Yet more football and cockroaches....

This post has an over riding theme, which is football (again). The cockroach only comes in at the end, so hang in there if you want some more skin crawling bug antics. Firstly, my new experience of this week was that I attended my first ever home football game at USC's William Brice Stadium, which was very exciting. Everyone had told me in advance what a big deal "game day" is, but I hadn't realised it was to such an extent. At about 2pm on Saturday afternoon, us girls all started getting into our black dresses and doing our hair - for games here, a lot of the girls go quite formal in black dresses with garnet accessories (our school colours) and wear nice make up and shoes. We accessorised with tasteful USC logo temporary facial tattoos and cracked open the vodka and orange - even for me, being fully made up, dressed in evening wear and drinking vodka at 2pm on a Saturday was a little strange! After a few (too many) we headed off to go tail-gating on the shuttle bus the university runs to cart all us rowdy students to the stadium about twenty minutes away. Tail gating is a massive deal here, and is nothing like we have in England. Everyone parks up their massive SUVs, gets out the bbqs and six packs of beer and all sit around outside their open car boot doors, drinking, eating meat, watching the pre-game commentary on TVs in their boots, and just generally being very, very american. And usually drunk. And wearing a lot of black and garnet. By no means is this just students; rather the opposite. Some of the best tail gating spots in the car park outside the stadium can cost $10,000 a season - even by London standards, that is one hell of a car park fee! A lot of the crowd are alumni, families and just locals who all come along for the ride. College football here is just as popular as league football, and the entire area support the local university team, paying a lot of money to buy tickets for the 80,000 seater stadium. Once we'd battled our way in, past all the fast food and drunken college students and settled into our seats on the "bleachers" I began to realise just how vast our stadium is. To put it in context; the O2 arena in London holds about 20,000. Wembley holds 90,000. The Gamecocks's stadium is huge. And it was a sea of garnet and black, all cheering and chanting and smelling of beer and sweat and excitement. The cheerleaders were fresh out of Bring It On, complete with midriff exposing tops, massive white bows in their hair and painfully excited smiles. I'm not going to lie - when the game was actually in play, I had no idea what was going on. I just cheered when everyone else did, and still didn't grasp the concept of why the teams keep swapping over every five minutes. But it was still so so much fun - the Alma Mater (USC anthem) and National Anthem were sung - both of which I knew not one word of, there was the school's massive marching band at half time (who practise outside our Halls every Sunday morning, so I already knew their repertoire inside out), and a girl twirling flaming batons. The Navy cadets from the military base on campus (yes, apparently it's fine for military bases to be on university campuses here) unrolled a huge American flag, and it was all very red blooded and patriotic and good fun. Unfortunately we ended up leaving just after half time, as the combination of painful shoes, heat, screaming and early-afternoon drinking had got to us all, so we bailed and went to Bojangles for buckets of diet Coke and piles of fries.

Remaining on the topic of football, we went to watch an away game at a house party last week in the Woodlands, which is a local student housing complex - though nothing like ones in Britain, bear in mind. These ones have an on-site gym, outdoor pool, tanning parlour, wide screen tvs and bare wood floors in the apartments. As expected, most of us got bored of watching a game we had no understanding of ,so we all ended up reclining in the super sized hammocks by the pool. Unfortunately, the sophisticated and relaxing evening turned into havoc when the boys arrived. Men's minds are obviously wired in such a way that this is their thought process; Water. Jump in. Throw everyone who looks vaguely dry in with you. So one minute, we were all made up, well groomed and wearing cute, well thought out, outfits. The next, there was a lot of mascara running and rusting jewellery. Still, it was more amusing than being inside drinking warm beer. Luckily we left approximately three minutes before the police came and busted the party. Somehow, I think we may have looked a little suspect had we attempted to blend in with the general, non-partying population. "Honestly Officer, this freak raincloud came out of nowhere and soaked us. Pool? I ain't seen no pool....."

