October 31, 2007 by Andy.

Let’s start by reading an article from the CBS Associated Press.

CBS Article

If you want to see the incident then here is a link to the video.

taser video

You can tell by the title that justice has been carried out in this case.

The first question that comes to mind after reading this story and then actually seeing the incident is…”How free is our Freedom of Speech?” Once that initial question opens the door and runs through it, the rest of the questions run into your mind like beers 3 through 10 run into your mouth on Friday night.

We all understand that we have a right to “Freedom of Speech” as part of being an American. But…how far does this right extend? Does it extend unrestrained allowing us to say anything we want at any time at any place? The obvious answer to that is no, and by establishing that, we have a maximum boundary on our right to free speech. How far do we need to regress before we actually figure out what we can say and what we cannot say?

Can we walk into our place of work and start saying whatever we want? Probably not, unless you are self employed. Can we walk into a business and say whatever we want? Probably not, unless the business encourages that. Can we go to our school, a place that is supposedly open to ideas and new arguments? Probably not, unless you want to spend an afternoon with the principal or campus police. Can you simply go out to the street and start espousing your views? Maybe, but you better have a permit and not be saying anything that will upset anyone…so probably not. Can you use an amplifier to project your message? Well…once again you have to have a permit, a designated space, and it must not be done so with the involvement of a sound truck…so probably not. Where can we go, and what can we say?

Can you go to a political rally and question your leadership? Well…if you watch the video and read the story then apparently not. The invent of the taser also tells us otherwise. Man…maybe you can send a letter that expresses your views to a politician? You can do this, but you have to pay to send the letter; so in essence, there is a restraint on that method as well. The concept of free speech seems to be very narrow after you ask all of these questions….doesn’t it? There are a many questions but none of them really have any concrete answers that give us an ultimate limit on our right to “free speech.” So what does define our right?

Is our right to “free speech” limited simply to saying things that people agree with? Are we estopped from saying things that people don’t like? If you ask the student who questioned John Kerry, you probably would get a resounding yes. Did he have the right to stand before a Congressman and former Presidential candidate and ask him a non scripted question? According to the campus police he didn’t. Doesn’t the article say it all…no charges will be filed. Whew…we can all breath a sigh of relief because a potential threat to national security was avoided. It only took one objectionable question and 50,000 volts of electricity to prevent charges and keep the peace from being disturbed. And what would those charges have been? Disturbing the peace…maybe? Was he really disturbing the peace, or was he simply asking a tough question? Was his “disturbing the peace” really disturbing, or was it an attempt to shed some light on a system that has helped a few but hurt many more? Was his “disturbing the peace” an attempt to clarify some confusion regarding the democratic process? Was it an attempt to exercise his right to free speech? Was it a way of holding an elected representative accountable? Was he speaking for half of the nation or simply interrupting a scripted performance? It is a good thing that nobody has to answer these questions because they are tough, and we should all be grateful for those officers protecting the peace.

Despite the many other issues that this scenario raises (abuse of power, excessive force, forced conformity, restraint on opposing views, etc.), we can stand proudly on the fact that our rights, national security, and most importantly peace were preserved on that day. But wait…might a little disturbance in the peace be good? No way. It is not possible for a person or a group of people to say something unpopular and have any type of good result…right? We can all be assured that our Founding Fathers knew that things such as womens’ suffrage and a movement toward racial equality would simply result from an evolving nation…can’t we? I mean no one had to stand up and ask some tough questions or say something that was unpopular did they? Not that I am comparing the student from the article with Martin Luther King, but he is representative of a value that we hold dear as Americans…the right to free speech. His questions represent our ability to seek answers from those we choose to represent us. He represents a minority that will not stand silent and complacent, but who seek to grow, evolve, and improve. And for this he was tased. The proper remedy for this situation is not only to decline to file charges due to the fact that no crime was committed, but it would be to allow that student to sit down with Mr. Kerry and ask every question that came into his mind. Instead of restricting our right to free speech with a taser, why not allow the tough questions to be asked? Why not seek out deficiencies in our system so that we can then seek solutions? Why not stand on the idea of free speech in hopes that something good will come from it? Or maybe we should just give everyone a taser to protect the peace.

