we're back and about to head off again!
I'm just about to now start the mammoth task of blogging our trip... I will add under all the short notes I put from the PSP...
BRON
x

LA

We had a short but faaaaaaabulous jaunt in lovely LA. We were met at the airport by the gorgeous Myles Nye (improv guy), after realising that Rachels luggage (2nd year in a row) didn't want to make it to LAX in time for leaving the airport. We headed towards Myles and Laurel's apartment where Rachel got to unload the bottle of Pims we had brought for Laurel. Turned out Myles hadn't mentioned that he'd asked for it to her, so she was excited and thrilled to get it!
After a short sit down we headed into Hollywood to check out the sights. I felt a bit selfish really as I'd seen all this stuff last year so we let Chris decide what he wanted to see. He soon found something to have his photo taken with. He was like a giddy child.
After wandering around Hollywood, and eating more pizza we headed back to find Myles and he took us to the CSz LA arena where we sat in on a private booking. It was great as this was the first time I'd seen Myles in a CSz match! He rocked, as did everyone else of course! And I just LOVE Andy Goldblatt. This lady will be famous one day, if she isn't already...
After this we pretty much all went straight to bed! Rach disapeared with Rick Steadman (don't worry... she was supposed to) to stay up and wait for her case, while Myles, Laurel, Chris and I all went beddy byes.... in the same room... which was intersting... like a big grown up slumber party!
We were poised for another big drive the next day...

BUFFALO - CANADA

Oh yes you read that right! When we were about to start our little jaunt we looked at the map and went OH! Buffalo is RIGHT next to Canada! Land of Chris's birth... we we decided it would be cool to stop off there and he could step foot there once again.
So Randy and Karen met us up at Niagra Falls (we had the privaledge of staying in the Comix Cafe Condo for the night!) where we had a stupidly long wait for a Dennys (pancakes again!!), then we headed off to the Falls. It was an imense sight - I've still not completely taken .
it all in! We walked along the side and all you could hear was the noise and feel the fine water hitting your face. We decided to go on the Maiden of the Mist and get really close. When they say close they mean CLOSE! I thought we were going under the bloody thing! We got soooo wet - but it was worth it, it was amazing to just sit under there and see all this water, this natural beauty.
We said goodbyw to our gracious hosts and headed across the border to Canada... sans Chris.... he decided he wanted to walk over the bridge himself while we drove. We got to the other side about the same time, cos of the smelly traffic that plagued us the whole day....
We were in Canada only long enough for Chris to call his mum. Rachel and I couldn't fathom the map and so ended up back in Buffalo! So we went home from there.
And what a long journey home!
We totted up an impressive 7 states on this last day of travelling alone!

Here come some statistics (some of them shakey and it's really late on Sunday the 30th and I'm off to LA tomorrow)

We travelled over 4,000 miles
We paid $290 in petrol
We sat in a car for a total of 38 hours
Chris drank 17 Root Beers
Rachel got 13 bites - 3 on her face
I ate 12 pancakes
Rachel bought 12 Doughnuts
We bought 3 lbs of fudge
I bought 2 lbs of Liquorice Jelly Bellys

We saw dead at the side of the road:
30 Gophers
21 Birds
17 Rabbits
14 Deer
14 Possums
13 Badgers
13 Skunks
9 Racoons
7 Butterflies
5 Hares
4 Dogs
4 Foxes
4 Chipmunks
3 Hawks
2 Cats
2 Moles
2 Squirrels
2 Rats
1 Mouse
1 Beaver
1 Hornet
1 Owl
1 Eagle
1 Turkey

Rachel used 3 different pens to write that down.

In Canada we saw 1 dead thing that we couldn't identify


Money Spent - stupid amounts
Trip of a lifetime - PRICELESS!

BUFFALO

7 Hours to get there, worth every hour. We arrived to a lovely meal compliments of Randy and Karen and their Comix Cafe. Not got a lot to write about this day to be honest because we were mostly driving.
We drove through the Bronx!
Chris did great at the Club. His first 5 didn't go too well (probably cos he's used to doing much longer nowadays) - but he didn't suck either...
but then he did the gong show too and ripped it!
Good fun.

