Mr and Mrs Tim McBride-- Vicki got hitched!!

My roommate from Basic Training and good good friend decided to go and get herself hitched and, despite being across an ocean from her, I wasn’t going to miss it for the world! So, the morning after a wild night in London (see previous blog) I was on an airplane to Chicago to witness the union of Victoria Ross and Tim McBride.

Upon landing in Chicago after a long, but on the whole not so bad, flight, I made my way through the Chicago airport. My baggage came quickly, I got to go to through the military line at customs (LOVE IT) and made it to the rental car agency quite easily. I got my car and started driving to Orland Park for the wedding. I almost turned out of the parking lot onto the left side of the road but remembered what country I’m in and, thankfully, made it to Orland Park with no problems. Two observations about my drive to Orland Park:

1. LaGrange is one of the cutest little “Main Street USAs” I’ve seen in a long while. What makes a town English (or European) is the “High Street”, what makes a town Americana is “Main Street”. This one was adorable.

2. Here is a sample of the food places I saw on my way. Welcome to America: Wendy’s, Fatburger, Hooters, Panera, Chick-fil-A, 5 Guys, Dunkin Donuts, Red Robin, Olive Garden, Panda Express, and many more.

I finally arrived at the hotel, checked in, and relaxed until it was time for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. I was going to ride along in the caravan that was going from the hotel to the church but it turns out that Missy and Scarlett (two of the bridesmaids), who were driving Vicki’s car, were in a bit of a fender bender and therefore Vicki had no way to get to the church for the wedding ceremony rehearsal. I came to the rescue and drove Vicki, Collette (other bridesmaids), and Margaret (basically Vicki’s mom) to the church for the rehearsal. While there I also served as photographer and took tons of pictures on Vicki’s camera throughout the rehearsal. I must also include the fact that I MET BRIAN MCBRIDE!!!!! Here I will go into a bit of a side story about Vicki and Tim and my hopes for their relationship; you can skip ahead to the next paragraph if you don’t care.

So in late 2006 (I think, maybe early 2007) I received an email from Vicki with a picture of Brian McBride in a match with the US National team. The email simply asked “Do you know who this is?” Now, being the ridiculous US football fan that I am, I of course knew who he was and proceeded to tell her all about him- the teams he had played for, his strengths on the pitch, etc. Wondering why she was asking, I asked her why she cared and her response was “Well, you know that guy I just started dating? Tim?” “Yeah.” I replied. “Well,” she responded “his name is Tim McBride.” That was when I freaked out, learning that Tim was Brian’s younger brother. From that point on I have never rooted for a successful relationship more than I did for that one! I basically wanted them to get married solely so that I could meet Brian McBride at the wedding. Fast forward 3 years.

While we were waiting for Scarlett and Missy to arrive at the church, Vicki introduced me to Brian, telling him the story of when Vicki found out who Tim’s brother was and had no idea who he was. Brian thought it was pretty funny and we talked a little bit about Oxford and living in England and it was pretty amazing..... I played it cool though and carried on the conversation like a normal human being but it was pretty amazing to get to chat with one of the greatest footballers in US history. After the rehearsal we headed over to Traverso’s Pizza, a pizza joint where Tim worked in high school, and had some great pizza dinner, tried not to cry as Tim and Vicki gave their little speeches, and tried not to fall asleep on the 4 hours of sleep I was working on in the last 48 hours or so. After dinner we headed back to the hotel and the girls hung out a bit longer, chatting and gossiping and eating oreos. What a total girlie thing to do. Finally I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer so I went to bed, passing out completely the second my head hit the pillow.

Despite being absolutely exhausted, the jetlag did hit me and so I was up and wide awake at 6 the next morning. At least that gave me time to get in a workout (using my new TRX in my hotel room) and shower before heading out to eat some breakfast (PANERA) and get my wedding gift (yeah, kinda last minute but I didn’t want to have to deal with buying it in the states). I then watched the West Ham-Man City game (yeah, back in the states and I’m STILL watching football) and just relaxed in the hotel until lunchtime (5 Guys) before changing for the wedding.

