2004-03-06 - Super Special Roadtrip Recap!:

Seven people, two cars. Piled in for a five-day extravaganza in Columbus, Ohio. Main purpose of the trip, of course, was to see the PBR semi-finals! For ten bucks a ticket, honestly, how can you refuse? Plus, an excuse to run around in another city in another country for a while.

We saw tons of cool stuff. I am not special enough to have a digital camera, and my old-skool camera had an accident, so my first set of pictures is toast. However, I still have another roll of funfunfun, which I will scan as soon as I get it developed. Sadly, the PBR pix were lost, but I don't know how good they would have been, considering we were in the nosebleeds.

The game of tackiest souvenier was won when both participants in the game came across Ohio State snowglobes simultaneously. The award, however, was a draw between snowglobes: one featured a scale representation of the state, emblazened with state bird and flower; the other depiced a similar state facsimile, this time with a cartoon cow leaning over the top, with arms outspread, proclaiming "Cowlumbus Ohio!" Both players in the tackiest souvenier game collapsed in laughter and therefore could not make a successful purchace of said items. However, I did manage to score a frosted (in two colours!) shot glass of the Ohio State college football team, the Buckeyes.

We went to the Columbus Zoo, and saw some cool animals. My favorite part is a tie between the apes and the aquariums, followed by the otters as a close second. The gorillas were really cool and they watched us carefully. We even saw a particularly large gorilla throw-up! Sorry, the photo documentation of said barfing was on the "lost" role.

Downtown Columbus was really interesting. Saw a bunch of stuff there, but I think viewing the Art College's exhibits was my favorite part. Next to the guy who was panhandleing while wearing a Nike jacket and $200 Lugz shoes. Nice going, guy.

A few things I learned:

1) What a buckeye was. Realized that we'd been whipping them at each other at the last rest-stop.

2) Wal-Mart superstores are weird.

3) Buying cigarettes using Canadian terms confuses the locals.

4) American beer doesn't work very well. In fact, while other members of our party had a good time, it only succeeded in making me feel sad.

5) American cities' areas vary in quality and roughness dramatically by the block. Odd, because in Canadian cities, the roughness/quality of an area is more of a gradual decline/incline.

6) Rodeo announcers say "I tell you what" a lot, in order to punctuate statements or make exclamations. Consider Hank on King of the Hill, only about fifty times worse. I always just thought that Hank Hill's dialect was a joke. Who knew people really talk like that?

7) Americans just about pee themselves with laughter when you make a really hard Canadian accent and use sterotypical dialogues. Hosers!

8) Religion is way huge in the US of A. Holy cow.

9) People in Ohio sure love their bumper stickers and novelty plates. My favorite liscense plate said "ILUV4H" and my favorite (albeit creepy) bumper sticker said "AMERICA BLESS GOD". The Latter pickup truck (surprise, surprise) also had a bumper sticker for a Catholic radio station. Um, yeah.

10) Ohio isn't as flat as I expected it to be. Apparently, west Ohio is flatter, but we didn't get to see any of that.

Those were the main things. Of course, there were a whole bunch of little cultural differences that were obvious. Some were seriously bad, most were just odd little differences. Overall, on the trip, it was generally agreed why America needs more people like Michael Moore, and more bands like Rage Against the Machine.