Just a thought

Andy Out

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September 25, 2007 by Andy.

Ever since coming back I have had the pleasure of being an American. I see many driven people push themselves to endless feats; I see many people push themselves so hard in fact that all they know is work, what they have to do, work, and tired. This is our America. It is what we know. It is what we live, breath, preach to our children, strive for, embody as our life goal, and most importantly it is what shapes our view of the rest of the world. We as Americans know that this has to be the way that the rest of the world wants to live; they have to want our cars, our health-care, our land, our big houses, our communication, our religion, our freedom, and most of all our money. It just has to be that way. I mean why would anyone not want these things?…Right!?!?

Well…yesterday I had opportunity to see this concept at its finest. The President of Iran came spoke at Colombia University (one of the most prestigious universities in America), and yes it is the same Iran that we know is enriching uranium to try to blow up everyone with weapons of mass destruction. Wait…are they really? When questioned, the Iranian President said something about supplying power to all of its citizens….nah…they want to blow us up; I mean America and only a few other countries are the only ones capable enough of having nuclear power without using it to blow people and places up…right.?.?

I don’t like where this is going…let me start over.

We assume that everyone wants what we have and live our lives. This has led us to the almost unquestioned belief, held by Americans, that we are right. Well here is my question…are we really? What happens when we actually try and see the world through the eyes of someone that is not American, and no the English do not count because they live in almost a parallel universe. What about those people in the Middle East that we KNOW want to kill us all…do they really? Would the average every day person walking down the street in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, or Kuwait really want to kill us? Ask nearly any American and I would almost be willing to bet that there would be some form of answer to the positive, and even I cannot say that this would be a false answer…but why is that? Would these people really be willing to just kill any old American that they met? Do they not need some sort of provocation? Why do they hate freedom so much? Of course they don’t want to kill us, and of course they don’t hate freedom. The answer to all of these questions, at least after i put my limited knowledge and logic to it, kind of made me sit back and wonder…was the President of Iran really the devil and hate monger that we absolutely knew him to be? Maybe, but might he be saying something else that we refuse to hear?…Probably.

One of the foundation shaking questions that I was asked repeatedly on my journey was, “Why does America want to make war?” That is a difficult question to say the least. How do you answer that…what would you say if some person came up to you and asked you with an honest curiosity absent any hostility…what would you say? The easy answers are: (1) we want you to be free, (2) we are fighting terrorism, and (3) we were attacked first and we are just defending our country. In our eyes all of these are the fervent reasons that we continue to be a presence in the Middle East, but wait…have we mistaken our resolve? What does our freedom mean to the people of the Middle East? Does our freedom that entails wal-mart, McDonalds, big corporations, high divorce rates, more police and people in jail (both literally and percentage of population), high rates of debt, and an updated idea of manifest destiny serve as the answer for these people? Does our worry, our angst, our self-hatred, our greed, and callousness act as a means of freeing these people from their intolerable oppression? If the tables were turned and a country were making its presence more than felt here in the US, and through that presence they were telling us that everything we believed was in essence wrong…what would the sentiment be? Would we feel as if we were being invaded by a culture that we really wanted no part of? Is our idea of freedom universal? Should Wal-Mart be the backbone of every economy? The answer does not seem so clear to me.

America is by far and away the most advanced country in the world, but because we are…does that mean that our ways are appropriate for everyone else? Are we an example of someone sitting in a really nice castle, waving our castle flag, screaming about how we have the nicest castle in the kingdom, but no one really ever bothers to look at other castles or venture outside the castle walls? Are we comfortably ignorant? Do we really care? Are we a modern day Roman or Mongolian Empire? Is it possible that maybe another castle has a better bathroom, better designed entry-way, or even a different way of meeting the needs of its residents? Would it be disrespectful to invite another King into our castle, chastise him before he addressed the people, accuse him of wrongly living differently than we do, publicly laugh at him when he responds to questions, and then tell him that he is trying to obliterate us from the face of the planet? To this the Iranian President responded by saying that in Iran if a speaker was invited into the country he would be shown respect by those that invited him; he said that their version of freedom was different than ours; and he said that he had no desire to create nuclear weapons. Instead of asking further about why he believed this, or what they considered freedom to be, the audience and the national media (Anderson Cooper especially) simply told him that he was wrong and that we were right. Are we really? What is the effect of that on a global scale? How does it make America look to invite a foreign leader to our country and the publicly laugh at him? I sincerely would hope that it would make him and his people like us and our leaders more, but I have to cut off my Unicorn-like optimism on this issue, because I know what would happen if the tables were reversed.