I then headed over to the church for the actual wedding ceremony which was beautiful and moving. Vicki looked absolutely GORGEOUS in her dress and I loved the look on Tim’s face as he watched her walk down the aisle.

It was Catholic ceremony so there were times during which I was a bit lost, but on the whole I enjoyed the ceremony and was so happy I got to see it. After the ceremony I returned to the hotel and waited for the cocktail hour and reception (which were held in the hotel’s conference centre) and while waiting watched the end of the Army-Navy football game.



At the reception I sat with Katie Murrell (who I met while working as Group Commander my last semester at the Academy) and Kyle Rainwaters (who was in my 4 degree squadron) and enjoyed the dinner and dessert and dancing. Vicki then made it her mission (which no prompting by me whatsoever) to get me a photo with Brian which, of course, I didn’t object to.


I won the prize for having traveled the farthest for the wedding (coming from England sort of helped my case) and got a bottle of champagne for my efforts.
Despite being exhausted and having an early flight to get to, I of course stayed for the whole reception, before saying goodbye to Tim and Vicki and getting some sleep before driving back to the airport the next morning.

Woke up to a small blanket of snow and very icy roads and, considering I haven’t driven much in the last year and not at all in the snow since early 2009, I was pretty nervous about the drive to the airport. I left really early to make sure I got there in time and, thankfully, made it back without a hitch. Also thankfully, my flight was one of few that wasn’t cancelled out of Chicago and so I got in the air and on my way to California with no problems whatsoever. Its soooooo good to be home, especially considering the fact that it was 81F (27C) when I landed with a beautiful SoCal sun!

Varsity Rugby

The day before I went home for the holidays was spent in London, first at the Varsity Rugby match and then the Varsity Ball. Every year, most of the sport teams at Oxford and Cambridge play each other in what is arguably the biggest game of the year for both squads. Some events are larger than others (like rugby, rowing, and mens football) whereas most of the competitions take place on one day during Hilary term. The rugby match is one of the biggest Varsity Matches of the year (if not the biggest) and has seen countless internationals and professional rugby players take part. This year (and most years I’m aware of) the match was at Twickenham, the national rugby stadium. After watching some rugby internationals on tv this fall I realized that it would be good fun to attend the Varsity this year and so I was lucky enough to find a group of guys who were going that I could go along with. I didn’t really know what to expect (apart from a game and a ball and probably some alcohol) and wasn’t really made any more aware or knowledgeable by Jack’s explanation of “just you wait, lots, and I mean lots, of banter.” I’ve been here well over a year and I’m still not 100% sure on the definition of banter but I knew it would be fun and exciting and headache inducing all at the same time.

We (being a big group of guys I play football with at the gym and my football teammate Bonnie) met at the Oxford train station to take the train to Twickenham. We sat in First Class (there were no more seats so we figured, why not) and despite the train being stopped for about 30 minutes due to an “incident” up the line, we made it to Twickenham with plenty of time to spare before kickoff. After eating the traditional “Dirty Burger” outside the stadium and buying the traditional (there were lots of traditions it turns out) pint of Guinness once inside, we took our seats and waited for the game to start.

It was really cold but the sun was out which made the weather slightly more bearable. After upsetting Oxford last year, Cambridge was favoured to win again this year and so we weren’t too optimistic about the result. After the team introductions and the national anthem (I can’t help but sing My Country Tis of Thee whenever God Save the Queen is played) the game began. Oxford got off to a great start, pulling out to a 15-0 lead before Cambridge kicked a penalty just before the half to bring the score to 15-3 at the break. During halftime, the groundscrew went out to clean/touch up the pitch, and they were wearing Santa Claus and elf costumes. That was fun and festive.

Cambridge put up a good fight in the second half, giving Oxford some trouble and forcing some good defensive play but Oxford stayed strong and scored a late try to pull away for a final score of 21-10. The highlight for many in the crowd (though not for me, I assure you) was when a Cambridge student decided to invade the pitch wearing nothing but a Cambridge scarf. When I say nothing, I mean nothing. The psycho must have been freezing! The only amusing thing about it was the fact that nobody chased him or anything. Basically, he ran around on the pitch a bit, did a few funny poses, everyone just stared at him (security and players included) and once he realized how cold it was or how naked he was, he just ran over to the security guys to allow them to escort him off the pitch. Most interesting pitch invasion I’ve ever seen.

