Firefly: More weird than you can fit in your pants

Jack Johnson blows away with crowd with an incredible performance.

 

“The weirdest things just happen around me all the time!” my friend Jamie proclaimed, lying on a T-shirt blanket under the canopy by our tent.

Kelly and I looked at each other, nodded, and laughed.

“Why do you think that is, Jame?” Kelly asked.

“I think because I egg people on,” Jamie said, reflecting on the disproportionate number of weird but hilarious things that had happened in the three days since we had arrived at Firefly.

“The funny thing is, most of the stuff that happens is not even your idea,” I said.

“I give them confidence to do the crazy things they already wanted to do,” Jamie concluded.

I finished scrambling our omelets over the camp stove on the last day of the four-day music festival we’d driven nine hours for, and we laughed as we looked back over the highlights.

Looking grungy after four days sans showering.

…

On Friday, our first full day at the festival, we planned to enter the festival by 4:30 p.m. to see Bronze Radio Return, and a slew of other artists later. We cracked the first beer at 10 a.m., and began acquainting ourselves with our next door neighbors, the J Crew or JTrain (as most of their names began with J), who also happened to be from the Cincinnati area. We’d been enjoying ourselves for several hours, playing Frisbee games and meeting new people, when I realized we had to leave or we’d be late for the show. And with a 45 minute set, every second counted. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so I ran back to the car and laid out six slices of bread on the back bumper. With one stroke, I peanut buttered three slices, then did the same with the jelly. I stacked the sandwiches and threw them unprotected into my drawstring bag. We grabbed a water bottle and two roadies each for the 30-minute walk to the festival.

At the festival gate, I distributed the sandwiches.

“What, no bags?” Kelly asked, wearing a sports bra and colorful skirt. “Where am I supposed to put this?” she asked, as we prepared to smuggle the sandwiches in to enjoy later.

“Get creative!” I said, nestling mine between my belly button and the wasteband of my jorts. Kelly evaluated her best assets, and slid it behind her butt. Jamie looked at her sundress, frowned, and slapped the PBJ on her right boob.

“Can you tell at all?” We all asked each other. Satisfied we wouldn’t get caught, we sauntered through the security check point.

We enjoyed a few shows, then went back to camp for some dinner and to resupply before the late evening shows.

The next morning, Jamie woke up with a weird stain on her bra. She held it out the tent for better lighting.

“Ughhh it’s a peanut butter jelly bra!” she said. The J Train had a good laugh out of that.

“In hindsight, sandwich bags might have been a good idea,” I mused.

That morning, we needed to make it to the festival by 2 p.m. to see Twenty-One Pilots. So we set down to the task at hand. At 1:15, I remembered sandwiches. This time I grabbed bags, along with a healthy supply of fruit snacks and granola bars, sure we’d be able to find suitable hiding spots at the gate. 

Twenty feet from the gate, I again dropped my bag and started handing out the contraband. Kelly and I put everything out of sight, and walked through with no problem. I looked back.

Jamie stood before the metal detector wand wielder with a full corner of the plastic sandwich bag sticking out of her cleavage. The man looked at her, a dead serious expression on his face.

“I bet you have a gun, don’t you,” he said.

“I have three!” Jamie said, exuberant.

Unconvinced, he wanded her and waved her through.

Ten feet inside the gate, we pulled snacks out of every crack and crevice, doubling over in laughter that the guards hadn’t questioned the baggie sticking out of her boobs, which had looked to contain far more questionable materials than it actually did. 

Jamie and I pregame before hitting the festival.

Twenty-One Pilots put on an amazing show, working the crowd into a frenzy despite the majority of the audience only knowing one of their songs. But as their 45-minute set ended, a mass migration away from the stage began. Since Kelly wanted to see Third Eye Blind, beginning in 45 minutes, we seized our chance for a better spot in the crowd, and salmoned upstream toward the stage. We got about 15-people deep from the stage, and people weren’t budging, so we settled in.

I’d brought a blanket, so we asked a few neighbors if they’d like to sit down for the wait. They gladly agreed, and we all made room to spread the blanket. We instantly became the most popular people within a full 20-foot radius as I pulled out deck of cards to play B.S.

The crowd got restless, so we had to stand again. As we stood up, Jamie caught a whiff of a strong odor to her left. A sleepy-eyed boy with bright blue eyes and an impish grin was screwing the lid on a water bottle. Jamie looked at the yellow liquid in the bottle.

“Did you just pee in that bottle right next to me?!” she asked, shocked.

He couldn’t very well deny it with the evidence in his hands, so he laughed and admitted it, dropping the warm bottle into his drawstring bag.

We feigned anger but more than anything we were just jealous of the convenience. But to make it up to us, he offered us a sip out of a sunscreen bottle.

“Excuse me?!” Jamie said. Then shrieked as he went bottoms up with the orange tube.

He laughed and pointed to the “ingredients” on the tube – 54% boozerwine, 30% drunkacider, etc., with fine print instructions reading, “If a security guard is reading this, run away!” He offered a taste again, so I went for it.

“Oh…it’s just Fireball and Red Bull!” I laughed. He told us where to find the clever water bottle online.

Third Eye Blind came on stage, and relived its glory days from decades past. I hoisted Kelly onto my shoulders for a better view of the first band she’d ever loved.

We realized we’d planned our day poorly, because after that show, we wanted to stay in the festival rather than make the long trek back to the camp for dinner and more drinks, but we didn’t want to buy food and drink in the festival, so we bit the bullet and walked back. I got impatient and jogged back to get a head start on making camp chili.

I dumped six cans of beans and chicken in a pot and realized we had way too much food for three people. The J Train was away from their camp, so I looked for some other new friends to share the food with. Two fine looking gentlemen stood two sites over and I waved at them and offered them some chili. The smell was wafting their way already, and it was an easy sell.