NEW YORK NEW YORK- Two

WOW!
That is all.




Nooooo.... but it was one of those days that will stick in my mind for ever. Everything is just so BIG! But also it made me realise that people LIVE here, people WORK here... it's not such a big place after all, it's just another city, albeit a bloody huge one!
But then, the size of the place was stunted by one little gap, where so many people went to work, and then didn't go home again.
For some reason I HAD to see the WTC. I saw so many pictures of it, so many images of it crashing to the ground, about the incident, seen a 'conspiricy' film, seen documentarys, I even stayed up all night on 9-11 to see what was going on while talking to Dieter on the phone. I was ready for the hole, for the contruction, even for the horrid heat - but not for the pictures I saw by the children of those that died. I didnt' stand there and cry, but honestly just couldn't fathom what those families (like any that have lost loved ones so suddenly) must have gone through, and are still going through. To know what a horrible end their family members had. And that's what made me so shocked that I had to take a picture of two of the pictures drawn by the children. I coulnd't understand why they would want to draw the tragedy! And seeing that awful event captured in crayon was the most surreal moment of the visit there.

Next we went to Bryant Park to watch BROADWAY IN THE PARK! ROCK! I was excited about this from months back when I got an email from the RENT site to tell me about it :D
Well, we weren't completely disapointed... although I was under the impression that it was going to be the whole show - whereas it was just a review basically... and it wasn't just RENT either it was Tarzan - OK, Wedding Singer - Crap and Hairspray - Looked pretty good. The woman playing Maureen was pants, we all agreed, she was pretty much just phoning it in.
After that, and some Deli food, we headed over to Madison Square Gardens so Chris could see where all those ECW matches were. We also nearly missed the Empire State Building! I was sure it was far too small to be it! But aparantly it was so we got a couple of snaps and decided not to go further towards it.
By this time in the day we were dying, it was so hot and the subway was a sauna! ALTHOUGH the trains were actually air conditioned, which was great... but the platforms were NOT!
We next went on a lovely boat ride around the city where we found out some interesting stuff (see pic at the top). And headed to a pier to get some food. I had a disapointing Pizza, as did Rachel (and we were still suffering from it all the way home!)
After that we decided to head to Central Park, passing the Friends building, which I meant to take some footage of but just didn't - of course I regret that now. We waqlked through strawberry fields, and about 100 mosquitos, saw some scary hippies, and then decided enough was enough and we were too knakkered to go anywhere else. So we headed for the hotel.
We slept long and hard ready for our 7 hour trek the next day to Buffalo!

NEW YORK NEW YORK - One

A less stressful drive in to NY than I expected to be honest! I'd even set up for Chris to be the driver, but it fell to me due to a stop we never took... I was too full with Pancakes (ohhh... so many pancakes consumed on this trip) to stop again.
I HATE driving over bridges. And, as most of you will probably alraedy know, New York City is all islands! So the first thing we came to was a HUGE bridge! We naturally assumed it was the Brooklyn Bridge (it being the only name of a bridge we knew... we later found out it wasn't)... got over that OK then realised it wasn't so bad. WE looked to the right and went, ooo, look at the tall buildings, the looked to the left and went SHIT!!! THERE'S THE STATUE OF LIBERTY!!! That thing is huge! Anyway... we got to the hotel, which was modest, and checked in (and sneaked in the Wareing sucessfully) and just chilled for a while. We didn't really know what to do for the evening then I got a call from the Yank... I thought he wasn't going to call so I'd pretty much put it out of my mind... so we headed into NY City (about an hour and a half of trains to get there from the hotel) and met him in Union Square.
It was great to catch up - bare in mind we were together for nearly two years, lived together for 8 months of that! And we've not spoken for nearly 3 years! So it was a little awkward, but talking comedy always overcomes that.
After leaving Dieter and making him PROMISE to keep in touch we headed to Time Square! It was an amazing sight! If you think London is wow at night time try this place! It was seriously GAZZINGA!
We bought some stuff and headed back... I got us off at the wrong stop too so we were sat on a train for about 20 minutes longer than we needed to be... DOH!
Oh, and remember that itch cream! Well, Rach needed it the most....