A couple random observations about the game:

-The stadium, which holds about 80,000 spectators, wasn’t anywhere near full but there were still 30,000 people there, a huge number for a Uni event in the UK. It was an interesting contrast, however, to the ridiculous number of people that attend college football in the states every week. This is the biggest game of the year across the entire country, and yet schools like Nebraska or Michigan or Texas turn out huge numbers of fans weekly. Different world...

-Rugby is an interesting game. What would inspire somebody to run at another person at full speed, crashing into them with full force, with no form of protection whatsoever? Now, I know there is skill involved in rugby; I know there is an immense amount of athleticism involved; however, I will fight you daily, and twice on Sunday, to convince you that football is a much more beautiful and entertaining game than rugby. And I know for a fact that Tommy, Jack, and Danny would all have my back on that front.

-The replacements (substitutes) warm up in the end-zones (or whatever they’re called in rugby), while the game is going on. That was interesting to see. Also interesting, the fact that when players go down injured, the game continues around them and the medical staff comes onto the field to treat them as the game is going on. Imagine how much less diving and injury-faking would happen in football if they did that!

After the match we joined the massive crowd heading back into London. Tommy got on a different train than the rest of us (oh Tommy) but all in all we made it back to the centre of London to High Street Kensington where most of the guys were staying in a hotel. We got some dinner at the Whole Foods Food Court (pretty surprised by the fact that there is a Whole Foods in London) and then Bonnie and I headed over to Austin and Ben’s house on Russell Square to get changed for the ball. I would now like to discuss something that must surely be a first (and quite possibly last) in my life. Let us reflect on the fact that:

a) Bonnie borrowed my dress and my shoes because she didn’t have any appropriate ones of her own

b) I was responsible for Bonnie’s hair and makeup for the evening

c) I was responsible for my own hair and makeup for the evening

I think it’s official, ladies and gentlemen, I am, in fact, a girl. I know there were some serious doubts there for a while but hey, what do you know! Anyways, I digress, we got ready and bundled up for our trip back across London to the crew’s hotel where we had a few drinks before heading over to the club for the ball.

The ball was held at Amika which, apparently, is actually a pretty big deal club where lots of important and famous people go. It was a bit small for the number of people they would be expecting and the doormen were pretty ridiculous about letting people in if they had been drinking. A few of the girls who joined our group during the match were not allowed in because the doormen considered them to be too drunk. Thankfully we had no such problem getting in. Those who know me well know that I’m not really big club/dance person but I actually had a really good time. Hanging out with Bonnie and Tommy and Danny was awesome, despite the ridiculous steep prices for drinks in the club, and before we even knew it, it was 3 am and the realization that I had to be on an international flight 6 hours later dawned on me quite heavily.... Bonnie and I took a taxi back to Ben and Austin’s (where they were actually still awake), packed up our stuff, and got ready to leave the next morning. By the time we were done with that, I had 1 hr 40 min to sleep and I’ve never been so angry when my alarm went off in the morning.

Despite the small amount of sleep, we got up and out of the house with no problems. The tube to Paddington and train to Heathrow went without a hitch and finally, exhausted and either hung over or still tipsy (not quite sure) I made it to my gate ready for a long and not so pleasant flight to Chicago. Much to my disappointment I learned that the audio on all of the “A” seats wasn’t working and wouldn’t be working for the entirety of the flight. What seat was I in? 29A. Oh well, so much for movies!! I slept in 20-30 minute increments throughout the flight, getting about 2 hours sleep total, and landed in Chicago absolutely exhausted but excited to see Vicki and have a fun time in Chicago. Please see next blog for fun wedding stories!

Best of both worlds: Christmas and Hanukkah in Ox

It’s the holiday season, my favorite time of year, and before I go home to celebrate the holidays with my family, I got the joy of celebrating them with my England family. First was Thanksgiving (see previous blog) but then time for Christmas and Hanukkah!