“It’s kind of a BYO-Bowl situation,” I said. “And spoon. And beverage. But I’ve got the chili!”

Jamie and Kelly slumped into chairs, finally having caught up with me to find chili sizzling on the stove, and new friends joining us.

“OK, guys we CAN’T miss Imagine Dragons, so everyone has to eat and drink fast!” I said, dishing out the chili.

I watched everyone’s lips like a hawk. If they weren’t chewing, I threw a goldfish at them, commanding “DRINK!”  

Somehow we still managed time for conversation.

“Does anyone like kiwis?” Alex asked, out of the blue. “I’ve always had this vision of walking up to a girl with a kiwi in my extended hand, and offering it to her, just holding it in front of her mouth. Just to see what she would do!” he said.

“Wait, like to see if she would eat the skin?” Kelly asked excited. “I totally would! I eat kiwi skins!” she said. So Kelly and Alex bonded over their weird fruit habits.

“Well, one time I wanted to eat a whole banana—peel and all,” Alex said. “But my friends wouldn’t let me.”

I thought it was a strange idea, but Jamie’s silent powers of egging on the weird in people pushed me forward.

“I … have a banana … in the car… is this still a dream of yours, sir?” I asked Alex.

“Yes?” he said, a light coming into his eyes.

“We’ll save it for the walk to the festival,” I said. “Now drink faster!”

Alex showed some reluctance, teasing me.

“Lift the drink, put it to your lips, and guzzle!” I said, laughing. Then I remembered an exercise we’d used to do in high school. “Let’s play that game where one person closes their eyes and then we have to tell them exactly what to do but they have to follow all the instructions literally!” I said. For no good reason, everyone cheered and agreed to play the dumbest game ever invented.

“Close your eyes! Touch your nose with one finger, put another finger in your mouth! Now throw a goldfish at Jamie! Now put a piece of corn in your nose, then snot rocket it out! Now drink your beer!” And so on. Jamie had to alternate placing three fingers in her mouth with sipping her drink. I had to make a beautiful scarf out of the roll of paper towels, all the while getting pelted with goldfish.

We were determined to not spend money in the festival, so we loaded up the backpack with a bottle of Gatorade, and two water bottles full of various liquors. They slid nicely into the crotch, with only the slightest indication that all might not be entirely right down in those parts.

As promised, I also grabbed a banana out of the car.

Halfway to the festival, I turned to Alex and handed him his banana, for which he’d been waiting so patiently.

“OK, are you guys ready?” he asked.

WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP! Swallow. It was gone. Just like that. Four bites. Our eyes grew huge and the laughter couldn’t find its way out fast enough.

“You actually did that!” we screamed. Little banana pulp pieces eeked out the corners of his mouth as he attempted to keep it down. But then he smiled, licked his lips, and kept walking.

We all continued on as before, but now genuinely curious what our new friend’s next pooping experience would be like.

We made it in time for Imagine Dragons, and made sure everyone in our group got a turn sitting on someone’s shoulders, as the experience is heightened 10 times from that vantage point.

From Imagine Dragons, we ran to get a place for Tegan and Sara, one of the bands I had been most excited about.

They were going full power, with an energetic crowd responding well to the music.

Feeling at home among my people, I broke free from Jamie and Kelly. “I’ve got to mingle!” I yelled, squeezing through the press of dancing revelers. To the first pretty girl I found, I tried a cleverly crafted line.

“You can’t see Tegan and Sara without making out with a girl, right?” I said, compelled by liquid courage, which is not exactly synonymous with charm, tact or being smooth. But still, a tall blonde took me up on it and went in for the kiss.

I came up for air, my mind blown. I ran back to Kelly and Jamie.

“I saw stars! Oh my god! I saw stars!” I yelled as they shook their heads at me.

After Tegan and Sara, we collapsed in a heap on the festival grounds during a small break before Outkast was supposed to take the stage. For some reason, we could not stop laughing as we rolled around in the dirt, with life and emotion gushing through our veins and exploding out our pores.

We didn’t venture too far into the crowd for Outkast, wanting plenty of elbow room to dance. But halfway through, safely past the performance of “Hey Ya!”, Jamie and Kelly found they couldn’t stay awake. They told me to meet them in the mulch area under the trees, 100 yards from where I stood.

I distracted myself with my hands on the hips of a blue-haired girl, displaying a considerable amount more charm than I had two hours before.

The show ended, and I turned the girl to face me.

“I’m Dana,” she said.

“Nice to meet you, Dana,” I said, and leaned in for a sweet kiss. She smiled, and we parted ways.

Then I was lost. Where in the world did Jamie and Kelly say to meet them? I breathed down the panic. There were still more shows I wanted to enjoy with them, although I supposed I could have tried to find Dana again.

I vaguely remembered something about the mulch, and combed through it, calling out for them. I couldn’t find them, and no one was responding to my calls.

Almost out of hope, I turned back for one more pass through the mulch. Then I spotted their two dresses as they lay passed out on the ground. I slide tackled them for joy.

“I found you!” I yelled, shaking them awake. “Oh my god you have no idea how happy I am to see you!”

They sat up groggily.

“Who, what…where?” Jamie said, groaning. Kelly’s eyes were open, but she looked like she’d never seen me before.

“Are you guys missing how ridiculously lucky it was that I just found you?” I asked, surprised. “Come on, let’s go to the bathroom and then go to Pretty Lights!”

“Bathroom, yes, Pretty Lights, no,” Jamie rasped, looking exhausted. Kelly stood, still without saying anything.

We made it to the port-a-potty corral, though Kelly stayed out by the fence, looking dazed. Jamie decided to go back to the tent by herself to sleep, but I wanted to stay for Pretty Lights. Finally Kelly seemed to turn on. “Yeah, I’m excited for Pretty Lights!”

