How to survive the Jet Lag

I’m flying 12 hours on Friday, to go 6 hours behind, then on Saturday I fly 4 hours to go another two hours behind! Then on Sunday I have to be awake enough to watch the game…

So I searched the NHS website, because being the UK it’s virtually impossible to get an appointment so they offer a fantastic website of do-it-at-home remedies – so here are our combined tips to beat Jet Lag between the UK and the states.

1.  If you are taking any medication that requires a strict timing, let your doctor know – if you can get an appointment of course!
3. Sleep, sleep, sleep! Although as it’s travelling West, so if you sleep on the plane you’ll be really awake at 21h00 at night! So, I will be Red Bulling it all the way on Friday. I guess try and sleep a bit on the plane, they usually have a lot of chick-flicks that you can just zone out too.
4. Try and have a stop over, for example if you’re flying from London to San Francisco, stopping in New York for a few hours will help your brain adjust – and give you time to have a quick blitz on your face and re- do your eye-liner before the next bit. But you’ll need to start thinking about this early, if you’re booking your flights in August for example!
5. Drink water – it’s so dehydrating in there, but they have little areas to get a drink and a biscuit, then if you’re really lucky they come round with ice lollies! I know you want to travel in style, but just avoid the alcohol, firstly it can upset your nervous system, so instead of calming you it will lessen your idea of control and you’ll end up terrified of every little bump.
6. Buy an eye mask, I really like this one from Urban Outfitters, but I just can’t bring myself to buy it! Even if you’re not sleeping it’ll help block out the light, and those passengers that just love to talk you to death for two hours.
7. Sleep if you need to. I was really awake during the day in Mexico, then crashed in the car on the way to Querétaro. If you’re going to a big city then chances are it’s just as lively early in the morning, so don’t worry too much about needing an early night sometimes!
8. Keep out in the open, just being out in the daylight helps – it took me about three days and one mammoth sleep to get me back to normal.

Si se acabe el mundo – 2012

So, at 11h00 the world is supposed to end. While searching for anything NFL / 2012 related, all I could really find is this, broadcast by Chevrolet during the Super Bowl in February this year :

So in January 2012 I was in Mexico, we went to Chichen Itzá, and Tulum, and generally a lot of Mayan ruins. Like when I went to Barcelona, I was a bit Gaudí’d-out…  Well, really it reminds me of my New Years day last year, we’d had the grapes, speeches, salsa dancing, and wall-to-wall American football! Oh we were watching for about nine hours, three games, one after another, Cowboys then 49ers, then Broncos… I haven’t got many photos, because all we did was watch TV and go on a little bike ride.

Well, at 11h00 this morning I will be in the hairdressers, so as my Mexican Danielote told me this morning “at least you’ll go out in fashion!”.

no te preocupe se acabe el mundo
vente conmigo, que me voy pa` Mérida

Rafael Mérida Cruz-Lascano

How to be a football widow, US stylee!

So today’s Daily Prompt is Guilty Pleasures. I don’t know what’s been wrong with some of my ex-boyfriends, none have really been that into Football, but growing up with a little brother and a Daddy, I was quite into it when I was younger. That’s my guilty pleasure, I shouldn’t like football but I do. Look at how much I’m enjoying Mexico vs Gabon at Coventry for the Olympics ::

Flag, shirts, beer, even a  gold medal at the end of it all (watched the final on the telly but still brilliant!). So,  we know how to do it in the UK, have your girlfriends round, watch X-Factor and drink wine until you fall off the chair.

What about in the US :

1. Assimilate the the game – We’ll never quite understand the offside rule in football, and really there’s so much of the American we’ll never understand, when the quarterback falls down to score a point or a penalty or something, the point of cheerleaders, no idea.
2. Learn the who’s who – we all grew up with Giggsy, Beckham, and Ooh Aah Cantona, but I have no idea who the hotties or the meanies are. All that matters in my house is Peyton Manning is great, every single Patriots player is a crock of shite. Booooooooooo the Patriots!
3. Cook – look at the movies, what do the women do when the game’s on? Cook for their men! Pizza, cakes, casserole… Maybe not casserole, but even if it’s just arranging your spicy beef Monster Munch in a bowl.
4. Learn the lingo – “¡Toma chango!” and “Ah, you bastards!” is the cry of our household. I believe you could also ask 6000 questions as per my previous post, however I don’t advise this if you’re not keen on having that second cry directed at you.
5. Get cheerleading – another throwback to the movies, the Jock and the Cheerleader, not sure whether that still works once you go pro, but you could get your pom poms out and get pretending, who knows what might happen!
6. Because the games are on so late here, my final piece of advice, grab yourself a hot chocolate, the latest 50 Shades*, and go to bed

* I need to point out I haven’t read this book. I tend not to see things, read things according to the hype.

Bonus tip number 7 – though I might regret putting up this photo from The Telegraph :

Two games, one TV, computer, a million questions

So, we are watching the Packers at the Bears on the telly, and the Broncos at the Ravens on the computer. Here is how it normally goes, I’ll give you just my highlights from the first quarter, or else this post will be as long as the page! :

Pre-game build-up

• Who are all those people there? In the middle?
• What’s that thing in the middle? It looks like a car advert.
• Who do we want to win on the telly? Green Bay?
• I haven’t seen any Cheeseheads, what’s going on? Where do the away supporters sit? I guess they don’t really travel to the games much, here it’s what max 6 hours on a coach at about 50 quid? So where are we sitting when we go?

