Rednecks, Garry's place, Famous Dave's and more Karaoke!

Redneck Roadtrip
So Justin picked us up at 10am (an hour after we planned for 9am :P) so we threw our rucksacks and other bits and bobs in the boot of his brother's car this time, as - unbeknownst to us - we were going on a road trip, about 360 miles in total.

We didn't really know why or where we were going, but we didn't have anything planned at all, except from get to Garry's house later in the day (as Garry kindly offered us to stay until the insurance has been worked out for those that didn't know!) - so we just went along for the ride. We didn't get very far until we stopped at yet another wood built detatched house. The houses are almost all individually built houses and look really nice, but we're told that these neighbourhoods aren't that great - hard to tell as everyone is so friendly!

Anyway, Justin tells us that we're picking up his cousin (can't remember his name so I'm calling him Dave for now!) from his aunties house as the whole road trip is to collect a "1967 chevy 864 gas blah de blah" steering column for Dave. NOTE: We have no idea what cars they're always talking about, but they always start with the year, state some facts, then stance and wait for (I think) some form of outstanding "WOW That car's amazing! You own a car like that?!" response.

We go into his aunties house to be greeted with massive smiles, three (auntie, uncle and cousin) really nice people and best of all... ENGLISH TEA! The auntie, Beth, has a daughter in the UK, so she get's English tea. After a small chat and a quick cupper, we left for the steering column.

2 hours into our journey and 56 little red barn style sheds (the ones you see in the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons) later, Ed's stomach is really asking angrily for some food, so he asks Justin if we can stop quickly at the next shop we see, and with that we pull into a Burger King (by the way Doebert and Luke - they have loads of drive thru BK's here, and I've only seen one KFC). We ordered a burger meal, expecting the burgers to be absolutely massive but once we received them, they were pretty much exactly the same size as back home. The drink, however, was bloody gigantic. We had medium sized drinks which are probably twice the size of the UK large. You put the drink in yourself and have free re-fills too.

After that stop, we continue through progressively more and more rural areas. Lost, we pull up to some really out-of-the-place bar where three rednecks are drinking on the outside balcony. Justin asked them where the scrapyard was and rather than tell directions, their immediate response was "Why are you going there?", "What you going for?" and "They won't have that there, I betcha, I'll ring them now and you'll be sorry". Seemingly passive aggressive off the bat, but eventually one of the other rednecks gave us a vague point in the right direction.

We finally arrive at a nice big, very quiet, scrapyard at the end of a narrow and dusty dirt track and both Justin and Dave go into the abandoned shed uhh.. I mean office, whilst we wait outside in the sunshine. For some reason it felt weird for us both, as we had weird rednecks at the other end of this dirt track, the odd pair of eyes checking us out through various nooks and crannies of the scrapyard, and a huuuuuuuge (but friendly) dog. We waited for about 25 minutes until Justin and Dave reappeared with the steering column.

Not much else happened that day, except we got back to Garry's - unloaded our stuff in his upstairs (vacant) apartment as well as a bed (for us to use) that he managed to get hold of. However, we had a big night planned, as we were told that Adam (Justin's brother) likes to get people drunk, and we were going out with him that night. We started the night by going for a "Fish Fry" (which is fish and chips) with Garry and Edna - lovely fish, but the chips aren't the same at all!. We then got dropped off at a Karaoke bar where Justin was DJ-ing that night.

Again, we were surrounded by loads of new faces that really enjoyed speaking to us! We had loads of free drinks bought for us, one guy (that had already bought us a drink each) was leaving and when shaking Ed's hand, gave him two tokens. We'd never seen these tokens before, but it turned out that they're beer tokens! He'd bought us one each for another free drink! Sarah sang some Fleetwood Mac and Dido which went down very well indeed! She even danced with a drunken guy a couple of times as he wouldn't stop asking (I have picture proof!). 11pm, and Adam arrives with his fiancée Jen all excited to get us wasted!