We were walking toward the stage, and she realized there was a hole in her evening.

“What happened between going to Outkast and just now?” she asked.

I replayed the story for her.

“I didn’t wake up until just now at the port-a-potties. I legitimately have no memory of you finding us in the mulch,” she said.

“Well that explains why you weren’t very happy to see me!” I said. “You were completely sleepwalking.”

Back at camp, Jamie’s throat was sore after breathing in massive amounts of dust in the festival. She’d been laying in the tent alone for a few minutes before she heard the J Train return. She unzipped a corner of the door and rolled her head out.

“Hey J Crew, what are the chances one of you will put two ibuprophen in my mouth and pour some water in it?” she ventured, pitifully.

No answer.

“Are they high?” she wailed.

“Are who high?” Jill asked, hearing Jamie for the first time.

“The chances!” Jamie said.

“What?!”

Upon relating these stories again on the car ride home, we shared many laughs. But the weirdness wasn’t over.

We stopped along the way at a Wendy’s for Frosty’s. After debating over whether to split a small, get two kid sizes, or get two smalls, Kelly and I settled on two smalls.

“Oh, I immediately regret this decision,” I said, seeing how large the small is. As much as I love Frosty’s, I’m always full way sooner than I expect. Kelly shared my sentiments. Twenty minutes later Kelly looked at her half-eaten ice cream.

“I just really want this to be gone, but I don’t want to eat it, and if it’s in front of me, I’ll keep eating it,” she said. Then she took stock of our surroundings. “I really think I just want to throw this out the window.”

“Hey not the cup!” I said, conscious of littering.

“No, just this giant scoop,” she said, loading the spoon up with dripping frosty, and looking dangerous.

“I guess it’s not littering since it’ll melt,” I admitted, and consented. Suddenly, Jamie was all in. She prepared to catch the feat on video.

“Catapult it out of the spoon right into the grass!” she cheered. “But don’t hit the car behind us!”

Kelly rolled the window down, cocked her hand back, and slapped her elbow, launching the scoop of frosty flying out onto the shoulder.

“Woooohooooo!” we all cheered, as if we’d accomplished something spectacular.

Jamie just chalked it up to another ridiculous side effect of her personality.

We rolled back into Dayton with smiles on our faces and a week of eye-rolling, hysterical memories to keep us giggling for weeks.

Best cities to move to for craft beer loving 20-somethings

The #DaytonBoozenessJournal presents: a surprisingly scientific comparison of cool cities in the U.S. based on their relative affordability and cost of beer.

The other day I started wondering what a cross comparison of cost of housing, average salaries, and the price of a 6-pack in the top cities my friends have moved to after graduation would look like.

I googled it, and it didn't exist. So I did it myself, and was pretty surprised by the results. Twenty-somethings wondering about their next move would do well to take into account this subversive ranking of U.S. cities based on a new cool factor: relative affordability of craft beer.

Even if you're not into craft beer, this list is still a good way to see what cities will free up more of your disposable income for your hobbies and interests. The second ranking shows the additional income you can spend in each city. The first column shows, just for kicks, the rankings if you were to spend all of your additional income on beer.

Disclaimer: I only ranked these cities against each other. I did not take all of the top cities in the country. If a city is not on the list, it's not because it is more or less expensive than any of these cities, it just means I don't know anybody who moved there and didn't feel like it made the cut for evaluation.

I wasn't surprised to see Dayton come out at No. 3 on the list. But the other 4 in the top 5 shocked me!

Check out my thorough methodology below the lists.

Best cities for consuming the most beer per year: 

Rank	City	Additional Disposable Income	Cost of beer
1	Washington D.C.	$10,342.86	$8.89
2	Asheville, N.C.	$8,014.62	$7.53
3	Dayton	$7,700.00	$7.99
4	Portland	$7,718.46	$8.49
5	Oakland, Calif.	$8,629.27	$9.66
6	Cincinnati	$6,928.58	$7.99
7	Detroit	$7,155.73	$8.27
8	Las Vegas	$6,884.84	$8.32
9	Charlotte	$6,206.76	$7.68
10	Raleigh	$6,348.18	$7.98
11	St Louis	$6,207.34	$7.81
12	Phoenix	$6,184.39	$7.90
13	Greenville, S.C.	$6,303.52	$8.10
14	Seattle	$6,366.76	$8.59
15	Columbus	$5,744.81	$7.99
16	Atlanta	$6,369.56	$8.99
17	Memphis	$5,481.87	$7.90
18	San Diego	$6,238.97	$9.34
19	Denver	$5,280.46	$7.98
20	Miami	$5,287.70	$8.39
21	Birmingham	$5,459.55	$8.79
22	Nashville	$5,361.79	$8.64
23	Austin	$5,118.73	$8.48
24	Richmond, Va.	$6,081.57	$10.26
25	Boston	$5,122.53	$8.89
26	New Orleans	$4,171.28	$7.92
27	Pittsburgh	$5,026.68	$9.79
28	NYC	$5,333.00	$10.52
29	San Francisco	$3,294.00	$8.79

   

Best cities for having extra money for your hobbies: 

