Suburbia, Stripes, Stoli

Next day, to ease our hangovers, G took me to Haddonfield, the area in New Jersey where he went to school. We visited a wholesome country Diner for afternoon brunch and drove through leafy suburbia in all its autumnal glory. I saw the America I've seen in nice films with Tom Hanks and Steve Martin. And Michael Myers. We passed the house used in the start of 'Halloween' (the whole film was based here in Haddonfield.)

We stopped off at Tank's house as we waited for him to come home from work. We stood in the backyard shooting the breeze about life and travel and the previous night and more through boredom than anything, G picked up a rake and started moving the yellow autumn leaves into piles by the driveway. After and hour of patting next door's dogs, trying to hit sticks with the rake and waiting for Tank to turn up, G called him and said "where the hell are you?" "At my House" "We're at your house" "Ah. Oh, you must be at my old house..." Leaving 3 piles of raked leaves in the now half finished garden, we drove off pretty bloody sharply!

We started on the beer at Tank's house before moving onto a bar to meet Matt and Murphy who'd driven up from DC, to the music hall where The White Stripes were playing. Me, G and Murphy all bought tickets outside for way less than the box office wanted, then, using some amateur ticket forgery managed to blag ourselves into the Moshpit right in front of the stage! At $7 a pint, we all decided it was more than moral to sneak in as much beer as possible in everyway we could. Luckily, hoody sweaters are the clothes version of the Millennium Falcon.

The White Stripes Rocked. Even though there’s only two of them, they filled the arena with a sound better than some bands three times their size. And Meg White is great. She’s got a butter face* but there’s something about a bird in a tight white top going at it on a drum kit that made every guy in there (including me) want to go buy a wedding ring. Especially when the only other thing to look at was Jack White's Jonathan Creek meets Nosferatu mug.

+ =

We went for many drinks at Connie Mac's and I got a UGTR baseball cap from someone. Its a brand someone had started up and was giving out freebies. You have to say it in a full on Philly/New Jersey accent to get the full You Got That Right!

Later, after I found out why 'Tank' is called 'Tank' and after getting into an apparently 'humourous' bitch slapping contest with him, we retired back to M-dog's hotel room for nightcap.

I was getting into the whole NJ look with my baseball cap and hoody, but I just couldn't pull off the words with my English accent. I can stretch to calling Gareth 'G' or 'G-Man' but calling Matt 'M-dog' was pushing it. I got a nickname myself though which is pretty logical and seemed to fit the NJ accent. From now on, you can call me Lucky.

We all got pretty wasted on Fruity Stolli-Busch cocktails and it wasn't long before the hotel asked us to turn the music down from M-dog's Mac. To their credit, neither G nor M resorted to saying 'Do you know who my Father is?'

Even though the music quietened we still had much drunken fun the likes of which you'd expect from the 23rd floor balcony... And obviously I also passed on my knowledge of what looks great buzzing in a microwave!

Respect is due to the G-Man who passed out with his hand still on the box of beers.

This is the view from our room. The big building at the end of the road is the one with the steps from Rocky.

My last day and night in Philly/NJ was spent asleep, shopping (with Murphy and Matt) stopping in at various places for the odd beer or two, more cocktails at the hotel, then heading out once we got back to DC. At about midnight at a bar somewhere, I was knackered. I ordered a beer to sit and sip, I couldn't take anymore booze. G clocked it and realising what was happening immediately ordered me vodka martini from his mate behind the bar.

This is about 4am. And about 4 hrs before I had to catch my bus to New York City. In theory I should've been asleep, but then if I did that, then I wouldn't have learnt how to play backgammon.

I knew my trip to DC would be an educational one.

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