just reached DC, a rather uneventful drive which took less than two hours! lol... tomorrow we head for NY, tonight we party.
I will blog properly for all the places we visited upon my return :D



WASHINGTON

This is my THIRD visit to DC! First time to the 2003 tournament, second time to visit friends, mainly the lovely Matt and Liz... and this time to SEE THE SIGHTS (and do a fun CSz workshop).
We stayed with Liz in her ever changing house (still the pink flowers she hates though), and there was air conditioning! YAY!
We got in about 10am and headed pretty much straight out to get brunch down the street. MMmm smoothie lovin'. We then met Matt and headed into the heart of DC via the steaming hot subway (oh, but there are more steaming hot subway trains to come! Watch this space!). First stop was one of the MANY museums on the Mall. We saw Jim Henson puppets including the original Kermit puppet! We saw many other things like Dorothy's red shoes, a big train, a scary nippled Washington - and of course, we tried to find out What Happened To Polio?!
Second was the big pointy thing (Washington Monunment) and from there we could see the White House and the Capital Building. It was SO HOT! So we bailed early, and went home for snoozing and a lovely pasta that Liz and Rachel prepared.
After that we headed off to the new DC space (which is actually the OLD DC space but just made bigger - and dare I say, better).
We workshopped our asses off! And learned a new game and taught a new game. Was great fun. Seeing Chris play Beastie rap is a sight to behold :D Aww, white ass ginger lamb.
We got a fairly early night after Matt and Jim left... the next day Rachel and Chris found that they had been bitten half to death though so on the way to New York we had to stop to buy emergancy itch cream.

RICHMOND - Two

This is where the vacation actually started! After our match the previous ngiht we really needed to rest. We had been going for three days straight. We started by taking a leaisurly swim in the pool. There really is nothing like waking up, and just diving into a pool! It was amazing. The dogs seemed to enjoy us being there too. Christine just left us in her house for the morning then organised two of her players to look after us in the afternoon. First the lovely Matt Wheeler took us to the places where the COOL KIDS hang out! Chris bought me a lovely hat. I had a nice smoothie, but it was sooooo hot we were fading fast. I also found a Ben Folds EP (The Bens) so I bought that! ROCK!
Next the lovely Shannon was our tour guide and she showed us around this rather historic city. She seemed to have an obsession with the train station, and unfortunately was rubbish with the air conditioning, so we nearly died! ;) We saw some wowing stuff, the best being the River James! (see picture above) we even got to dip our feet in it! She also took us to a chocolate shoppe - which was a mistake for me... you know how much weight I've put on recently! Ugh... well, 1 1/2 lbs of fudge later... oh well....
We ended our visit to Richmond with an evening at a German resturant where they served me meat in my potatoes! STUPID PEOPLE! The fact that I had made such a fuss when they asked if I wanted Chicken or anything on my sandwich, oh and the fact I mentioned I was a vegetarian, may have given away the fact that I am, A VEGETARIAN! Dicks. I ate a mouthfull too. Ugh. Anyway... the sandwich was nice but that tainted the end of the night for me a bit. It really winds me up when people are so ignorant. But, what can you do.
Chris tried a load of beer, and liked it. We went to bed after a nice long chat with Christine where we learned some new games too :D

Milwaukee and Indy were great - we are in Richmond and TIIIIRED... just about to play here.. will properly update later
BRON
x