Having had the opportunity to sit down with people from Turkey and other countries that predominantly share the beliefs of Iran, I learned several things. They do not want to hurt anyone (including us)…they just don’t want us to kill them; they don’t really want our “free society”; they are not aggressive unless provoked, and what we see as aggressive defense of our country actually has had the opposite effect of the one so desired; they just want to be left alone without western influence; they really don’t even care what we believe; and most importantly, they would leave us alone if we stopped using our military to force freedom on them.

The other day I was watching Saving Private Ryan, arguable one of the best war movies ever to be made, but as I sat there watching the opening scene when the American troops were storming the Beaches of Normandy, I was overcome with absolute shock. For the first time in my life I was actually able to put myself in the shoes of one of those soldiers, whom I have the UTMOST RESPECT FOR. Our soldiers are our protectors, and they deserve all of the support that we as a nation can put behind them, but can you imagine what it would do to the already frail psyche of a person to watch a fellow soldier be blown up? For the life of me, I could not imagine why, such an advanced species would use all its knowledge to create things that would do such harm to others. Why would humanity do that to each other? And then it occurred to me…we have an entire genre devoted to war movies. That in and of itself speaks volumes about American culture. Is that something that would seem appealing to other cultures? Granted none of these are new ideas, but they are my realizations that have occurred from traveling outside the castle walls. Part of living in the moment is appreciating the beauty of all the things that surround you and keeping an open mind to the way others see things, not simply sticking your fingers in your ears and shaking your head vehemently like the four-year-old that refuses to listen because he knows he is right.

America is truly the greatest nation in the world….for you and me. It has the potential to solve nearly any problem without ever firing a single shot. I am happy to wake up every single morning and live the life that I do; however, my life is not right for everyone else. Maybe there are people that do some things better than I do. Maybe there are people that have a better outlook on life than I do. But the worst thing that I could ever do, would be to simply close myself off and say that I do it best and everyone else should live as I do. Open your eyes and see what surrounds you. Open your ears and listen to what others are telling you. Open your heart and embrace the good that presents itself before you. Most importantly, open your mind and think about what life best suits you and those around you. Who is really right here anyway?

Just a thought or two,

Andy Out

P.S. for those of you who are still interested, feel free to continue to give to our charities, for that is one way you can truly help.

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August 22, 2007 by Andy.

Well folks…here is the skinny on the other half of awesomeness.

I left UB the day after ariving to set out on a 3 day flying excursion to reach the homeland. My flight schedule consisted of the following:

1. International flight on Air China from Chengis Kahn airport in UB to Beijing, China (approx. 2.5 hours);

2. Domestic flight from Beijing, China to Shanghi (approx. 3 hours) (had to fly to the other airport in Shanghi because my original flight no longer existed);

3. Bus across Shanghi to Pudong airport (approx. 1.5 hours);
Side note and this is a very sad tale. While making a phone call in Pudong Airport my back pack was stolen…yes it was stolen…it had my laptop in it…sad…my laptop had all of our pics on it…more sad. (I hope that Ryan does not kill me…but if he does it is probably justified.) I also slept in Pudong airport that night on a bench.

4. International Flight on Virgin Atlantic to London Heathrow (approx. 11 hours) (brilliant flight and brillaint airline…they gave me socks for goodness sake);

5. International Flight from Heathrow to JFK in New York (approx. 6 hours) (slept in JFK…the bench in Shanghi was more comfortable);

6. Domestic Flight from JFK to DFW on American (approx. 3 hours) (turbulence a plenty, but it was relatively soothing after 10,000 miles in the shockless charriot);

7. Domestic Flight from Love Field in Dallas (after lunch with my family) to Lubbock (approx. 1 hour);

8. Shower and sleep.

After 3 days of flying and traveling 3/4 the way around the world, I can say that every minute of the trip was worth it. Now you have had a taste of awesomeness.