First on tap was the OUWAFC Christmas Dinner. Soupy was kind enough to arrange for it to be at Café Coco’s, where she works, and we had a great two course dinner, wine, and cheap cocktails all evening long. Take that, a group of football girls, and Christmas themed fancy dress, and you’re obviously in for a lovely evening. There were varying degrees of effort (or lack thereof) on costumes, as to be expected. In the interest of full disclosure I will admit that I put about zero effort in, but my gingerbread pajamas (oh wait, pyjamas) were comfortable and that’s all I care about. My favorites had to be Soupy (as a very fat snowman) and Juice as a homemade star.

We had a few drinks before dinner and then sat down at the table to eat. When everyone arrived, I gave a Christmas toast (why do I always wind up giving the toast for football dinners??) and we broke the Christmas crackers. Inside mine was a horrible joke (so bad that I don’t even remember it) and an eye patch. So bizarre, but whatever. Then after dinner, while waiting for dessert, Liz decided to bring a West Point tradition to OUWAFC. At the West Point Christmas Dinner it is tradition to sing the 12 Days of Christmas, led by the senior-ranking member of the group. Sine I am a)the acting President while Kim is away b) the Blues captain and c) the highest ranking military member of the group, there was no way for me to get out of leading the song. So I did. It was fun. Or not.

Anyways, the food was really good, and after dinner, we just hung out in the lounge/bar area. Ben, the amazing bartender, introduced us to many new and exciting cocktails and we stayed at Coco’s until they were literally mopping the floors around our feet.

All in all, it wasn’t a crazy evening, no real shenanigans ensued, but it was a great night with an amazing group of girls and I had a really great time.

Not content to celebrate just one holiday, on Saturday night I hosted a Hanukkah party at my place and introduced my friends to their first ever Hanukkah. No Hanukkah is complete without latkes and sufganiyot and so I decided to attempt them both. I loaded up on potatoes and oil and got down to work. I borrowed a food processer from Neal in the hopes that it would make life easier in terms of grating the potatoes.

However, the food processor grated them too finely, which was not what I needed to the consistency of the latkes, and therefore I was forced to grate all the potatoes by hand. Lots of them. It was quite the little workout for my arms (after already going to the gym that morning and carrying crates of alcohol back to my house in the afternoon). Grating the potatoes by hand took about twice as long as I had anticipated so I started frying up the latkes much later than I intended to, but oh well.

Laktes are basically glorified hashbrowns. Grated potoes, onions, eggs, flower, and salt are mixed together and put into pattyshapes and dropped in hot oil. Cooked until they crisp up, they form nice little potato pancakes. It took a little over an hour to cook all of them up (making 4-5 at a time in two different frying pans), but all in all I made about 3 platesful (probably somewhere between 50-60 latkes). Everyone was starving by the time they were finished but before we ate we needed to light the candles.

I said a few words about the story of Hanukkah (sort of incoherently really) and then had Neal light the candles while I sang the blessing. I love singing but mostly in the house when I’m by myself. I don’t like singing in front of people but it had to be done! After the blessing and Maotzur (the song my family always sings directly after the blessing is sung) it was time to eat!! Latkes are usually eaten with sour cream, applesauce, or both, and they were as amazing as ever! After all the time it took to cook them it was crazy to see how quickly they were eaten, but I guess that means they were good and people liked them!!

After the latkes, I went back to the kitchen to make the sufganiyot, but not before teaching everyone how to play dreidel. I left them to their own dreidel playing devices only to find out that the guys had decided to destroy 4000 years of cultural and religious tradition by creating the game “War Dreidel” where instead of just playing the game, they made it into a competitive, combative, violent game. Boys will be boys....

While making the sufganiyot we had a bit of a scare considering that one of the ingredients in the directions (baking powder) was not listed in the list of ingredients. Since I just went down the list to make sure I had everything, I didn’t realize that I needed baking powder and didn’t have any. After a bit of frantic freaking out and a quick iChat call to my mother, I remembered that I do have baking soda which can be used as a baking powder substitute. I finished up the batter (the stirring of which made for another little arm workout) and heated up the oil for those as well. Sufganiyot are basically donuts, make with buttermilk, flower, sugar, and some vanilla. You take the batter and drop little blobs into a pot of hot oil where they fry up quite nicely. Its really hard to drop them in without them becoming completely deformed, but Soupy and Bonnie helped me and were expert sufganiyot makers. Again, those were extremely well received and eaten as soon as they were presented from the kitchen.