RICHMOND - One

We finally reached Richmond after a bit of stress and an almost straight through 10 hour drive! Yes... that's 10 hours.... longer than a flight from Manchester to Chicago! But it was good. We saw some amazing scenery, well, rachel and I did, Chris was asleep for most of it. We ate lots of crisps.
By the time we got to Richmond it was only anhour til the match so we got in, had a brief sit down, got to chat to new and old friends, then got changed and went on stage...
It was one of the most MENTAL shows I've ever been in! But mental in a good way! I'm so sad I didn't explain my video camera very well to the people recording it for me, we only got the last game on camera. But it was insane. My favourite part came in Blind Line when Rachel got the sentence "I see dead people"... I was her small child at this point in the scene so she just added on the end "...and they tell me when you're bad! SO remember that!"... genius line.
Beastie Rap was a bit of a train wreck, and Shopkeeper began with the ref being hit in the nethers! Very fun, very mad, very fun. I actually managed to guess everything correct in Shopkeeper, which was great seeing as I usually am not a guesser! We won too which is nice :D
After that we headed to Christine's lovely house, met her gorgeous dogs, and husband (yes, he's a catch, she did well) and Chris and some of the CSzers hopped in the pool. YES THIS WOMAN HAS HER OWN POOL! What a lovely way to end the night. Rachel and I paddled. The next day was our rest day... we didn't do much of that ;)

INDIANAPOLIS

Well, this was the first day of our road trip really, with only a one hour drive to Milwaukee we didn't really count that as the beginning... for Indy though, it was a rought start, but at the same time not too bad. 6 hours! (and that's nothing folks keep reading!) When we got there we realised two things a) MapQuest is the shittiest thing EVER and b) we crossed a time zone and therefore got there an hour late! Times zones did not occur to me at all, until we got to Ed's (Indy manager) house and everyone was already eating. For they had laid on a splendid spread for us. We got to meet lots of players, I got to see guys I'd not done for a while and was sad to learn that the guy I ALWAYS get my picture with at tourney wasn't going this year! So, of course, I got my picture then instead. Ed had TINY DOGS! THey were surely working for Satan. And I enjoyed a lovely veggie burger.
But it was very soon time to head to the theatre as we were soooo late ;(
The theatre was lovely, not too big not too small. We warmed up for our two matches.
First match was good fun, sadly we lost, and then Rach and I stole the trophy... it ended up down my pants and Ed was trying to pull it out... aparantly it looked rather rude, especially when it got stuck on my knickers!!, but we had some cracking scenes and the like.. the second match was something else though! Both matches were full, and the second crowd (with Rachel captaining) just loved us, we were constantly in the lead, but not so much that the other team looked poo or anything. It was great. Chris had some great lines. And Rachel's Moose impression brought the house down.
We headed back afterwards to a lovely party, where we finished off the food from the previous night. I went to bed early, but Chris and Rach stayed up. I was doing the next leg and we were setting off at about 6am so I needed z's.

SOmeone from Indy was very kind to put these online!

MILWAUKEE

The match was so much fun.
We started with What Are You Doing which took us a little bit of time to warm into. But Chris warmed us up and we did well, I think we even won that game! We had a great game of Blind Line, and decided to play that in the further matches of our little tour. We also played Meanwhile Elsewhere, but in a different way than we were used to, and subsequently suffered a little from that. THe other scene game we played was moving bodies, where I managed to scare a young lad, bless, and probably nearly got brown bagged for making inaapropriate suggestions about him.... well, he had nice hair. Rachel also made the night by picking up one of the opposite team in Freeze Tag! Brought the house down... and then him.
Everyone was so nice to us, and we had an absolute blast. Chris and Eric bonded, which was great especially as they were both doing the stand up that evening too. I was really proud of Jer as she had done the majority of the organising and it had all seemed to come together. It was packed, and with the exception of a racist man with a colonel sanders moustache, all thwe acts were pretty good. Chris tore the room apart though and even got a little mini standing ovation! What fun. He did some new stuff about rasins, which made me laugh my head off, and aparantly everyone else too :)
I drank far too much mello yello and thought my heart was going to escape out of my chest, I stopped drinking it.
It was great to see Michele again, I love hanging out with her, it's things like that that I miss, I don't really have too many people in the UK I just hang out with, most of them are Chris's friends, but maybe that's my fault and I need to sort that out.
MIssed Mister Hair today, wanted him to be there, he would do great in this country! And the Doogles would be having a blast too :(

