In addition to crickets and chair scrapping we also have someone practicing their flamenco on a tiled surface while wearing high heels. Mrs G is turning homicidal and muttering about chainsaws. Our body clocks wake us at 4:00 am and we drift in and out of sleep until getting up at 6:30.
Although we haven’t had the most restful of nights I feel like we’re starting to get into the swing of things. Have a cuppa, read a bit, bowl of Fruit Loops, read some more, another cuppa, snooze, cuppa, Nintendo DS. Life in America is good.
Eventually we decide to go and visit the grocery store. Having ascertained the correct driveway to start from and the correct hill to go down we confidently make our way along Canner Street. We arrive at the grocery store to find that it is closed all day Sunday.
Undaunted, we head down Orange Street until we reach Romeo and Ceasar’s Deli. Thankfully it is open. This used to be Romeo and Giuseppe’s but apparently there was an acrimonious dispute between the owners (which I like to imagine involved a horse’s head under a duvet) and Giuseppe joined forces with the rival Nica’s Market further along Orange. We order a root beer, steak pizzaiola sub and some rosemary & olive oil chips (crisps) and sit in the shade for a while under one of their yellow umbrellas.
We wander a bit further along Orange, taking note of places to eat and places to shop (liquor store), before making our way back to Romeo and Ceasar’s for another drink (Sprite) and to pick up some essential supplies: coffee beans (which we grind ourselves); coffee filters; Doctor Pepper’s; cookies; pizza.
Back at the apartment we continue our integration into the American way of life by drinking more tea, reading and having an afternoon nap.
During the course of the afternoon Rebekah and Ellen (the other two exchange students from Westcott House, Cambridge, UK) turn up so we brew them some tea and eat the remains of the rosemary & olive oil chips while catching up.
We take a look at Rebekah’s apartment which is smaller than ours but much better equipped. So we pinch her vacuum cleaner, bleach, a table and TV. I can only get two channels tuned in. One is showing the World Little League Baseball final between Hawaii and Mexico (yay) and the other a rather fuzzy-pictured Everybody Hates Chris. I won’t be watching much TV. I will, however, be buying an Xbox 360 so that we can watch DVDs and listen to music. I may even play a game on occasion although I’m not really known for that.
While on our wanderings earlier in the day we spotted a place called Archie Moore’s. As we are now experts at finding our way around the area we head there for a meal with Ellen and Rebekah. It’s a real slice of Americana. The walls are covered in Coca-Cola signs, baseball is showing on the TV, our waitress is unbelievably friendly and you can put weight on just by looking at the menu.
The house speciality is Buffalo Wings which is chicken legs coated in Buffalo Sauce (named after the place rather than the animal) and served with bleu cheese dip. We order a small platter to share as a starter. For the main course I have Grilled Pastrami Reuben: thinly sliced grilled pastrami served with Russian dressing, sauerkraut and Swiss cheese on grilled rye. It is wonderful but I can only manage to eat half of it (plus the fries and pickle) so the waitress packs up the remains to go.
Having been informed by the Chief of Police that a student was robbed and shot (in the hand) a few days ago I ask the waitress is she thinks the area is safe enough to walk in at night. She breezily assures us that she will be happily jogging around the area when her shift finishes. We therefore cheerily make our way back to the apartments. Besides, Mrs G and I are from Nottingham so gun crime is really rather passé as far as we’re concerned.
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