Thankfully, this marked the end of my responsibility for the evening and it was nice to just sit and relax with my friends, watch a bit of football (both kinds) and just chill. It got to be pretty late by the time everyone left but it was a great evening and a great reminder of the amazing people I’ve met here in Oxford.

However, my house smells very very strongly of oil and fried potatoes which is kinda nasty. Other than that, successful evening and lovely holiday week. Coming up this week is a lot of fun, so keep an eye on the blog for whats coming:

Thursday: Varsity Rugby match in London and Varsity Ball afterwards

Friday: Fly to Chicago, drive to Orland Park, Vicki’s rehearsal dinner (where I get to meet Brian McBride and, of course, see the best Basic Roomie EVER)

Saturday: Vicki’s wedding

Sunday: Fly home!!

Should be a good time!

2nd Annual OUWAFC Thanksgiving Extravaganza!!

Despite being on crutches nursing a 2 week old broken ankle, last year I thought it'd be a good idea to attempt a Thanksgiving Dinner for the entire football team (Blues and Furies). All in all it turned out really well, so well in fact that I was asked if I would be holding another dinner this year. That was enough for me to agree and so, here we have the OUWAFC Thanksgiving Feast Mark II.

Expecting anywhere between 18 and 20 people, I used the trusty Butterball.com (because I couldn't call the Butterball hotline) to estimate how much turkey I would need. While they told me that I would need over 30 pounds of turkey, I figured 24 would be enough and so I got 2 5kg birds (for a total of about 24 pounds) with enough time to defrost before needed to be cooked.

Short segue here: last year, Brian was in charge of providing the turkeys for the Marshall Scholars Thanksgiving dinner. They needed a lot of turkeys but Brian didn't realize that the turkeys he bought on base would be frozen. So, on the day of the dinner, what did he do? Well, he put the turkeys (8 in all) in my BATHTUB to attempt to quickly defrost them. This goes against everything that any cook will ever tell you about defrosting meat but it worked out and everyone who ate the dinner is still alive today so it was ok. However, this was a lesson to all involved (mainly Brian and Ben and me by proxy) to make sure that your birds are defrosted come Thanksgiving Day.

Anyways, back to this year. Turkey day arrived and, because we would be missing both football training and circuits that evening and cannot possibly go a day without a workout, Bonnie and I went to the gym in the morning to get a workout in before I had to start cooking and cleaning (and before we ate ourselves silly at dinner time). After a great TRX workout (thank you Matt for introducing me to that lovely apparatus), I headed home to start prepping. First job on the docket was cleaning the kitchen. My kitchen was kind of a mess with lots of random stuff lying around so I needed to clean it before I starting prepping a massive bird and before people came over. It was amazing what was on my kitchen table. My favorite find was a box of 24 cans of Bud and Strongbow leftover from the US-England game for the World Cup. They had been outside for gameday and had been left out there for quite a while afterwards. If you want to know what happens to beer and cider thats been left out in alternating hot and cold weather....well, lets just say it tastes disgusting!! I finally got the kitchen cleaned, just in time to get the first bird prepped and in the oven.

I got all the innards out of the first turkey (not really my favorite part) and seasoned it with just a little salt and pepper. I don't cook turkeys with stuffing inside so just to get a bit of flavor I put some celery, carrots, and onions inside the turkey before putting it in the oven. Considering each turkey takes about 3 hours and I had 2 to do, I needed to get them in the oven early so that we wouldn't be waiting on them that evening.

Turkey #1 in the oven

One turkey #1 was in the oven it was time to start cleaning the rest of the house. I vacuumed the hallway and living room (I really dislike vacuuming) and got all the junk that has been on my living room table for a while put away. Its amazing how much cleaner the place looked with all the clutter removed! When Bonnie came into my house she didn't even recognize it! I wish I had photographed it because otherwise people won't believe me that it was actually! Once I finished cleaning it was time to prep the second bird and get it in the oven as well. The cleaning took way less time than I imagined it would so once the second turkey was done and cooking, I wound up having nothing more to do to prep!