Rank	City	Additional Disposable Income
1	Washington D.C.	$10,342.86
2	Oakland, Calif.	$8,629.27
3	Asheville, N.C.	$8,014.62
4	Portland	$7,718.46
5	Dayton	$7,700.00
6	Detroit	$7,155.73
7	Cincinnati	$6,928.58
8	Las Vegas	$6,884.84
9	Atlanta	$6,369.56
10	Seattle	$6,366.76
11	Raleigh	$6,348.18
12	Greenville, S.C.	$6,303.52
13	San Diego	$6,238.97
14	St Louis	$6,207.34
15	Charlotte	$6,206.76
16	Phoenix	$6,184.39
17	Richmond, Va.	$6,081.57
18	Columbus	$5,744.81
19	Memphis	$5,481.87
20	Birmingham	$5,459.55
21	Nashville	$5,361.79
22	NYC	$5,333.00
23	Miami	$5,287.70
24	Denver	$5,280.46
25	Boston	$5,122.53
26	Austin	$5,118.73
27	Pittsburgh	$5,026.68
28	New Orleans	$4,171.28
29	San Francisco	$3,294.00

Methodology:
Housing cost: I took the average cost of a 3-bedroom apartment based on the first 10 listings for 3-bedroom apartments on Craigslist in each city, then divided by 3, based on an assumption of sharing a house with two roommates, as any 20-something trying to maximize his or her income for hobbies or beer drinking would likely do. I was unsatisfied with conventional housing cost calculators, because they don't represent mine or my fellow 20-somethings' most common living arrangements. Under this arrangement, I also assumed $100 per month would go to utilities. This will obviously cause my results to be slightly inaccurate in cities with a wide variation in utilities costs from the norm, but seemed a better solution than not accounting for utilities at all.

Salary: I started with an average college-educated entry-level salary in Dayton (where I live) of $35,000, and used Bankrate.com's cost of living calculator to adjust that salary to each city.

Cost of beer: I used Bankrate.com's cost of living calculator to record the average price of beer -- presumably your average 6-pack, although the website doesn't specify -- in each city.

Additional disposable income: Most budgeting recommendations list 35 percent as the national average for housing costs. Obviously a 20-something renting a house with two other roommates will likely fall below this average if they are making the average college-educated entry-level salary in that city, but the amount by which they can minimize this essentially frees up money directly for hobbies. So, using my housing cost estimate, I determined what percent of total income housing costs represented, and took the difference between the national average of 35 percent and each city's result as the percentage of additional disposable income. For example, in Dayton, housing only accounts for 13 percent of a base-level income, leaving 22 percent of income available for other interests. Or beer.

Food costs: Are not accounted for in this analysis, since relative cost of food seems to mostly reflect housing costs, so it is not likely to skew the results if I did include it anyway.

Let me know if you have any questions, comments or suggestions on my methodology! It was a fun analysis to do.

Dayton, it's time to love yourself

From the energy in the crowd at the UD Arena tonight, you'd have thought it was the championship game instead of the first round. As Tennessee and Iowa faced off in the final game of the First Four bracket, no one in the building was embarrassed to be there. It was a no-holds-barred all-out fight for the honor and glory of a win in the NCAA tournament, and the crowd took it seriously, with huge representation from both team's fans, many of whom came in from out of town to support their team.

My view during over time after my friend Mark and I helped ourselves to a seating upgrade.

As someone with no personal stake in the winner, I rode the crowd's energy to a huge high, and got way more out of my Wednesday evening than I'd expected.

The whole experience made me wish that Dayton as a whole would take itself as seriously every day as it does during March Madness.

Follow me here. For the last 13 years Dayton has done a fantastic job of welcoming in often unknown teams and providing a world-class environment for them to prove themselves, and has filled the stands with locals just tickled pink to see some action even when they have no connection to the teams. And when they do, man, it's electric!

Dayton's not trying to make these games out to be as life changing as the Final Four. But it's also not making any apologies for being the First Four either, because a game between two well-matched 11 seeds can be just as riveting as the championship game, if you let it.

And that's why Dayton needs to love itself, the way it loves its precious First Four. Because life in a small city that loves itself can be just as exciting as life in a big city, if you let it. If you stop looking at newcomers to your city like they're crazy for moving here.

Do you think any Dayton natives in the arena tonight stared at the Tennessee fans in their crazy orange and white checkered overalls with out-of-town license plates and said, bewildered, "What made you come to Dayton?" No! Because tonight, it was patently obvious that Dayton was the place to be.

So stop apologizing for yourself, Dayton! You have so much to offer, as a small city, if you'll only take a minute to understand what your potential truly is. You're not Cincinnati, you're not Columbus, and you never need to be. Right now you're a small, tight-knit community of passionate people, but you're pulling in 100 different directions to become the next Midwest boom town -- to follow my analogy, to be the next host of the Final Four. But is that what you really want? How many Daytonians could afford tickets to the Final Four if it was held here? How many Daytonians could afford to live in the charming historic neighborhoods they live in now if Dayton struck gold in the next boom industry and became the next Nashville, or heaven forbid, San Francisco?

Dayton will never be a big city. But it can sure be an awesome small city if it recognizes the resources it has (coughRIVERcough) and unites those 100 creative minds around simple, attainable goals of creating awesome spaces to gather as a community and enjoy Dayton.

I have a lot of thoughts on this so stayed tuned for more as I explore what people really want out of a city experience, and why Dayton doesn't need to wait for an economic boom to be its savior.
 

Finding community in literature

I’ve recently discovered the whole genre of gay literature.

Yeah, it took me a while.

But I love it.

I’ve only recently come to recognize myself as a minority, not a singularity—an anomaly, a freak.

And so I’ve started to realize that there are others who have gone through what I’ve been through, or much, much worse, and have so much wisdom to share. That there’s a community that I can tap into for support, even if finding them in Dayton has proved challenging.

I’ve been watching heterosexual couples fall in love on screen and in books and in my life for years. But it wasn’t until this winter, when I checked out a book on tape called Annie on My Mind to listen to on my way home for Christmas, that I realized there was another option. I assumed I could learn everything I needed to about love by watching straight couples fall for each other. Not true, I now realize. Annie on My Mind was a super relatable story for me about two teenage girls who fall in love before either ever realizes she's gay. Thanks to the stigma around admitting they're gay, they struggle to own the name, while recognizing the beauty of the love they share, and eventually they learn to accept it. 