We headed downtown Buffalo where, to be honest, it's the same as Torquay on a Friday or Saturday night. We didn't really drink as much as we were told we would, but we were merry just the same! Hours later, we finished the night by going to a 24 hour diner (it's around 5am at this point). We had lots of food and coffee and headed back to Garry's where we crept in (with the sun starting to rise!). Apparently it's normal to go for a night out starting at 10/11pm and finishing around 4/5am!

Garry's Place
We woke around 10am on Saturday morning (not had much sleep) but neither of us felt too bad. Garry and Edna were out at work, so we had the place to ourselves. We didn't know what to really do, so we just sat in Roger (the camper van remember), put the top up and stuff, Sarah read her book and Ed played on the DS a bit.


The house is lovely, and the whole upstairs apartment is for us to use! We've not done much - just living out of our bags - but we do have a toilet, and kitchen area (as well as about 3 other empty rooms we haven't gone in). Garry and Edna collect alot of items for sale on eBay, and it's not hard to see where they store the items (for the time being until the shed is cleared out for them). But they're absolutely lovely and have helped us out so much the past few days we've been here!

More Karaoke
Eventually Garry arrived home, and rang Justin to arrange for us to have something to do. Justin came round about 8pm and we went to... you'll never guess... another Karaoke bar! We ate dinner there, Sarah sang some Dido, and we went back home for an early night (if 1am is early!).

We went to the flea market with Garry and Edna yesterday morning - which is where they get some of their items for eBay. Garry picked up a cast iron muffin tray for $20 which should make $45 so I'm told. Adam met us there and took us to the shopping mall, then to Famous Dave's!

Famous Dave's
You. Have. Never. Tasted. Better. Spare. Ribs. .....Ever. Famous Dave's is a barbeque style restaurant with amazing food. Sarah had some form of barbequed chicken burger and some really tasty "firecracker beans" (runner beans with chillis), whereas Ed had a platter of food comprising of some amazing spare ribs, half a country-baked chicken, red onion mash, corn on the cob and some kind of savoury muffin (this is the lunch menu by the way). Honestly I cannot describe how good the ribs were. Afterwards, we tried some of their "Real Ale". Sarah had a pint, and I had what looked like a pint-and-a-half glass of the stuff. It tasted ok, but had a slight fizz like that new Kronenberg lager with the small bubbles.

After a hearty lunch, we popped to the supermarket to get some supplies. Everything is bigger there EXCEPT their checkout aisles. I have no idea how the bigger Americans fit down those without knocking off every impulse-buy item on the sides.

We got back to Garry's to find Hewie (I forgot to tell you, he's Adam's stoner friend, who's constantly in the clouds - we met him the night we went out downtown Buffalo). He'd brought us two bottles of red wine that his friend makes. We've yet to try them...

Adam left, then Hewie did - so we sat in Garry's back garden and helped him and Edna sew some seeds. They're going to be growing all sorts this season: tomatoes, cabbages, hot peppers, cold peppers, courgettes (which they call zucchini here), and more stuff.

We didn't do alot that evening, but Ed did find that AIG international will offer car insurance for foriengers visiting the US without having to obtain a state license! Ed couldn't ring them that night as it was a Sunday...

...However, today I have rang them and they did confirm that they offer the insurance, so they emailed me the documents ehich i completed and returned back to them. Their quote - $1604 PLUS a $400 membership fee. I've just replied seeing if they can bring that ridiculous figure down a bit.

Not sure if we're doing anything tonight.

Summary
To sum up, we've had a great last few days - feeling bad that we're relying on Garry and Edna, but they really don't seem to mind! We've had way too much Karaoke, but it's nice visiting different bars and getting loads of free drinks just for "talking English". We're keeping our fingers crossed regarding the insurance (but still have the backup of getting someone else to insure it for us), but hopefully in the next few days we'll have a breakthrough with it all!