Turkey #2 ready to go

While I was afraid I'd just have to actually do some engineering work while I was waiting, it turned out that I was saved by the fact that Sky Sports plays NFL football on Thanksgiving!! I was glad because its not really Thanksgiving if there's no American football, so I watched the Patriots-Lions game for a while until/as people arrived.

Once everyone had arrived and all the foot was ready we could eat. Our Thanksgiving feast consisted of salad, green beans, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, corn, rolls, and obviously turkey! Before everyone went after the food and were lost to a turkey oblivion, I said a few words about what Thanksgiving is all about (giving thanks and being with friends and loved ones), said grace, and then we all dug in! Its amazing how SILENT it gets once food goes around...

Our feast all laid out and ready to be eaten

The turkey pan, post my attempts at carving. I think I got most of the meat. If not, its not like we were short at all...
The only time this group is ever quiet: when they're eating!

NFL football (and Air Force flag) in the background. Very American.

No Thanksgiving meal is complete without pumpkin pies!! Now, when I say that, I usually mean a pie or two so that everyone can get their fill and isn't stuck wanting more pie. However, when you give Elizabeth Betterbed a task, she will not only complete it, but complete it with gusto. So, when she agreed to bring pumpkin pie, she apparently thought that meant bringing, no kidding, 12 pumpkin pies! 12!!! Below is just a fraction of the pies that she brought. With the addition of the 2 pies brought by the other person responsible for pie (Katia), we had a total of 14 pumpkin pies. For 18 people. Yeah..... I have about 6 full pies left if anyone wants some!

Despite the massive amount of them, the pies were in fact delicious and everyone ate their fill of pie, ice cream, and whipped cream. And then ate some more because I made them. All in all, a great meal shared with great friends and only a minor turkey/food coma to contend with afterwards.

After dinner, at the request of Juice, we played Apples to Apples, a game I brought from home that apparently is a big hit with my teammates.
The most contentious moment in the evening came when a brawl almost broke out over the use of a card concerning Winston Churchill. I won't name names here but a certain German teammate decided that Winston Churchill should be used as an example of "undesirable" and when her partner, a certain American military officer (not me, just to be clear) found out she freaked out and started yelling about the way that he was a hero who saved helped save freedom as we know it and by calling him undesirable, said German teammate was going against the entirety of Western civilization. It was a bit strained for a while there, I'm just glad I didn't have to break up any fights!


All in all I think that the 2nd Annual (if it happens more than once its allowed to be called annual) OUWAFC Thanksgiving meal was a success and (if I'm still here ala Ian Helms) next Thanksgiving I will probably do it all over again!!

Updates and the beauty of Liverpool

I realize that my last blog post was way back in the end of August when I got back from Morocco. Granted, I haven’t had too much to report on since then apart from work but I guess its good to update even when I don’t have exciting surf trips to go on and reflect upon afterwards.

So when I got back from Morocco the first and only thing on the agenda was to get my Transfer Report done. This report is basically a halfway progress report that needs to be done after your first year of graduate work. It tends to be more tailored to DPhil students and is used as a way to determine if you’ve made adequate progress in your first year and if you have a viable plan for the remaining two years of your degree so that you will finish a good and valid DPhil project in three years. However, because I am just a Masters student, I only have 2 years and my requirements for my project differ significantly from that of a DPhil student. That being said, my Supervisor didn’t even realize I needed to do a Transfer until I mentioned it to him a few month ago. So yeah, that's where I stood. The transfer is a 60 page report highlighting what you did in the past year and what you plan on doing for the rest of your degree. Basically it meant doing a lot of reading and researching on the basics of model predictive control (what my project is about) and trying to write it up in such a way that it seemed like I knew what I was talking about. That seemed to be easier said than done. Anyways, I finished the report and turned it in on September 1 and since then have just sort of been waiting in limbo. I need to “defend” the report with an oral examination in front of my supervisors and two other members of the engineering department but considering my supervisor was in Greece until last week I still don’t have a date and am waiting to find out when that defense will be. Gotta love waiting....