I totally underestimated the value of having my own experience of love validated by reading a gay love story. It's slowly helping me feel like a whole person. And it’s not just lesbian lit that speaks to me, as I recently finished reading Two Boys Kissing, and still felt a connection with the various stories of young boys in love against the odds. It’s not like these are groundbreaking classics, but they just feel real to me. The stories, geared for teenagers, aimed to give gay kids a sense of community – some fictional characters to identify with. Like I said, I’d never realized how important that was, because I hadn’t been exposed to it.  

Two Boys Kissing had a simple line, but a powerful one: “Because he’s not the one with the problem – they are.”

It’s hard to let words like that sink in when you’ve had a lifetime of influences telling you just the opposite. But repetition helps. Reading it in a book helps combat the voices in my head that parrot the arguments I heard all my life.

The other book I read was Tipping the Velvet, a bit removed from the young adult fiction genre (i.e. not PG rated), but an excellent story of a woman discovering her sexuality and learning to accept herself in 1890s London.

So while there’s a long list of classic works of fiction I’m hoping to get through this year, gay literature will automatically move up on my list. I'd love any recommendations from anyone. 

What's your idea?

In the spirit of Ignite Innovation week, which is happening across Dayton this week, I have a question for you. What do you notice about these three pictures? 

They are simple, odd, iconic city-center sculptures that for some reason, attract THOUSANDS of people to them, just to smile and pose in front of. You haven't been to Chicago if you haven't checked out The Bean, and how can you say you went to Amsterdam if you didn't climb all over the "I Amsterdam" sign? 

Dayton needs something like this. A larger than life, obnoxiously mass-appealing piece of public art that's a blatant bid for tourists to come downtown and pose in front of. 

This is just one of many ideas that have struck me in the year and a half I've lived in Dayton. I'm surprised it took this long. My brain is an idea machine, and when presented with opportunities to improve something, its gears start humming. 

OK this is a pretty pathetic Paint-job, but you get the idea. How easy would it be to put a cool piece of art downtown that would draw in thousands, and inspire Dayton pride? 

What's your idea? Let me know. 

Livolyn's UK Adventure Part 2

Ok, picking up where I left off in Part 1.

Day 7, Sept. 27:
We had started to hit a wall with London on our third day there. The city was overwhelming, and free wifi was almost impossible to find. But it was Friday, and we were looking forward to dinner with a friend from UNC, and hoping to meet up with one of my friends from frisbee in Cincinnati, who also happens to be a UNC student studying abroad in London. We caught the changing of the guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace, but got tired of standing on our toes and peering over shoulders to glimpse of red uniforms behind palace gates, so we left early.

We met up with our friend Maria for dinner after a long day of walking. She had offered to cook dinner in her flat, so we picked up a bottle of wine to go with it. Once in her flat, we had access to wifi, and realized that my friend Bridget lived in the same building! What a coincidence. She came over, and we caught up.

We headed out in search of some nifty bars, a group of six of us. But oddly enough, there's no obvious student bars district next to the University College London campus, so it ended up being a long walk. Ten minutes in, someone had an inspiration.

"Hey, let's stop and get a roadie!" So we turned in at a small convenience store and bought a four pack of Stella, and Carolyn chose a pre-mixed Jack and Coke in a can, for the novelty's sake, excited to take advantage of lax open container laws. We finally ended up in Covent Garden, and stepped into a bar with people spilling out of multiple doors onto the tiny patio. We wedged ourselves into the bar and ordered some fine European beers, then huddled in a corner talking to ourselves like anti-social Americans. Ten minutes later I noticed Carolyn was in a rather heated conversation with a Brit about journalism and ethics. He'd introduced himself to Carolyn and another guy who was with us because he heard our 'foreign' accents and decided he would like to meet some travelers. When we were all in need of a second drink, he and I stood at the bar next to each other.

"What's your name again?" I asked.
"Clock."
"Clock?"
He looked at me disapproving.
"Now what kind of a name could possibly sound like Clock?"
I panicked, trying to think of names that rhyme with clock.
"Claude?" I tried, hopelessly.
"What's Superman's name?" he asked, laughing.
"Oh, Clark!" It finally registered.

Clark was very friendly and bought a round of drinks for all the Americans. Since he was so interested in journalism and its influence over people's view of the world, he was intrigued by my experience as a professional reporter. Carolyn and I realized it was nearly midnight, and we knew if we wanted to ride the Tube back to our hostel we needed to make it to a station before midnight. So we dashed out and left our friends in Clark's hands. Turns out, we missed a wild night, but we had high hopes for Saturday night.

Day 8, Sept. 28:
I was on my way back for seconds at breakfast in the hostel the next morning when a British guy approached me and said hey, how are you. It took three seconds for me to recognize our friend Alex, who lives outside of London and had taken the train in to hang out with us on our last day in the city. Alex studied abroad at UNC for a year and was proudly sporting a game day T-shirt under his jacket.

He offered to give us the insider's tour of London, so we hopped on the Tube yet again. I soon parted ways with them to join Bridget for one more attempt at experiencing UK ultimate. This time I had communicated with the point of contact for a pick-up group on the south side of London, at the last stop in zone 2 on the Northern line. It started at 11, so in true ultimate fashion, we showed up at 11:30. The group was just finishing some warm-up throws and invited us to join them in a warm-up game. I wasn't really sure what this entailed, but I ran out to the line to join. Since Bridget and I were the only girls at that point, they asked one of us to put on a white shirt. I hadn't brought one. Bridget grimaced and pulled out the only white she'd brought, with the letters USA emblazoned across the front in bright red.

"Get it, Captain America!" I heckled.