The loss of the pictures was very unfortunate, and those are the only things that I cannot replace, but all that really means is that I will have to work twice as hard to describe the beauty and awe that some of these places inspired. I guess it means that we will have to do it all over again. Here’s to being awesome.

Andy Out.

P.S. Ryan send me an address to mail the keys…i found them in the pocket of my jeans that were in my bag.

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August 2, 2007 by Andy.

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Well you have heard from Ryan, and now it is my turn to give you a little insight about this little adventue…this is a long one so you might want to take your shoes and socks off, get a nice cold glass of iced tea, put your reading glassses on and settle in for a tale of two wandering souls in search of the almighty paradise called Mongolia.

First let me tell you about the drive that Ryan refuses to speak of, and there is a good reason for that I might add. We were driving from Varna, Bulgaria, to Istanbul, Turkey, which on the map was only a 6 hour drive…something that we welcomed with open arms after having been on previous drives 12+ hours. Anyway, the map did not mention that there was a huge mountain range between Bulgaria and Turkey…and when i say huge i mean like 75 kilometeres of mountain driving. Ryan took this leg, and proceeded to scare the absolute shit out of me by driving what seemed like a million miles per hour all over this mountain. (It was really only like 35 or 40, but it seemed like a million.) It was also dark, without any signs, and no other cars were on the road at all. Oh yeah, and the road had not been maintianed so it was like playing “avoid the pothole that will snap your car in half.” Sounds like fun I know, but I really don’t reccomend it to anyone. We finally arrived in Turkey a little shaken and emotionally drained (mountain speed driving seems to do that to a person).

Fast forward a little…(Ryan already told you about some of Istanbul). We woke up the next day at 2pm, we had arrived in Istanbul at 5:30am, in search of a place to purchase some much need goods. We went to the 6 story mall where we found nothing that we needed and were unable to bargain with any of the shop owners. What did we do you ask…we then headed to the Grand Bazzar, a place where we knew that we could haggle over prices. We emerged victoriously and then made the decision to head straight to Baku, Azerbaijan traveling along the coast of Turkey. So after taking pictures with the Hilton staff and our car we set out. Let me tell you, Turkey is by far and away the most beautiful and interesting country that we have been to…hands down.

Traveling the Turkish countryside we drove through the night taking 4 hour driving shifts, and during our drive some of the most wonderful and unexpected things happened. Most importantly…EVERY STEREOTYPE THAT AMERICANS COULD HAVE OR COULD THINK OF HAVING ABOUT THE TURKISH PEOPLE OR MUSLIMS WAS SHATTERED.

We were driving throught the city of Lapzon around 11:00am when a little red car passed us honking and waving. Naturally we waved back because people tend to honk at us a lot. The car then slowed down after a minute or two and let us catch up with it. They motioned for us to pull over and made some type of hand gesture. We did and immediately one of the passengers jumped out and came over to our car. He said, “my family is going out for some breakfast and we were wondering if you would like to join us?” How do you say no to that…you don’t…that is one of the main things that I have learned on this trip is that you never refuse a gift; mainly because it is offensive, and also because if someone offers you something then they are offering with the most sincere of intentions. They led us to a eatery where we met the entire family, all 12 of them. We sat down and immediately started eating and talking, through the translation of the eldest son Erdin (truly sorry if I mispelled the name). We had a cultural exchange of the highest degree, and the main point that they wanted to show us, even before they found out that we were Americans, was that the Turkish and Muslims do not want to harm anyone…if anything it is the complete opposite, and because they were interested in Ryan and I, and we looked tired and hungry they took us in and fed us. “Actions speak louder than words.”

