Saturday, July 11, 2009

State quarters!

Another thing I did in America was acquiring lots of those 25-cent coins with pictures on them depicting one of the fifty states of the US. I already had a couple of them here in my drawer full of miscellaneous foreign coins, but now I've got 14 in total! Obviously I need more American holidays, so I can acquire a full set.

And another thing I did on the way home was lose my stopwatch. I really have to get a new one so I can do some last-minute training for the German championship. It's less than three weeks away, and I haven't booked any flights or hotels yet!

Friday, July 10, 2009

Zzzzzzzzz

A day at work with serious jetlag is really no fun. I'm going to bed now, I don't expect to wake up until Monday.

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Pennsylvania Pippins

I'm home at last! And feeling hugely sleep-deprived, despite spending most of the afternoon napping. Hopefully I'll be recovered enough to stay awake at work tomorrow.

Anyway, here's something new - I've become a baseball fan while I was in America! Channel-hopping during a quiet moment I came across a game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Houston Astros, and to my surprise I loved it! It's an exciting and fascinating game and I really should have listened to the people who've told me so in the past. Last night while stranded in New York I watched the Yankees thrash the Twins 10-2, and I'm definitely a convert to the joys of baseball now. I'm going to have to find out whether it's possible to watch games on the telly over here...

I even know what the designated hitter rule is, and even have an opinion on it! (It's bad.) I need to go to a game in real life, next time I'm over that side of the ocean! Go Pirates!

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

There's no escape!

Well, the flight from Pittsburgh to Newark was even more delayed than the one in the opposite direction last week (due to thunderstorms somewhere, apparently, although since it's been beautiful summer weather everywhere I've seen for the past week, I don't know where these thunderstorms could have been), and I missed the flight back to Birmingham. And they couldn't put me on another one until 7pm tonight, so I'm stuck in New York for the day.

Okay, there are worse places to be stuck, so I'm not going to complain too much - I'm going to see the sights and have some fun. The only problem comes when I get back to work on Friday and have to fit at least three days' worth of number-crunching into a couple of hours. But hey, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, and for now the sun's shining, the city's got that distinctive New York smell to it, there's things to do and places to go. See you if and when I eventually get home!