To get their muscles warmed up, this group started with several 'walking points.' I'd never played a point where running was strictly forbidden, and found it completely counter-intuitive. My body wants to sprint!

"Are layouts allowed?" I asked.
"Only if you jump with one foot," someone responded. Wow, I didn't expect there to be an exact rule on that.

The walking point was followed by a skipping point, which was followed by a jogging point, and then a few full-speed points, which made me finally realize how much out of ultimate shape I'd already gotten in two weeks off. Then they took a break and led us through a full plyo warm-up, with almost all the same exercises and stretches we use here. It was fascinating how universal the terms and drills are in ultimate.

We left early to meet back up with Alex and Carolyn to explore a giant NFL tailgate party happening on Regent Street, which we found awfully ironic. It was masses of people standing in lines for the chance to throw an NFL regulation-size football, or try a kick, or learn a simple play. The Steelers and Vikings were playing each other in London the next day as part of the NFL's attempt to gain some traction overseas, so the players of both teams made appearances on a stage in the middle of the street. But in order for it to have been a true American tailgate, there needed to be about 842 times as much beer and food, specifically fried chicken.

Our legs were starting to feel the toll of four days walking London up and down, but we pushed through to return to Camden Town for a look around, drawn in by the promise of Nitro Ice Cream, which we'd seen the day before when we'd first explored it. We ordered chocolate with hazelnuts, and watched in awe as they poured liquid nitrogen into a mixing bowl of cream and chocolate and whatever else you need to make ice cream, freezing it instantly and scooping it into a bowl to serve. While in line, Carolyn also decided to splurge on hot chocolate, which turned out to be one of the wisest decisions of the trip. It was mind-blowingly rich and thick.

We parted with Alex after checking one final London experience off our list -- fish and chips from a true English pub. We returned to our hostel, planning to take a rally nap before heading out for our last night on the town. But Carolyn decided to stay in, so I tried to meet up with Bridget and company. But we got a late start, and discovered to my extreme disappointment that all of the bars in London close at midnight, at which point you're expected to move to the clubs, which stay open most of the night. But not being quite ready for the club scene, we ended our night after a few Stellas and a fruitless misty walk in search of a late-night bar. I'd missed the last train back to my hostel, but Bridget managed to interpret the night bus schedule for me, and I left in search of the nearest bus station, armed with the numbers of three bus lines that would take me home scrawled on my hand. I had no map other than the mental one I'd developed in the previous four days, but I put my chin up and decided to own the experience. I hopped on a double-decker bus headed to my hostel's neighborhood, and listened intently as the stops were called out. I got off successfully, and found a map at the next street corner. A young man approached me claiming to be lost, but I couldn't help him find his way. He offered to try to help me.

"What street are you looking for? Maybe I know it," he said.
Alarms started going off in my head. It'd be super easy for him to jump me if he already knows where I'm going. 
"Actually I've got it, and I'm sorry I can't help you out," I said, and strode away purposefully in the right direction. I'd only gotten a glimpse at the map, but my navigation skills hadn't steered me wrong in London yet, so I followed my instincts through the dimly lit streets and intersections, always looking left, right, left-right-left-right-I-have-no-idea-which-direction-the-cars-might-be-coming-from-left-right-GO!

I got to my hostel 10 minutes later, feeling empowered for having handled several challenging situations in one night, including making it home for free without a map. But when all the doors to the hostel were locked, my confidence melted away. I tried all the doors desperately, until an older British lady walking past asked what I was looking for. I said I thought I was locked out of my hostel.

"Well why don't you try the bell?" she said patiently, pointing to a small white button to the side of the door that I'd completely overlooked. The hostel attendant opened the door immediately, and I let a wave of relief wash over me.

Day 9, Sept. 29:
Our next stop was Bristol via Megabus, where we stayed with my friend Will from a previous international exchange trip, and his girlfriend Jules. They were the loveliest hosts imaginable, picking us up directly from the bus stop, and giving us a tour of Bristol's highlights, including a stop for a traditional English Sunday roast, and a visit to a floating cider bar, where we had the most delicious, and strongest hard cider I've ever had.

Jules and Will live in Portishead, a small coastal town with a view across the Bristol Channel to Wales. In our two days staying with them we got to experience British life at a much slower, and more enjoyable pace than in London.

On our way out of Bristol, we stopped at the Isembard Kingdom Brunel bridge across an amazing gorge on the edge of town. Next to it was a natural slide worn into a steep rock face on a hill. Thousands of people's butts have worn the rock so slippery that it looks wet and is so shiny you can see your reflection. It drops you down the hill at a terrifying pace before vaulting you off into a rock at the bottom, so if you're ever there, slide at your own risk.

We were thrilled to sleep in a real bed, instead of the triple-decker bunk beds with three-inch foam mattresses our last luxury lodgings had provided. Our backs still bore an impression of the metal grate under the mattresses, and my left buttock had somehow developed a deep tissue soreness from contorting into the only comfortable position I could find.

Day 10, Sept. 30:

Our second day in Bristol was all about food. We went into Portishead for a traditional English breakfast in a pub that I fell in love with. In England it's the norm to seat yourself at any open table in a pub, then order food and drinks at the counter, leaving your table number with the staff. You pay immediately, and you're not expected to tip, so you can leave whenever you please without the hassle of closing a tab. It's much more relaxing than the American norm of flagging down a waiter for a check.

Once our stomachs had cleared out some room, we went to a fancy hotel for afternoon tea, something Carolyn couldn't bear to leave England without experiencing. It was delightful.

Then, back once more to downtown Bristol, after a drive through the British countryside that left me frazzled and confused from driving on the left side, and riding in the left-hand passenger side, we decided to blow the rest of our pounds on some fancy cocktails from a speakeasy-style club. Will led us to an imposing carved wooden door with no sign above it. He double checked the listing on Google, then rang the bell.

