up-in-the-air - I am not even sure where I'm staying when I get there. I will be working at some labs at University of Texas, Arlington. That's just about all I know. I don't think that's helping the ease the pre-travel nerves, and my lack of enthusiasm about the trip isn't being helped by knowing what I'll be missing while I'm overseas. I'll miss: Christmas (and work christmas party - lame, but I like them), New Years, my best friend's 30th, my surrogate brother's 20th, and my mum's 60th birthday. Plus a million little things that at the moment I see no upside to missing.



Some things about the place I'll be staying (Arlington, TX):
- Arlington is the largest city in the United States without a public transit system - this is a direct quote from Wikipedia. Not only is it a direct quote, it's from the top section - the HIGHLIGHTS, if you will. - Arilngton is between Dallas and Fort Worth (map link)
- It contains the International Bowling Hall of Fame, Cowboys Stadium (with the two biggest high definition displays in the world - 53 m apiece), and most importantly, a Six Flags theme park- There are two pools at UTA, but the indoors one is only available to students - paying non-members can use the outdoor pool only under supervision of members.- On a related note, it'll be about 2-15 degrees in the month of December.
- Two brothers from Pantera grew up in Arlington
- These are the only interesting things I currently have to say about Arlington.