After we finished the meal they sent us packing with food to eat on the road and some pictures with the entire family around our car. We then stopped at the next gas station that we saw, in Rize, Turkey to fill up. Immediately a group of men came around the car and started to ask us questions about the nature of our journey. When they found out that we were Americans they immediately invited us to sit down and have tea with them. This turned out to be the most enlighteneing conversation that we have had on this entire journey. It was about politics and why America does the things that it does, and being unable to answer for the mistakes of Mr. Bush I had to tell them that we the people are not out for the same things that our leadership is. They understood this…once again “actions speak louder than words.” They also explained Islam to us, and then gave us a gift of Rize tea (apparently some of the best tea in the world) and asked for one thing in exchange…that we go home and tell everyone “that the Muslim people do not want to hurt anyone, and all they want is peace.” Having actually experienced this twice in the last hour I was on the verge of tears and felt that at the very least I could explain this to all that would listen. This is the reason for our journey, and there was so much more that happened but I cannot possibly write it all down…ask me about it next time you see me.

Back on the road again, we hit the Georgia border…not the one to the nort of Florida. The duties of the navigator took on a slightly different role from those previously held. Because we had no map the navigator was reduced to saying “cow, chicken, pig, horse, goat, dog, or person” every time one was standing in the road. This was a little different from telling the driver which road to take and saying stop when there was a red light and go when it turned green. There were a lot of animals to say the least. We drove for a long time and finally reached Tbilisi (the capital of Georgia). But we got lost in Tbilisi and spent an hour looking for the road to Baku. After a heated discussion we finally were able to find the way out.

We eventually reached the AZ border and were held for over an hour, but after some schmoozing and pleading they let us pass into what would become that “what in the hell did we get ourselves into moment.” The moment that we all had been waiting for…i know it.

The landscape became barren and the roads disappeared as if they were paved a long time ago, but never maintianed. :Pause…(Internal thought)…: The road to the capital city, Baku, was being repaved or at least the portions that had been previously paved were being repaved. Imagine shrinking yourself down by a lot and then getting a tiny car and driving over a cheese grader for about 4 hours…i just hope our car is still not upset at us. We were stopped by the police twice at checkpoints along the way. This is where a civilized country and a non-civilized country differentiate. The police made up charges and proceeded to foce us to give them money. Life lessons…dont ever trust anyone with gold teeth, and especially dont ever trust a police officer with gold teeth…which by the way is all of those in Baku. It is so bad, as we later found out, that it is not same for women to be out past dark–not because of the citizens, but because of the police. Imagine corruption that runs that deep. They can and will stop you for any reason, true or untrue, and make you pay them money or try and take your things (my camera, Ryan’s sunglasses), and if you don’t pay then you go to jail…Nice system Azerbiajan, I see some awards for most improved country comming your way soon.

Besides that all is well, and we are awaiting the arrival of our convoy so that we can board the ferry to cross the Caspain. At that point blog entries may become a little more scarce due to the maybe non-existent availability of technology. Nonetheless, if we have to write our posts by hand and send them back to the US by carrier-pigeon then it will be done…awesomeness says so.

Andy Out

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July 25, 2007 by Andy.

What do you do when your car breaks down with a busted water pump in Cluj Napoci, Romania…you have no phone card or internet access…you speak 0 words of Romanian…debit cards don’t work (in Romania)…your crappy tools can’t get the bolts off…and frustrations/exhaustedness are mounting…?

Suggestions?

Be back in a bit…

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July 19, 2007 by Andy.

So Ryan and I are having a lovely evening in London being shown the sites by Stevie and his girlfriend Lizzie when we get a phone call. It is from another Mongol Rally team comming from New York. The guy calling had actually e-mailed Ryan about two days ago saying that he was a native Texan and really wanted to meet us…probably because we are awesome and it emminates from everything we do…just my guess anyway. Anyway, he is calling telling us that he bought a car seen on site, like we did with our first vehicle, and he was driving it into London on the M25 and his clutch went out. Seeing as how he arrived here like a day ago, he did not have the contacts that we had so he was calling us because we were basically the only number that he had. What do we do you ask…well we be awesome, but our awesomeness was far outweighed by that of Steve, the one of ST Engineering in Haslemere for those of you that may be a little confused by all the Steves we have met.