A butler opened the door. "Yes?"
"We're here for Milk Thistle," Will said.
"Right this way."
The attendant led us into a plush bar with low long booths and a gentleman's decor heavy on the taxidermy. The menu featured 15 to 20 cocktails, some traditional, and some unique to this bar. We tried four different ones and sampled each other's.

Day 11, Oct. 1:
We woke bright and early to catch our second and final Ryanair flight from Bristol back to Dublin, with a final destination of Galway, to stay with my friend Laura, whom I'd met on my last trip to Europe. In the Bristol airport, the Ryanair employee who checked us in chuckled as he handed us back our American passports.

"So what's going on with your parliament?" he asked.
We groaned. "Did they actually shut down the government?" we asked.
"Yes, just a few hours ago they missed the deadline," he said, clearly more updated on American politics than we were. #vacation
Carolyn and I weighed out the possibility that we might end up in a Tom Hanks-esque Terminal situation, and be unable to return home because our government had quit on us.

At the Dublin airport, Carolyn was finally reunited with her bag. She then set out on a campaign to promote the double backpack look, as she was now carrying enough luggage for two people.

"I'm going to wear two outfits a day, just because I can!" she declared.

Another friendly bus driver helped us figure out how to take an earlier bus than we had planned, and we arrived around 2 p.m. in Galway, just in time to catch Laura on her lunch break.

We were walking to meet her when we spotted each other, and once again it took me a moment to recognize her. It felt so bizarre meeting up with a friend in such a foreign environment.

"Shall we go for a cup of tea?" she asked in her musical Irish accent.

Laura drew us a map to get to her flat and gave us suggestions for exploring the small, seaside university town. We found it easily, and used her computer to plan out the remaining five days of our trip. Then we appeased our starving bellies by splitting a traditional Irish 5 euro footlong from Subway. We explored Galway's rocky coast and dipped our hands in the Atlantic, waving back to America.

"Actually I think that might be Greenland," I said.

We waved in all directions just to cover our bases.

We made it back to the pedestrian-only street lined with pubs and shops. We stopped in at one on a whim and ordered a sticky toffee pudding, an Irish coffee and a Guinness. With our first bite into the pudding, both our lives changed forever.

"What even is this?" we both asked, then googled the recipe. We savored it as long as we could, and then, slightly buzzed from our drinks, we began to dream about the ideal cafe/restaurant that we could open back in the U.S. that would represent the sum total of all our most amazing experiences in the U.K.

We wandered the streets of Galway some more and then ended the night back at Laura's, where we improvised beds with couch cushions and blankets on the floor.

Day 12, Oct. 2:
We caught our next bus out to a town called Doolin, that sits about eight kilometers of rugged wave-crashing coastline away from the famous Cliffs of Moher, a.k.a. the Cliffs of Insanity from the Princess Bride. It was a two-hour bus trip through the windiest, tiniest country lanes, with bumps and jolts that made the Greyhound bus feel more like a small airplane. The scenery gradually changed from flat Ohio-like farmland to rocky hillsides dotted with stone farmhouses and the odd castle here and there. For the first hour, an older lady sat behind the bus driver, catching him up on the latest gossip and her life in the past month. She must take this trip often. Hers was a real country Irish accent, which was a struggle for me to understand, but her rolled 'r's and rich tones almost lulled me to sleep. She got off several towns before us, but another older lady climbed on and took her place, picking up another conversation with the bus driver that seemed to have been left off just a few days before. Public transportation is an entirely different concept in rural Ireland than urban America.

We put our stuff down in our hostel, caught a bus to the cliffs, then walked along the cliffs at the ocean's edge, skirting by herds of cattle and sheep, and climbing over stiles from one pasture to another. It was incredible and the weather was perfect until the last 30 minutes, when a blowing rain came up from our right and soaked us on one half, but left us almost dry on the left. We made it home to change shirts, get our rain jackets, and then walked out to the pier to take a boat tour of the cliffs. But we had just missed the boat, so we had to wait an hour for the next one. We took shelter inside the tourist information building, hanging out with an enthusiastic Polish ex-pat who worked for the cruises.

The rain and the sun kept fighting over the sky, and we were nervous our voyage might be more like a swim, but then the sun pierced through the clouds and illuminated the cliffs for us right up until our boat turned around and headed back to the pier. Two nice American tourists who had rented a car gave us a ride back to the hostel, and we ended the evening with seafood chowder and fresh mussels from one of the two pubs in town. We read in the hostel common room by the wood stove until we couldn't keep our eyes open another minute.

Day 13, Oct. 3:
We had another bus to catch early, so once again we went without any breakfast. This trip had a few changes, and on our first leg we snagged a prime seat in the back of the bus where you could prop your feet up on the emergency stair rail. A young Irish man slumped into the back row behind us and began chatting excitedly, but in hushed tones, on his cellphone. His accent was so thick it sounded like a foreign language, except for every 15th word. But he kept saying, "yeah, come to the back of the bus."

At the next stop, a friend joined him. A big lumbering dude with an impish grin plastered on his face. I was casually enjoying the free wifi and browsing my Facebook, when the friend sat down right behind me, and tapped me on the shoulder.