We found the wareing then after waiting til 2am for mum decided to go home... she rang just as we got on the freeway! She had got into madison and gotten a taxi home! Sheesh.
Anyway, sleep was had and off we pop now to Madison for the day, then playing in MKE tonight, then our little tour begins :D
BRON
x

i am currently sat in the car at rockford waiting 4 avery late mum and rachel. we hav managed 2 tap in2 the hotels wifi on chris's psp. we may b here some time as we dont know exactly wen they r supposed 2 get in.

We had a lovely evening at the cabin up north. We tried out the wood burning hot tub, made food on the bar-b-q, fished (with no hooks.... lame! :)), hung out and then topped the evening off with wrestling... no, nothing so exciting as what you're thinking, actual wrestling. I went to bed. Got up this morning and headed into the Dells, only to realise that any minute it was going to start pouring with rain, so we decided to leave sharpish. Before we left though Chris had a go on a wheel thing. It hurt his shoulders but made me giggle.
When we got back we hot tailed it into Madsion so Chris could meet Maria and get some coffee to wake up, Maria treated him. We then went to Denny's (which Chris was excited about cos aprantly that's the wrestlers resturant of choice!). Got back and mostly rested and watched Whose Line. Yes, this is an improv packed holiday! Aparantly there's a storm on the way so we'd better bunk in. Which is good cos I'm knakkered. Off to Milwaukee tomorrow first anyway to help out with a workshop and to take notes for myself - I can't help but work on my holidays ;) Rachel and Mum get in tomorrow, and I'm having a money crisis :( so I'm a bit stressed.... what's new?


Oh I forgot... we stopped off at Ho Chunk casino on the way back and I managed to use my system again to get us enough money to pay for our petrol home!!

ROCK ON!

NOOOO!
The ginger lambs suitcase hasn't arrived, making him late for the 6pm bus, making his day longer by another hour... poor baby :(
Will be picking him up about 8.30pm now :(

I found him....

What a lovely day, got to catch up with Maria, who I've not seen for YEARS! GOt to hear all about her late husband, who seemed like quite the charmer. The world is truly missing a bright spark.
We went to visit Mandy who I've not seen for years! And then on to meet Justin at the Karaoke he DJ's in the Dells! SO much fun! I sang 3 songs.... spot the odd one out:

Words - The Monkees
The Funky Gibbon - The Goodies
Don't Speak - No Doubt..

Did you spot it?

WTF is FUnky GIbbon a) doing in the states and b) on karaoke to begin with!
Madness....
Unfortunately when I was singing I was also the only one laughing... actually no, I think Justin was rather amused at the fact that no one knew why and what I was singing!
Anyhoo...
Going to bed, seems I have to get up in the morning and take the cat to the vets :(

last night was FAB! Got to meet up with Jer and Michele which was GREAT! Then watched a rather naughty improv show which was hilarious!! My favourite, yet probably controversial line was "I'm santa with rectal cancer"... yeah, not funny out of context, but there you go....
GOt back about 2.30am... have I written all this already? I feel like I have...
anyway I'm off to drop my dad at the bus, and get some food then I'm off to meet Maria and Mandy and I think we are venturing up to Wisco Dells to meet Justin and do some karaoke!
YAY!
BRON
x

ps - I had waffles!!!