We had another run in with football when our first all girls flag football match came around last week. Suffice to say, we weren't the best team USC has seen. To the extent that the referee had to tell us what the rules were...and how to play the game. But we had a lot of fun, and we worked as a team which is what counts, right? So what if the only contact I had with the ball is when Anna threw it in my direction and it hit me right on my left cheekbone? I burnt a LOT of calories running away from the ball, and from the scary, serious freshman girls on the other team. Unfortunately for my team, I was injured this week - they could hardly cope without such an esteemed athlete as myself. Ahem. My injury was caused by trying out another American tradition (I'm pretty much a US citizen now, I swear, I've done all the initiations), a "batting cage" i.e. one of those machines which fire baseballs at you and you hit them (in theory), as if you're playing the actual game. Racheal and I were treated to this fun, but ultimately painful, experience at a classy establishment named "Frankie's Fun Park", where I also experienced my first game of crazy golf. The only crazy thing about it was how aggressive we were at hitting the golf ball, resulting in losing four and only completing 11 holes... then stealing another few balls because they were fuchsia and really quite pretty for such a mundane object. We also had a near death experience on go karts. Racheal passed her driving test the day before leaving for America. The go karts went very fast. There was a strong smell of petrol. And no helmets. And some arrogant man behind us kept bumping our kart. This time, I'm not even exaggerating much when I say near death. Apart from this exciting new experiences, the last couple of weeks have been dominated by a sudden and unwelcome influx of study. I wrote the first "response paper" of my life ( a bizarre concept, in which the general instruction is to read an essay, then say what you think/feel about it. In two pages. Hmm.), and took my first ever one-word-answer Politics exam. The marking system here is crazy -I got 86% in this test, which is a B+. For any British university student, you know this is completely different from our system.... where are my three hour essay exams, thirds, two ones, firsts and 40% pass mark now huh?! Finally; the cockroach. Wow, these things are getting waaaay too frequent an occurrence in my life. Basically, there was a cockroach in my room this morning. It was dead. When I got back from class a few hours later, it's legs were moving. It was definitely, definitely dead this morning. But it didn't just move a little bit, then die again. It got more enthusiastic and started trying to flip over. You can probably imagine my reaction. I'm ashamed to admit it, due to my (obviously flimsy) feminist ideology, but I did get a heroic man to deal with the miracle cockroach. Seriously, SINCE WHEN DO COCKROACHES COME BACK TO LIFE?! Only in America.

Road tripping

So, the elusive Labor (sic) Day weekend arrives. Elusive because no one can tell me why we get a day off classes for it, and what it actually is - but it's a holiday, so I ain't complaining! The plan was for a small group of girls to travel down to Charleston for a relaxing weekend. As with most plans, the plan didn't go to plan. So we ended up in Charleston with about forty other international students. The town didn't know what had hit it. Anna's mum lent Anna her car for our transport - I say "car", it was practically a mini bus. It would have fitted eight girls in pretty comfortably, had we not all brought massive suitcases for a two night stay. Yes, we DID need three going out dresses and a few pairs of shoes each, honestly. As it was, it was a bit of a squeeze, with Anna's rear vision seriously impaired by the tower of bags, and the passengers all getting numb feet from lack of leg room. But it was a funny trip, enhanced by crisps, Cosmo and lots of songs on the radio we could sing loudly along to. As we approached our hostel where we would be staying for the next two nights, we began to believe the people who had warned us it was in the ghetto. It was in the ghetto. Lucy handily pointed out the fact that we were very close to a hospital, funeral parlour and florist should one of us get shot by our sketchy neighbours. Awesome. Thanks to our combined map-reading skills (or lack of them), we managed to pull up in front of a very dodgy looking grimy house, whose curtains appear to have been slashed by a knife, thinking, (incorrectly, as it turned out,) it was our hostel. Luckily Anna double checked the address just as Rachael raised her fist to knock, asking to check in.... Cue screams of "Get back in the car. GET BACK IN THE CAR! WE'RE GOING TO GET SHOT!!". Not an over reaction at all. The hostel turned out to be far more pleasant than that, yet distinctly hippy-ish, and also supplied us with mixed sex dormitories. The staff happily introduced a 35 year old New Yorker male as our "new roomie!!". Suffice to say, we all crashed in one all-girls dorm. Initially, all was going well hostel-wise until about 12pm on the second night of our stay. As I and three others of the party were getting ready for bed, a massive cockroach scuttled across the bedroom floor. Predictably, chaos ensued. Jordan couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry, but there were tears involved. Anna hysterically took photos of both us and the cause of all the fuss, as I clung for dear life, inexplicably, onto her t shirt sleeve, balanced on a very old and rickety bed. At the time, what we did next was logical, rational and sensible. Looking back, we may have over-reacted somewhat. We packed all our bags, screaming/crying/laughing all the way, keeping an eye out for the roach now making it's way across the ceiling. We then put all our bags into the car boot, and preceded to discuss what would be a more sensible option; to sleep in the car with the seats reclined, or to make the three hour drive home now, to avoid sleeping in cockroach room. We were seriously considering both, Luckily, Rachael rationalised the situation slightly with the suggestion we all sleep in the other room we booked; but we spent all night feeling imaginary cockroaches crawling all over our legs, and on a constant adrenaline high.

Our occupations during the daytime were slightly less dramatic. We spent a day on the beach topping up our tans, before hitting the nightclubs of Charleston, after which we enjoyed the biggest pizza I have ever encountered - and possibly the best I've ever found for sale at 3 30am. The next day we had a wander around Charleston, looking at the horse and carriage rides, visiting the market and purchasing tacky tourist keyrings, and browsing at the very up-market shops - Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Saks Fifth Avenue etc etc. Unfortunately the student loan didn't quite stretch far enough to make substantial purchases. Then the three of us who are proud of our geeky sides made a trip to Fort Sumter, where the first shot of the Civil War was fired. Located about half an hour's boat ride from Charleston harbour, it was seized by Confederate forces after a day of bombardment, and remained in Southern hands throughout the War, despite many Union attempts to reclaim it. There are many other surrounding Forts you can see from the island, including Fort Johnson, and the Union fort three miles away. Some of the Civil War cannons are still in place, though the walls are now only one storey high due to bombing during the Civil War. We also saw the original American Flag which was initially flown by the Federal Army, then torn up by the Confederate gunfire in 1861 and replaced by the Rebel flag. We also visited the Charleston Battery, on the harbour, where the Confederates shot at Fort Sumter whilst in Union hands, and later at the nearby Union fort. The Confederate Forts where integral in the blockade-running which enabled the South to survive as long as it did during the war, as they protected to an extent the shipping routes into Charleston.