"Hey can I have your number?" he asked, laughing.
I said no, indignantly, without looking up.
"Oh, you could just add me on Facebook," he suggested.
I decided that comment didn't even deserve a response, but I was quite taken aback by his boldness.
I pulled out my pen and notebook to try to catch up on days' worth of journaling, but I dropped my pen.
The guy jumped out of his seat and grabbed it off the floor for me, handing it back with a flourish.
"See he's a gentleman," his friend said. I thanked him, completely confused about why these two seemed so interested in me.
I went back to journaling, and the two began a heated discussion. Through the accent I still made out the words "100 quid" and "best price anywhere" multiple times. I didn't dare turn my head to see what they were discussing, since I was already a little sketched out.
The boys went quiet for a second.
Then 100 euros worth of weed dropped onto my shoulder.
"Hey, whoa, I don't want that!" I said as the 'gentleman' grabbed the bag that I was flicking off my shoulder, apologizing for his friend, and going right back to haggling over the price.
Carolyn, who had been oblivious to my previous interactions with this pair, finally noticed something was up.
What is wrong with these guys?
We had ten minutes of peace. Then, "Will you marry me?" the 'gentleman' asked. But he could barely spit out the words without choking on his own inane laughter.
That brought out some strong words as I told him to leave me alone, and he finally did.

We checked into a hostel in Killarney, which sits nestled in the foothills of Killarney National Park and the Macgillycuddy's Reeks, Ireland's tallest mountain range. We took a hike up to an excellent viewpoint of the park, and laid around in a meadow of wild flowers, taking Pinteresting photos. Later we walked into town via a bike path and a trail into the national park, which is teeming with elk. We went straight to the closest Tesco and eyed all the food greedily like kids in a candy shop. We settled on making a pasta dish, buying eggs for breakfast, and sandwiches for lunch the next day, when we planned to do an 11 km hike through the park.

Several experiences throughout the day reinforced a lesson the trip had been teaching me over and over: the value of asking for help. It earned us a free bus trip from town to the hostel, a second night in a 4-person dorm for the same price as the 10-person room we'd already booked, and a cup of milk to cook our pasta. Asking just provides an opportunity for someone to surprise and delight you.

Day 14, Oct. 4:
On our second day in Killarney, we met the most inspiring and fascinating fellow travelers. We booked an organized tour of the Gap of Dunloe, which provided a ride on a vintage bus to the beginning of the gap, then you walked 11 km through the mountain pass to a lake, then took a boat ride through the lakes to a small castle, and then rode in the bus back to town. There were only seven of us in the bus, and Carolyn and I bolted out first, cameras at the ready. We dodged several aggressive gentlemen trying to convince us to take a pony ride or an open carriage ride through the gap. But at this point in our trip we were no strangers to walking. We were about to settle into a nice, brisk pace, when a voice behind us stopped us.

"Girls! Girls, wait!" We turned.
An older, but extremely fit woman, who had ridden the same bus, was running after us. Catching up, she asked if we could walk together -- Carolyn, me, her and her husband. Carolyn and I looked at each other doubtfully, sharing unspoken objections in our eyes.
"...unless you walk really fast," she trailed off, unknowing she'd just touched on Carolyn's and my main point of contention throughout the trip.
We both laughed.
"She does!" Carolyn said, with a friendly glare. "But we don't need to, since we have three hours until we have to be at the boat."
So we shrugged and let them join us. Dinaz waved over her husband Hosi and they introduced themselves. It took two minutes to realize we'd just made the best decision of the trip. Dinaz didn't volunteer information about herself, but if you asked about her life and travels, she had a wealth of stories to offer. They had traveled all over -- Europe, Australia, parts of the U.S. and New Zealand. The trip with the Kiwis was our favorite to hear about. Dinaz, who I'm starting to think may be a closet adrenaline junkie, got her fill of thrills on that trip, trying paragliding, skydiving and white water rafting. For the rafting trip, she'd had to tag along with a group of English school boys because it was the tail end of the season.
"No one expected to see me, a 60-year-old Indian woman in with these proper English boys sitting straight backed, and I'm the one joking and trying to push them off the boat!" she laughed, remembering it.

We swapped adventure stories as we continued the walk through towering, rugged peaks dotted with bright green moss clinging to cliff faces. Visibility wasn't great, but it still gave us a glimpse of the majesty around us, until it started raining. Hosi and Dinaz, who revealed she needs a hip replacement, but since it doesn't hold her back her too much she's reluctant to bother it, flagged down a car traveling through the pass and got a lift, but Carolyn and I trudged onward. We crossed over the highest point of the trail, and below us and ahead of us the sun had burst through, leaving the rain behind us. One dogged pony cart driver caught up with us and tried to coax us into his cart, warning us we still had another three miles to walk. We shrugged him off and kept walking, but he was determined, so he trailed us for a good fifteen minutes until he finally clucked to his pony and sped on.

We finished the walk and reunited with Dinaz and Hosi, along with a German girl named Lisa, who had beaten us to the cafe at the end of the trail. We piled into the open air oversized powered canoe and pushed off from shore, our tour guide beginning to describe the small lake we were traveling through. But then his cell phone rang, and he looked around, then turned the boat around. Back at the dock, he stood up with an embarrassed laugh and said, "I forgot my dog." He whistled for Brax, who came bounding down and hopped in, making instant friends with Carolyn and me because of our sandwiches. Once again we pushed off from the shore and made it out ten minutes, when the phone rang again. He'd forgotten his jacket, but he decided he could do without it.
"And I thought I was forgetful," Dinaz said over her shoulder, with a laugh.

The tour ended at a small castle, and we stayed that evening in town to enjoy one last Sticky Toffee Pudding at a restaurant Dinaz recommended. We hopped around a few bars before meeting up with Lisa and others from her hostel and found a bar serving an exotic foreign craft beer, aka Blue Moon. But we all ended the night early since we were all exhausted travelers tuckered out from weeks on the road.

Day 15, Oct. 5:

We took the bus to Cork the next day and tried to tour around the city in a daze. But we found that unless something involved eating or sleeping, we weren't too interested in it. So we retired to our hostel with a frozen pizza and a bottle of wine, and spent the night packing and celebrating our impending return to the U.S.