In a desperate attempt to help the New Yorker, I called Steve just to pick his brain and ask him what they should do in order to get off of the side of the highway. Steve basically tells me that he cannot make any kind of suggestion because he does not know exactly what is wrong with the vehicle. I kept telling him that I was just trying to pick his brain, and that if he could not do anything then that was fine. Steve however, told me to give the New Yorker his number and have them call him. This was done, and we get a message later on the phone that Steve agreed to have their car towed to his workshop about 40 miles from where they were stuck. He agreed to help them sort out their troubles as long as they were willing to trade services (some of his daily work stuff). He also agreed to give them a place to stay…the generosity with this guy never ends. I hope that we sent him good people, but if they are doing the Mongol Rally then they have to be; we will operate on that assumption.

All you can do is just be awesome, and your awesomeness will be reflected by others…life lesson…take it to heart.

Andy Out (SkipLizard Homepage)

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July 18, 2007 by Andy.

First off I would like to extend our most sincere and gracious thanks to Steve Theobald, his wife Liz, Steve’s dad Jeff, and Steve’s two children Scott and Jess.  They not only helped us with our car, but they fed, sheltered, and offered friendship to us when we were in need of some serious help.  IF anyone is interested, they have a fantastic collection of steam-engine cars, as well as various others (including Steve’s collection of VWs), here is a link to their page…http://www.steamcar.net/… check out the page that says Jeff’s page to find out about their awesome collection.  Cheers to their entire family.

So after we had our amazing cultural experience with the Irish bartender, we awoke a little groggy and headed to Steve’s shop to finish up the SJ.  Basically we were there just waiting on parts and various extras to arrive, so it was a relatively slow day.  Ryan and I did manage to get in a vigirous game of wall-ball though, my arm hurts today.  Well anyway, about 3pm Steve asked us if we wanted to go back to his house for the evening and have a barbecue…we tried to graciously decline saying that they had already done so much for us that we could not accept another thing, but Steve insisted that they send us off with a proper meal.  How do you turn that down…well let me tell you…YOU DON’T!  They prepared a proper feast including five different kinds of meat and a tasty spread of almost anything that you could think of.  It was their going away present to us, as if they had not already bent over backwards for us.  Cheers again.

After the meal, Ryan and I decided to go ahead and make the drive to London since there would probably not be a whole lot of traffic at 11pm.  We were partially right.  There was still traffic, but not like there is during the day…good decision.  There was one point where I was driving along minding my own business, when all of a sudden the nice 4 lane road that I was on turned into a 2 lane road without any warning with traffic traveling at 40-50mph.  What the hell is that all about?  They already drive on the wrong side of the road, and now they are just cutting me off for no reason.  We made it nonetheless.

Stevie, Ryan’s co-worker and friend, has generously offered his NICE apartment to us until Friday.  He lives on the northeast side of London for those of you that are familiar with the area.  Here in a bit we are off to go and see some of those things that we should see and be awesome in central London.  The word on the street is that we will have a hard time finding an actual ENglish person in London.  It is like a different world from the England that Ryan and I have come to know, and part of me will miss it.  There are no more rolling hills and green fields, but they have been replaced with skyscrapers and concrete, but it is the hub of England so we must be here by virtue of our awesomeness.  Additionally, we have one final stop to make before we are completely ready to depart, and that is to the allmighty “Wal-Mart.”  Even though I am still feuding with them, we have to go and make some purchases to aide us in our short 10,000 mile drive.

Andy Out (SkipLizard Homepage)

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July 16, 2007 by Andy.

I know that Ryan just did a brillaint job of recapping our weekend, but I would like to put it in my own words.  We went to one of the best beaches in England, stayed for next to nothing, learned how to surf (something that I had never even thought of before), and took in a sunset that will rival any in the U.S.  We also sold our car, hung out with some amazingly awesome people, and took the senic drive back to Malmesbury from Devon…that means up and down hills with a 25% grade…good thing we have a 4×4 Suzuki.

