Buses, Football and Frozen Feet

This morning/afternoon, Roni and I trekked out to a town called Grove to watch her friends Ian and Neal play football. Not British football, aka soccer, but real American football (well, let's not get carried away here....).

We take our normal Bus 6 down to City Centre, pick up some Starbucks (just for you, Klaudia) and some Ben's Cookies and walk down to just in front of Christ Church to board our bus. It was, shall we say, an interesting bus ride to be sure. First of all, it took us nearly 50 minutes to reach our destination. We drove east out of Oxford to the highway and then throuhg Abingdon and stopped at some bizarre locations. For example, we dropped an older couple off literally at their front door, despite there being no bus stop in the vicinity. We also dropped off a leather-jacket clad lad (oh, a rhyme) in front of a farmhouse. I do not believe he was a farmer's child unless he was trying to blend in with the townies. He was pretty skinny. We also were accompanied by Pink Man, aptly named because of his pink backpack, pink sweatshirt and pink watch strap. He also hummed the entire bus ride.... we tried to ignore this part of his personality as much as possible

I will say that this was the second most scary bus ride I had ever been on (the first being the rainy drive through tiny hedge-lined roads from Winchester to Salisbury.... and if you don't believe how petrifyingly scary this ride was, ask Shiri, she'll tell you). The bus driver (despite being a very nice bloke) seemed to ignore all signs indicating speed limit. At one point we were nearing a town with a huge sign to slow down and we whizzed by that so fast I don't think anyone noticed it. We didn't slow down until the turn became too sharp to take as such break-neck speed. Also, the roads in Abingdon were awful! I am surprised I didn't spill my coffee all over myself. At one point, the bus came to such an abrupt stop that Roni nearly pressed the "stop" button... with her forehead.



Needless to say, we made it to Grove, despite getting off at the wrong stop and trekking through some mud on a footpath to get ot the field. We arrived a few minutes before kick-off and by the first five minutes, were pretty much frozen. We were about the only spectators and there were no bleachers or benches (or scoreboard or clock or anything), so we were pretty much at the mercy of the refs and the players that we knew.

And let's be real. There was nothing like the above going on. Well, maybe a little. But honestly, folks, how do you describe a game that ended with a high score of 3-2? I didn't even know that was possible in football! It sounds like an exciting soccer or hockey game score, not American football (and you know that I'm in England when I googled football and the first eight images that come up are of soccer balls and soccer players... hehe...). Needless to say, it was a brand new experience that we will NEVER again do since it's about five hours later and I'm still not sure I have all ten toes.

Moral of the story: There are three.
1. There will ALWAYS be weird people on buses and there is always the chance that you will die- either from careening down a small lane or by the weird people on the bus.
2. Perhaps American football should be left to the American. Unless you want a thoroughly entertaining experience.
3. It is possible to recover from frozen feet. At least I think so. I'll let you know when I can wiggle them all again.