...Missouri!

So, after being awake for about 30 hours and listening to over-zealous American fishermen talking about pick-ups and houses on the plane I met Jana and Jake at Kansas City airport. I was feeling full of beans and raring for a change of scenery but with an empty tummy. So we stopped off in the "International House of Pancakes" which is often abbreviated to IHOP. It is a fantastic establishment that prides itself on full-colour glossy menus and just about every combination and permutation of pancake available. I ordered from the "I'm keeping the inches off my hips" section of the menu (8,000 calories instead of the usual 3 million per dish) which still managed to knock me into a solid two-hour food coma in the back of the car.

Back at Jana's I was introduced to her two cats, Fearless and Van Gogh. They are pretty dominant characters in the house and seem to have a few schemes and tricks worked out. Van Gogh is pretty lazy and tends to try outsmart you rather than par-take in your silly games whereas Fearless is pretty off the wall. I've yet to witness him hanging from the threshold of the door frame when he works himself into a tizzy. But apparently it happens..

So after a post-coma nap we headed on over to Laura and John's house (Jana's adoptee parents). It's well pimp. High ceilings, plush interior, a racquet-ball court, pool table, a mini gym and some very big tellys are but a few features of this monstrosity. I'm supposed to be spending a few days there during my trip. Laura even feeds a raccoon, so I'll see if i can get some shots. Dinner was gorgeous and the conversation flowed. Laura and John are quite the hosts! Dessert was even home-made chocolate brownies that broke down defences and rebelled against my healthy eating thing so vehemently. Have you any idea how difficult it is to buy a sugar-free breakfast cereal over here?

The next day we checked out downtown Columbia. It seems to have a fairly decent mix of about anything you could want. It's a well-equipped town with a strong history that I've yet to come to terms with. Makes a pleasant difference to be somewhere with history as opposed to places like Grande Prairie which first gets a mention in the history books in 1824 and just as a trading post or Anchorage (est. 1912). The heat something fierce though. It was 90 Fahrenheit yesterday - or about 32 degrees Celsius to those that are using real units - and it's going to hit 100 Fahrenheit (or 38 real degrees) this week, apparently.

The afternoon was spent doing a small tour of Jana's background in Columbia, where she lived, where she schooled etc.. and then a little trip through some of the trashier parts of Columbia. Then on to learning to play "washers" in a red-neck bar frequented by motorcyclists and pythons. I'm not sure why the kid who owns the snake brought him to a bar, nor do I understand why he called the female snake "Johnny". aaaaanyway.. Someone even saw fit to give me a t-shirt that said "feck you, you feckin fecker" and the DJ approached me asking me what I wanted to hear for a change! I'm not sure what the bar was doing with the t-shirt and I think the meaning was a little lost on them. I thought it was fantastic though! How splendidly random!

We started our night in Pepper's night club where both Jana and Jake once worked. The bar lady was insisting that he was giving me some sort of discount on the beer she was serving me, but im not so sure, think she was just fishing for tips. There was a karaoke setup and I actually got up and sang! But it was more a damage limitation measure as there was a guy who kept on getting up and doing heavy metal numbers. I managed to belt out some overly baritone renditions of "House of the rising Sun" by the Animals (the first song my mom showed me on guitar) and "Deeply Dippy" by Right Said Fred - so fantastically gay. I also got to meet a few of Jana's pretty cool mates which was nice after hearing about them and picking up snippets of their existences from internet social networking sites etc.. Quite a nice, well-rounded bunch of people!

We only stayed in Peppers till about half past twelve before we moved onto the next bar. Then we heard about this little story the next day. It was only about an hour after we left.. Good auld America!

..mm..