Tuesday 26th August 2008

Another 7:00 rise, another quiet morning.

Lunch is again in the Quadrangle. Today it’s build your own salad day. Having had a lot of vegetarian food recently it’s nice to have some ham cubes and bits of chicken to sprinkle on the rabbit food. To be fair, there’s a good selection of salad stuff which is more appetising than it appears. The star of lunch though is the cookies.

It seems a bit odd to have a cookies with salad but that’s just the way it’s done here. The peanut butter cookies are possibly the greatest cookies I have ever eaten. Slightly crunchy on the bottom, moist in the middle, chunks of peanuts and the most wonderful texture and taste. They are, quite simply, HAMAZING! I add them to my list of “Essential Foods to live on in America” (along with Fruit Loops and Beer).

After lunch we check out the laundry in the basement, raid the free room and chat with Rebekah who wanders over. Then it’s time for another food event.

You may be surprised to learn that despite all the free food we’ve been having there are very few … hmm … how can I put this delicately … there are very few fatties about. Sure, there’s the occasional porker who could clearly do with spending more time at the salad bar, but on the whole the Americans we’ve seen are no lardier than the Brits.

The main meal is shredded pork with barbecue sauce, mac ‘n’ cheese and salad stuffs. There’s a keg of beer from the Sierra Nevada microbrewery which compliments the food rather well.

We spend a fair bit of time chatting with Benji who is a big fan of English comedy, especially Fawlty Towers and anything with Ricky Gervais in it. Benji is from Arizona and he drove to Yale. This took him five nights/six days. America really is quite large.

Mrs G goes back to the apartment as she’s feeling a bit tired. Benji, Rebekah and I head off to Archie Moore’s where some other Yalies are hanging out. We’re joined by Jess from Texas who was driven to Yale by her Dad. He drove for 36 hours with only a two-hour rest along the way. Madness I tell you.

Rebekah decides that she would like to join a secret society. Fortunately for her Yale is home to one of the best known of America’s secret societies: Skull and Bones. You can even find their building on local maps. This seems to me to be somewhat contrary to the spirit of a secret society but Rebekah is undeterred. She hopes to blag her way in by using her English accent to bamboozle the Bonesmen (as they’re known) into believing that she has connections with royalty. I’ll keep you posted with how that works out for her.

There’s a rather rowdy table near to us. Our American friends inform me that they are slightly older, single (probably divorced) women who are known as “Cougars”. The phrase “mutton dressed as lamb” springs to mind. I pity any of the freshers that fall into their claws.

Before leaving I try another American beer called Blue Moon. It’s slightly effervescent and has a bit of a citrus taste to it. Not unpleasant and I will no doubt have a pint or two in the future.

On the walk back we are passed by a flatbed truck which stops not far from us. Rebekah decides to ask the driver if he’s going up the hill so she can get a lift. Benji and I do the chivalrous thing: we put our heads down, keep walking and leave Rebekah to it. The truck driver is not going our way (which is only a few hundred yards away in any case) so Rebekah rejoins us. She explains that the driver seemed somewhat petrified. Having a mad English woman come towards you out of the dark and given reports of shootings in the area I wonder why.