Bosh me, I'm here

Evening.

Peter here. Blogging away from America. Let's start from the beginning...

I work for a firm which consults pharma companies on marketing strategy. I'm doing a 14 week placement in the USA, in a small town about 45 minutes outside Philly. I flew in, after a cheeky 2 hour delay due to ash, on Saturday. There were a few upgrades going, so my American colleague and I (he has not been elevated to work mate status yet, and question if he ever will) decide to see who had better chat and get one. Great. Perfect chance to test out my middle class, Southern English accent on my first American bird-a middle aged check in woman named Zoe. The conversation went as such:

Me: Hello, this ash cloud's a nightmare isn't it, I bet it must have been a nightmare working in the industry a few weeks ago when it was really chucking it out the volcano.
Zoe: Not really, no one was flying
Me: Can't argue with that, at least you got to spend a bit more time in Manchester!
Zoe: Why would I want to be here any longer than I needed to be?
(At this moment, I realise I'm getting no where so go for the kill)
Me: Good point, I can't wait to get to Philly, I hear it's going to be a scorcher this weekend (Pause) So what's the deal with the upgrades? You pick your favourite customers to give them to?
Zoe: No, they are $400 each.
Me: I don't have that.
Zoe: Sorry, only our gold members get free upgrades. Put your bag on the scale.
Me: What do I have to do to be a gold member (gag)
Zoe: Woah that's a heavy bag, you're 3kgs over the limit. That's a $50 charge.
Me: Fuck.

So instead of getting an upgrade, I got charged 50 dollars for wanting to bring a couple extra pairs of pants with me. I should just follow Jack's example and go commando.

Get into my seat, sat next to a huge bloke called Herbert from Atlanta, Georgia. Start chatting to him, turns out to be 63, a health and safety officer for a company headquatered in Doncaster that specialise in producing metal wire for bridges. He was very proud of the fact he did the final health and safety audits for the Millennium Bridge. I couldn't shut him up. He then starts telling me about how he loves J20 and orders crates of 40 at a time as he can't booze (shit lad) cos he boozed so much he had to have a stomach operation (top bloke).

Anyway, 7 painful hours later, land and get picked up in a Merc by a Russian bloke. Turns out to be a freakin sweet ledge. He claimed to know the klichko brothers back home in Ukraine and sparred with one of them, and got knocked out. Reminds me of when me a Jeff sparred and I threw my shoulder. Although it's far more impressive to be knocked out by a world heavy weight title holder than your token black mate. Not taking anything away from you Jeff, but if I had to pick, he edged it on the story front.

Get to my flat in town, which turns out to be pretty decent. Big living room, 2 bedrooms and a balcony. A crate of corona in the fridge and a bottle of gin in the freezer. Jackpot. A lady from work, let's call her Claire, shows me around, the town is pretty quiet, fairly small. Now I try my chat on a real American. She bloody loved it! Giggling here, there and everywhere! Back in the game! Zoe was a grumpy bitch and a bump in the road.

Awake the next morning fairly jet lagged, but realise that Sarries Nothampton's on so find it illegally online after flicking through all 850 TV stations I get without even a mention. Obviously had to follow this up with Leicester Bath and then England Australia. Which actually takes up all my morning and about 3 hours of my afternoon.

I have a bike in my flat so decide to take it for a spin. Jump on, start peddling only to fairly swiftly realised I didn't check to see if the brakes were workin. It hurts a lot, both physically and emotionally, falling off at a fair pace onto the tarmac in front of about 7 of your new neighbours. Anyway, fix the brakes and go on a 24 mile bike ride. What an error. What amazed me the most, was the number of people jogging around the lake I rode around. Where are all the fatties? All I saw were blokes who are in better physical knick than even Robin! And he can bench 120!

Get back and walk into town, find a bar and get myself a bud. Get IDed for the first time in a few years. Was kind of hoping it would be like the scene in Love Actually where I walk through the door and have birds fall all over me. It wasn't, for 2 main reasons. 1) There were no birds 2) That probably doesn't happen in real life.

Strike up a conversation with the bar man, about boozing. He tells me there are over 50 places to by booze within walking distance. Jackpot. A bloke walks in an starts necking the half drunk guiness on the bar next to me. I turn to him and asked if it was his and he hasn't just done what I thought he had. A vaguely witty remark, and a great conversation starter for a newbie in town, if delivered in the cheeky manner which only Perter Hunter can. Not so witty if the bloke doesn't understand your accent and asks you to repeat it 3 times. Alas, I looked like a tit. Anyway, move on to start up my next conversation. This time with a real nice bloke named Phil sitting on my other side. Talk about Philly sports and how he's goes to the baseball all the time. Actually invites me with him, which is fairly odd, and I'm thinking I should be backing down before he gets the wrong idea, but to my relief, he starts talking about tits. Is he a good bloke? Do I want to go to the baseball with him? He whips out his iPhone and shows me photos of girls who go to games. One girl isn't wearing any clothes but has body painted the Philly kit on her. Amazing. Yes Phil, I will go with you. Well, I would of done, until he started trying to be British. Within 5 minutes, the whole bar was trying to copy my accent. I made my excuses and promptly left before I hit someone for asking me to say: "burn the witch at the stake". What the fuck. Burn the witch at the stake? Please, make me at least say something remotely related to everyday life.

I'm two beers deep, so get a bloody pizza. Go for the medium. It was so big, I made a gag at the vaguely hot, but definitely too young girl in the pizza place about how when it says medium, I didn't realise it meant medium sized family. She didn't get it, and told me they don't do refunds. I walk home, watch TV (amazingly the best thing on was a show about touring the country to find the best deep fried chicken-Jeff it's a place called Old Moes in New Orleans)

Get picked up for my first day at work at 8. Meet the team and have to introduce myself about 10 times. Also answered, what soon became the two most annoying questions in the world about 10 times: how was your flight, and are you jet lagged. My answers of Fine and not really, respectively did not appear to be cutting it on the high standards of chat they obviously expect (my reputation goes before me) and most were dismissed back to their offices. Strike up a conversation with the two girls who are taking me out on Thursday night (and staying at mine BOSH) about boozing, and how I love it. Tell them I'm thinking of hitting NYC this weekend, which turned out to be an awesome move. Get back to my desk and she has sent me a link to what she's got planned this weekend.

Her and 4 friends are paying $70 each to go on an all you can drink party boat which cruises around New York bay form 11pm to 3am. I dubious at first, but then I read on to where it says: all guests must have at least one item of clothing on at all times. SOLD. Hunter is going, and his party pants are going with him. Incredible.

Get my car at lunch and take 4 girls from the office for a spin. Get myself a bloody chicken burito and get back to the office where I pretend to be busy by emailing her about the party boat all afternoon.

Go to the local gym this evening. It's actually insane how big some of the guys are here. I consider myself on the stocky side, but now I think I'm actually a bit of a runt. One guy's biceps actually scared me, I had to go to the other side of the gym. Here I found a 50 year old man doing about 1000 sit ups and a 70 year old with bigger guns than me doing about 100 pull ups. I left with my head down.

My first few days in America can be summed up in 1 word: big. Everything is massive: cars, people, voices, egos, pizza and kids. The only thing that is not big is intelligence, and people's tendency to not get sarcasm. Ironically there is a news paper here called The Intelligencer, which I feel sums this up quite nicely.

Till next time.

Peter.