We also walked along Rainbow Road, where all the biggest and most impressive ante-bellum houses are built - and decided which ones we wanted to live in the most! I have never seen houses anywhere near this big, and with beautiful white pillars and clapboard. One evening, we went to 'Bubba Gump's Shrimp Co.' diner, a Forrest Gump themed diner - apparently based on the Shrimp Company in the film, serving really good seafood on newspaper, and selling Gump-based memorabilia. One of my roomies managed to spend $50 on Forrest Gump orientated clothing. That's dedication. The walls were covered with stills from the film, and the tables had famous quotations written on them. The cocktail menu was on a pingpong bat, and you alerted the waitress's attention by changing your sign to either "Run, Forrest, Run", or "Stop, Forrest, Stop". We returned on Monday morning, after a brief stint in the factory outlet stores for some, and a viewing of The Time Traveller's Wife at the "movie theatre" for me (seriously emotionally draining but amazing for those who care), exhausted, sunburnt and thoroughly sick of each other's hysterical, immature and dramatic company. An amazing weekend. :)

"Football" is NOT rugby.....

Last night I was treated to one of America's most cherished institutions - American football. Or, as the natives insist I have to call it, just "football" (despite the fact everyone knows in that game you actually play with your feet, and certainly don't where shoulder pads and helmets.) It was the first game of our season, and oddly enough screened on ESPN - apparently college football's a big deal here....Due to an outbreak of respiratory infections/potential swine flu in my flat, we decided to stay in and watch The Game on our TV. Unfortunately for the first fifteen minutes or so, it was just me, Rachael and Lucy (a Scot and a Aussie) cheering the Gamecocks on. After a heated debate as to which team was actually ours ("We're garnet right? Isn't that the same as red?" "But the team in white has cocks on their helmets! *Snigger*"), we settled that discussion, only to be totally confused as to what the players where actually doing - apparently just jumping on top of each other, then leaving the pitch. Wikipedia did little to enlighten us as to what was actually happening, but fortunately the Americans arrived soon after to attempt to explain just why they feel it's necessary to have FIFTY TWO players, and what a "turn around" is. Still, I wasn't that enlightened, but then we ordered cookies online to be delivered (yes, you can do that here....) so I was happy. It turned out to be really quite exciting, once I'd worked out it was nearly like rugby and learnt just to cheer when everyone else did. We won, which is always nice, and apparently quite rare.

Continuing in the vein of american sport, my rooomie Anna decided it would be a good idea for us girls to form an all-girls Flag Football team to play in the USC league. This seemed a great idea at the time - good exercise, a laugh, excuse to make t shirts saying "Global Cocks" on - but after we had registered, we actually began to think about the logistics. Unfortunately, the Aussies had thought "football" meant "rugby" (that's what they call it in Austraila.... why? why??) so had willingly signed up. Us Brits just went with the flow, not really acknowledging the fact that we have quite literally no idea what the rules, aim of the game, or terms of American football is. So now USC has an international team for Flag Football who may actually be the worst American football players they have ever seen... as most likely, we will just play rugby. Could be amusing, anyway... as long as none of our limbs get broken by some die-hard female football players. Gah. I've also joined the "Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance" on the advice of my Woman's Studies professor, which looks so much fun - the first meeting consisted of eating Oreos and deciding what design we want on our Soc t shirts. But we also do fundraising for Columbia's Women's Shelter, including a "tongue in cheek" bake sale (feminists....baking....yeah?) where each customer is charged depending on their earning capacity i.e. white males pay the most, and black women the least. They also organise counter-protests at Pro Life marches, have feminist film festivals and run free women's self-defence classes. After watching "Marley and Me", Anna and I also intend to volunteer at the puppy sanctuary - where you basically get to sit around cuddling all the adorable puppies. The plan is to steal one and make it our room pet, though seeing as we've already had one pet death (Jordan's Bader fighting fish, Napoleon), maybe not.

"Fall" is apparently on it's way, as the humidity has pretty much disappeared, which is such a relief, mainly to my hair. It's still bright blue sky every day though, and warm enough to wear shorts and flipflops, so if this is autumn I'm not complaining! We've already had some scary storms though, which are apparently just normal here - sheet lightening, monsoon rain and deafening thunder. Memorably, Jordan told Rachael and I "I don't think this one will turn into a tornado", just as we drove into the storm on our way to a restaurant. Thanks.

I'm experiencing my first road trip this weekend, to Charleston, as it's Labor (sic.) Day - no one actually knows what it's celebrating, but it's a day off classes so all good. Although all the girls I'm going with insist they're spending the whole weekend on the beach and shopping, I am nourishing my inner geek with trips to old plantations and museums , even if I do the ultimate loser thing and go on my own!