While I’ve waited I’ve pretty much done one thing and one thing only: football! Well, working out and football. I’m playing for Mansfield Road which is an Oxford city team that plays teams from all over the south of England. We have a great squad with a lot of really fun players and we’re coached by a good friend of mine which is fun as well. Somehow or another, it still really surprises me, I have become a bit of a goalscorer. I have 5 goals and 3 assists through the first 4 games which has been fun. We’re 3-1-1 in a league we were promoted into so we’re doing quite well. Its been a lot of fun and I know that its my last year of playing football consistently so it’s nice to get to play as much as I can.

Speaking of football, last weekend I recrossed off one of my England to do list items: see a game at Anfield. Neal and I had been talking about seeing a Liverpool game for a while and we wanted to get it in before Ian left the country. Unfortunately he didn’t get to come with us but I’ll get to that point shortly. So as a member of the Liverpool FC All Red club (basically a fanclub type thing) I have priority access to tickets and can purchase them a week before they go onsale to the general public. Unfortunately I can only buy 1 but since we had lots of people who wanted to go to the game, I bought my 1 ticket the week early and then bought 7 more (the number I had been told to buy) the next week. Unfortunately, the week before the game, all my careful planning and counting went down the drain and people began dropping out. Brian couldn’t make it from Belfast because it was too expensive, Ian was really really really really really busy working on his thesis (poor guy) and the two guys from Croughton who wanted to come couldn’t. So basically I was stuck with £120 worth of tickets that needed to find owners! They were graciously accepted by Bonnie and Liz, two of my teammates, and Bradford and Austin, two of the new USAFA guys in England. So, now that our band of 8 was complete (including Kim and Simon), we could head to Liverpool!

Friday night I took the train up with Neal and Bradford and when we arrived in Liverpool we checked into our hotel down on the Albert Dock and then went straight to Cafe Sports England, the restaurant/sports bar owned by Jamie Carragher. We didn’t realize how crowded it would be though and wound up not getting a table because we didn’t have a reservation.

We just had a drink instead and then got food elsewhere before meeting up with Kim and Simon at a tiny pub right by the central train station. This pub was definitely a “local” pub and we were the youngest people in there by about 35 years! We waited there just long enough for Austin to get in from London and then moved on to several different pubs and clubs around Liverpool. We lost Neal sometime in the course of the evening but somehow he managed to find his way back to the hotel. Luckily Simon, Kim and I were down in the lobby having a drink and so I was able to let Neal in considering the security guys asking him for his room number were having none of Neal’s usually effective Southern charm and persuasiveness. Neal usually gets what he wants...these Scousers were having none of it! It took a lot to get Neal to go to sleep (lots of Okie Dokies were involved) and finally the only thing that would get Neal to shut up (after running up and down the hallways) was Bradford telling him that he was praying. Prayer really does solve all manner of problems!!

We woke up the next morning (some people worse for wear than others...) and went to the Beatles Museum at the Albert Dock. It was really cool to see the progression of the Beatles and to get a better understanding of what made them go from happy-go-lucky I Wanna Hold Your Hand to crazy drug induced Strawberry Fields and I am the Walrus. A couple interesting tidbits that I learned about the Beatles that I didn’t know before/knew a little about but not really enough to speak confidently on:

-The Beatles’ first tour outside of the UK was in Hamburg and it was even before they really got big in England

-The 5^th Beatle, Stu Sutcliffe, was a childhood friend of John's and was really only in the band because of that. That is why, when he fell in love with a girl in Hamburg and left the band, nobody was really all that upset or angry about it. That woman, however (can’t remember her name) was the inspiration for the famous mop haircuts the Beatles were known for in their early days (before they went all crazy and drug induced)

-The original drummer of the band, Pete Best, was really popular with the fans in Liverpool and was often considered the best looking member of the band. When the new manager, Brian Epstein, came in and replaced him with Ringo Starr, fans of the band and of Pete especially protested outside of the Cavern Club, the club in Liverpool where the Beatles really made a name for themselves. This club still exists and is still used to launch the careers of Merseyside musicians.

-Brian Epstein, the manager, was extremely extremely influential to the Beatles. His first act of business was to clean up the band’s image. One way he did this was to introduce suits to the band, giving them a more cleancut look.