Anyway after this brilliant weekend, we went to Malmesbury where we had to meet the people that were buying the pretend charriot of awesome.  We camped there for the night and then headed to Haslemere to meet up with Steve and pick up some parts for the SJ.  We accomplished basically everything that we set out to do, and we were staying with Steve for the night, so guess what…we had to go out and see the local night life of Liphook.  We ended up n a pub with an Irish bartender that goes by the name of Willie.  Now let me tell you…there was a period where there were two Texans, Two Englishmen, and an Irishman having a conversation.  Basically we were speaking 3 different languages, but we all managed to understand each other with relative ease.  This was the first true Irishman that I had ever met, and you know that you have met an Irishman when he repeatedly tells you that Guiness anywhere but in Ireland is “shite.”  This man was the type of person that before he told you something that he truly meant would spit on his hand and shake yours…hey, i guess he was telling the truth.  Nonetheless, he welcomed Ryan and I with open arms, and if we ever return to Liphook England, not only do we have a place to stay, but we have a pub to be welcomed at.  Here’s to Willie and the class establishment that he runs.

Tomorrow we are off to  put the finishing touches on the SJ and then headed to London to see the Queen and all of her majesty…if you are lucky I might come back an honorary member of the royal family.

Andy Out.

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July 13, 2007 by Andy.

Ha…at last I am writing under my own name!

The last few days have provided us with some much need time to rest up for our big journey ahead.  For the most part we sat on the couch and took care of business during the day, and then in usual fashion we would spring to life when the sun started to set.  It doesn’t set here until like 10:30 and all the pubs close at 11:00…sad.  Ryan and I made ourselves at home with Sophie in Southampton–about 80 miles south of Malmesbury on the coast–where she provided us with a bed and a couch to rest our awesome bodies.  Ryan and I walked down into the town center, where we found that we were not in the least bit foreign because apparently the city attracts all type of people.  We walked around and in our best English accents made fun of ourselves as being “those damn Texans.”  For instance…(said in our best English accent)…”Those damn Texans…all they do is drink…it’s bloody madness!”  That will never get old, at least for us.

We saw the local pubs and decided to dine on proper fish and chips during our second night in Southhampton.  In our infinite wisdom we have decided that if anything is within walking distance we will walk there…basically that means that if it under 5 miles away we are walking.  So we decided to walk down the street to the local fish and chips place and have a proper English meal since we are in England and all.  We walked in and ordered 2 large cod, and 2 large chips.  We then walked to the beer store next door and purchased a sizeable amount and various quantity of adult beverages.  Upon returning to Sophie’s pad we discovered that we were locked out and nobody was home.  Problem???  Of course not…we walked around to the back of the house and sat in the yard…making due and just living a dream.  We then unpacked our dinner only to discover than when they said large cod…holy crap…they meant a cod the size of my arm.  I think that Ryan and I were possessing the entire state of North Carolina’s cod production for the entire year.  Somewhere in the ocean..the cod grow to the size of small whales…and we had two of them.  Not to mention that they were covered in grease that was eating through the paper they were wrapped in.  We decided to try and rub the “greasy cod” on the door and see if it would melt the door down so we could get inside…it didnt work.  Well…in true Texas style we ate the whole lot of them…and nearly threw up.  It was good, but beware of the devilfish cod.  So then we decided that we had to kill the beast that we had consumed that was living in our stomachs…what did we do you ask…tried to kill it with ALL of the booze that we bought at the store.  The fish put up a valiant effort and fought through all of the German beer, but the fish met its match with two whole bottles of painthinner-wine.  “Die you devilfish!!!!”  In all of our malay in the back yard we managed to piss off the neighbors who incidentally complained the next day, it was probably about the dirty lymericks we were creating and screaming about a spear and a greasy cod…use your imagination.

We barbecued the next night on a “wal-mart” grill that was purchased under heavy protest by me after the cashier refused to sell me beer.  What was she thinking?  I showed her my Texas driver’s license…that i better than a passport, but she did not agree.  Evil “wal-mart” is taking over the world and making the world dumber (I just spelled dumber…dummer…wtf mate)…”Die devil store!!!!!”

We are now in Haslemere waiting on Steve to clean out his hippie van so that we may proceed to Devon.  Apparently is one of the nicer beaches in England.  Cheers…No worries.

Andy, out. (SkipLizard Homepage)

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