First Quarter

• So on the computer it’s 9 minutes left in the first quarter, and on the telly it’s 6 minutes left, so on the telly they are running around a lot more, but Broncos are being stupid and dropping the ball all the time?
• Who’s Joe Flacco? What’s wrong with him?
• That’s J Cutler, he used to play for the Broncos, bastard!
• Who’s Devin Hester? What’s he got on his face? Looks stupid…
• Ooooohhhh, it’s going down!!

End of First Quarter Five minute talk in the studio that in the US stream is actually an ad break

• So on we’ve got Fox on the telly, and CBS on the computer, how does that happen? Who decides who gets what game? So what happens when the National plays the American, who decides who screens it?
• Why’s that first and ten thing a lot clearer on CBS than Fox?
• What’s going on? First and ten? To who? The Ravens? Bastards.
• Why have the referees got numbers?
• What’s Peyton Manning got in his bumbag? Wouldn’t that hurt his bits?
• 

Date night!

Here on a date night tonight at Locanta Restaurant in St Paul’s Square. How American is that – date night? We walked for miles trying to find a restaurant because we have nothing in the house.  

Discussing the Top Five Novelty NFL Christmas Presents, we wonder who buys some of this stuff, trying to work out who would be Old Kent Road and Mayfair in NFL Monopoly. And then, why the chuff the Broncos game is not on Sky on Sunday, because it’s the Packers vs the Bears, that’s why – one of the biggest rivalries in the NFL!

Also, lovely restaurant, our first time there, it was like being in a proper Italian restaurant in Europe!

Top Five Novelty NFL Christmas Presents

If like me you are starting to panic a little bit with Christmas shopping, I’ve come up with my top five novelty NFL gifts for any hardcore fan :

5.  NFL Monopoly

In the UK this will set you back about £90 on Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk).  No customer reviews, neither on the US site, so what does that tell us? Instead of Chance and Community Chest you draw National and American cards, you buy the teams and the rest of the general rules of Monopoly. Not my favourite game, mainly because my Mom wins every time and I can’t be bothered anymore. But one for the board game geeks – if like me you’ve got about six or seven different editions, from Aston Villa to Barcelona streets, you might find a pang of “I kind of need that”.

__________

4. NFL beach shoes

For the woman in your life? The Arizona Cardinals seem to want to bring the beach to you with these wedges, $65.99 (£40.90) from www.nflshop.com. These look a bit hardcore for me though, a 4 inch heel and I’ve never been comfortable in wedges. Still, look forward to an all-year-round Summer in these shoes!

__________

3. NFL Beer Cooler

Now this is actually a good idea from www.bedbathandbeyond.com, selling at $55.99 (£34.70), you can keep up to 10 cans cool in here, perfect for a picnic, Sunday night game, or just a normal Tuesday morning if you live in the scabby flats at the back of ours. The blurb does say outdoor concerts, but you can’t really take your own beer in here in the UK, so stick to popping it down your pants there!

__________

2. NFL Tape Measure

Who wants to spend $17.99 (£11.20) on a tape measure? It’s www.fanzz.com, that’s who! They really do sell it too : “You can measure with style and pride with this Officially Licensed 25′ Pittsburgh Steelers Tape Measure decorated with a hand crafted Pittsburgh Steelers Team Logo. This is a great gift for any Pittsburgh Steelers fan!” This puts me in mind of those Cath Kitson flower hammers…

__________

1. NFL Keyboard

 How much do you need this?! Again, www.nflshop.com, for $69.99 (£43.40). I have several internal conflicts here, it’s a keyboard – I have a laptop, and it’s the Patriots – as my Daniel once said “Hate is a really strong word Katherincita, and I don’t hate anything, but I really hate the Patriots!”

Why I’m blogging and not studying…

Taken from the Daily Prompt: Oasis. When I was young I always wanted to write fiction, my university application actually stated that I wanted to be a travel writer. Now, I sit in an office on a rainy Wednesday afternoon writing e-mails about nothing interesting. From the view from my office on the left here, you can see I’m living the dream.

Anyway, my Oasis is so many things, but really it’s writing, I’ve started so many blogs over the years, from weight loss, to job hunting, to coping with various problems in life – and never got past three or four posts!  I’ve had mega ideas for books or short stories, but the internet seems so saturated with competitions and peer posting websites that I just didn’t know where to start.

This blog is different, it’s like I’m not talking to myself, it’s not a motivational tool to help me lose weight or cope with XYZ problem. And as I’ve said before, I started this to help the man in my life enjoy his football without having to explain everything to me, in our own personal Oasis of our two-bedroom fourth-floor apartment, 15 minutes walk from the city centre, with a view across the outskirts of the city and beyond. And if I was studying this topic, I would be sitting at home talking to nobody – but by blogging I can have an interaction, I can immerse myself in this on-line world for a few minutes…

I hope it can be a way to find my imagination again.

When it all gets too much though, I can end up anywhere, I like repetitive exercise, I used to go on long bike rides, and then as I got older, long walks to discover the new areas I lived in. Pounding of footsteps with my iPod loud, before I know it I’ve walked for two hours and am miles away from home… So I keep walking until I find a bus stop.