As I arrive in Chicago and miss my connecting flight I await the shuttle bus to take me to the hotel where I will spend the night before going onto Boise. I feel a mixture of fatigue from an almost 18 hour journey, but excitement as I am in a new place with the possibility of a lot of fun times and adventures ahead. I, the ever optimist think of all the advantages of being able to spend a night in Chicago, and think of the things I can do before my 9 hours are up and I need to catch my connecting flight.
As I worry and frantically search for the correct bus I notice three really tall girls with a big trophy, and as per usual my inquisitiveness takes over and I ask: “Ooooh, what have you girls won there??” It turns out they were the Colorado State Volleyball champions, who had also missed their flight and were staying in the same hotel. I thought to myself this would be a perfect situation to risk being myself, to see if the American people appreciated my version of self amusement.
This little social experiment went better than I had even conceived. I think, my humour is way more suited to Americans than British people. These girls were actually people I would be-friend, they were fun, inappropriate and really brought the banter.
We took some standard photos and continued our banter onto the bus, when a pilot from Guatemala came on, the conversations continued and included him. When he asked me what I was doing, I replied: “I’m the volleyball coach from the UK helping these lot”. Who are these lot he asks: “Oh Colorada State champions.” The girls play along and as we arrive at the hotel I convince him and all his entourage to take a photo with us.
Once the photos with his whole troupe was done, I got onto settling in, and the girls and I went down to the bar/restaurant and got some food. As we were sharing cultural understandings and our appreciation of South Park, they point out to me that a College Basketball player was sat across from us. As I was in America and wanted to appreciate all the randomness and fun I could, I went over to him and convinced him to join us.
He was called Lavoy Allen, and he was going around the country to decide which NBA team to join. It took me about 30 minutes of conversation to realise how big a deal this was, probably as big as him, he was freaking 6 foot 9, but literally the softest spoken gentlemanly character you have ever met. I felt really inappropriate and rude around him, but when he started laughing at my jokes, I was relieved as I wasn’t ruining all the great work James Bond has done to the British character representation in the US.
Finished dinner and went back to the Hotel and had bare random lols with the girls, who were really cool, I got a weekend invite to Colorado, which I gladly accepted until I realised how far it was. Too far, but oh well…
it was awesome hanging out with these girls, and a great way to start the fun times in America…
awesome!
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