I've arrived!
And to prove it I'm here...
Went straight up to the new house in Black River Falls last night, it was beautiful! A proper picture postcard of a place, have decided that Chris now has no choice and we are going up there Tuesday night! It was stunning, I can't wait to show him. The dog had his little booties on so as not to scratch the floor, bless.
Got back about 3pm and headed almost straight out to the Mall to buy pants, which I now have on. I forgot my green pants.... OR SO I THOUGHT! So I boguht some more, only to find I'd brought them... ahh well... many green pants.
Bit worried about the cat here, his eyes are very yucky :( and he WONT SHUT UP... but maybe that's just what he's like.
Going to have a shower and head to Milwaukee shortly to catch up with Michele, Jer, Brian and anyone else who happens to be there :D
Oh before I go, dad took me to a casino, which was gerat fun! Mainly as I managed to win win win! OK, technically only $10 but still that's enough isn't it? I was well chuffed - I appeared to be able to figure out a system on the poker machine, I'm not joking, I figured it out! I was fail proof! Woohoooooo
BRON
x

What a delightful evening. KT, Darryl and the Wareing visited and we played Guitar Hero, ate curry (I even branched out and had something a little different) and then went on to Karaoke, where I must have sung abouit 5 songs. Only one on my lonesome though. I proved to be very popular, hehe, a whopping 10 people turned up to hang out and say cheerio before I went off to the states. Which I thought was very very nice, admittedly a couple of them were only there for the karaoke. I sang with Dug, Ben, Chris and the Katester! Dug and Darryl may have stole the night though (only just off Daisy who's Copacobana was extreme!) with theire rendidtion of some thing or other that no one knew... but such passion!
Anyhoo... still not really packed anything yet! Done a bulk of stuff, and had a shower but not thought about little things like toiletries and the like, not even dug my hand luggage out yet. Dont' know what it is about this trip, I'm just exhausted already!
See ya soon!
BRON
x

Last night was great!
As everyone said it would be. The kids really pulled it out of the bag and, with the exception of one or two groups (one in particular) did a brilliant job, listened and worked hard! The show ran exactly to the timings I thought it would, which I was quietly chuffed about. There was a rather nasty accident in the interval though unfortunately. Some hijinks ended up with a lot of blood and a visit to castualty. Bizarrely enough the team that lost the player won the whole show! Bless. There is this one girl who I just loved! She reminded me of Emily so much! Even Emily had to agree! hehe. By the way - looking at the pictures I'm not pregnant or anyhting it's just I had four other little minion refs in the show who were wearing all the other shirts so I got the HUGE one! It looked like a bloody dress!!
Just got to wait for the cheque and pay everyone now... but that will have to wait for tomorrow I fly!

Two days til I leave!
However, so much to get done before then! I have a show tonight, tomorrow I'm packing, tidying, sorting out the flat, backing up my computer, going to karaoke. Tonight's the major thing though.
We are doing a CSz show with a group of 11-12 year olds. Some of them have worked really hard, some of them just 'have it', some of them may never have it. It's so hit and miss, I am nervous. Deep down I suppose I know it will go OK, but I'm such a perfectionist I want it to go perfect! We will see. As long as the kids have fun I suppose. I hope they do.
I have got a little prize for the winner and am going to do a Man Of The Match spot prize too I think.
Ben is coming with and doing the sound for me, so that's one less thing to worry about.
Last night was delightful, except I was rather snappy with the afore mentioned person, mostly cos I just can't stand seeing him smoke again! God that infuriates me. Chris says I have to start taking bigger steps back from people about stuff like this, but I just worry so much about them :(
We went to Chris T's new place and it was lovely! Chris and my eyes lit up when we heard that the flat was in our price range, it was gorgeous with a balcony thing and a lovely view... sweeeeeeet.

Finally after two days of asking Ben is hoovering! I'm fed up with being the only one who seems to know that there are more carpets than the living room one in the flat!
Talking of Flats, Chris and I are going to start looking for one of our own soon, I can't wait. I'm really ready to have a proper place to live now, not a student-ville place anymore.
Met up with the moomin today at ASDA where I bought all the cat stuff for while I'm away. Doogles is going to look after them.
Last CSz workshop for the summer yesterday, was good fun. Glad to get a bit of a rest though if I'm honest, and not much of a rest really, off to the states on Friday! Hardly ready at all! Getting there though...
Here are some pics from yesterday