-The Beatles' first single released, Love Me Do, did well in the charts, reaching #17, despite the fact that Beatles fans in Liverpool boycotted the album, refusing to buy it out of fear that the band would become so popular that they would leave Liverpool. Oops... I don’t think it worked too well...

-Brain Epstein was not only influential in the Beatle’s when he was alive but his death also hit the band extremely hard. When he died in 1967, at the young age of 33, the band had started to experiment with drugs and with eastern religion and philosophy. However upon his shocking and untimely passing, the band sought solace in these other arenas and their music really reflected that.

-The Magical Mystery Tour movie premiered on BBC on Boxing Day but was an absolute flop on its first showing. Despite this it was shown again early in the new year, this time in colour, and it was better received by the British public.

-John Lennon was a really really weird dude. He had lots of issues with US Immigration and had trouble earning his green card, facing the threat of deportation. Because of this, he decided to declare the independence of the state of Nutopia, a world with no borders and no laws. When Ford became President he didn’t want to bother with the battle with Lennon and overturned the deportation order.

After the Beatles museum we took a cab up to Anfield and met up with Si, Kim, Bonnie, and Liz at a pub by the stadium to watch the Chelsea-Man City match. The pub was packed to the brim with Liverpool fans and it was the start of our “matchday” experience. We then headed into the stadium and were going to try to trade seats with someone near where everyone else was sitting so that I could sit with them, but it didn’t quite work so I would up sitting on my own. I was glad, however, because not only was my seat closer and more central, it was also in the middle of a group of true Liverpool supporters. My observations of the match and the Anfield experience are:

-A sweet old man who has been coming to Liverpool games for 30 years and is super friendly before kickoff becomes a COMPLETELY different person once the whistle blows. And profanity coming out of said sweet old man’s mouth is something else.

-Steve Bruce has a big fat head. Well, according to the entirety of the Anfield crowd he does.

-There may be such a thing as Karma considering Liverpool lost to Sunderland last year because a beach-ball was thrown on the pitch and interfered with play. This goal should not have counted but it did and Liverpool went on to lose the game. This year, the Sunderland players had something to complain about when Fernando Torres jumped on a questionable error by the Sunderland defense. Sunderland had a free kick in their own half and the defender set the ball down in the spot marked by the referee as if about to take the kick. Instead of actually taking the kick, he flicked the ball backwards towards his goalkeeper, seemingly intending for the goalkeeper to take the kick instead. However, since he touched the ball with his feet, it was in play and Torres jumped on it before sending the ball to Kuyt who put it in the back of the net. The Sunderland players were irate, Steve Bruce (and his big fat head) was very angry, but the goal rightfully stood and Liverpool took the lead.

-They sadly surrendered that lead, first with a penalty kick and second when Glen Johnson completely lost his mark at the back post, but they pulled level late in the second half when Torres and Gerrard combined for the first time pretty much all game.

-On that note, when Stevie and Fern play together, magic happens. When they don’t, its ugly. Can we not figure this out please Liverpool? Know your strengths and GO WITH THEM.

-English football fans are unlike any other group of fans I know because they are loyal to their teams but they will also hold their teams accountable more than any other group of supporters. The choicest words were reserved not for Steve Bruce, not for the Sunderland players, but for the Liverpool players when they weren’t performing. The Anfield faithful will not blindly applaud their team when they are playing like crap, and they have no qualms about calling their players out.

-I lied about the choice words—those were actually reserved for the referees. Wow, do football supporters enjoy abusing referees. Granted, the referee was pretty atrocious, but still, such language.

-If you speak with an American accent (especially in Liverpool where they HATE their American owners), you better know what you’re talking about and have some concrete opinions and knowledge of the club, or you better keep your mouth shut. The accent is defo a negative when trying to fit in at Anfield.

-I really really really want to come to a game and sit on the Kop End!

-Finally, despite the fact that Liverpool is currently playing very poorly and happens to be sitting awfully close to the bottom of the league table, I will always love them and always stand by them. You’ll Never Walk Alone.

Well, I just found out the date of my Transfer Viva. It is in 12 days and so I should probably get down to the business of truly preparing for that. So enough with the blogging and onto the prepping. Woohoo Viva!!!