Party in the USA

Hellloooo, it's time for another blog entry - if you leave it too long, there's far too much to write about so I need to write at least two per week to keep up with it.
So, on Friday morning we departed for the mall and Walmart to buy our tennis stuff and essential supplies. The trip didn't really go to plan though cos we spent far too long clothes shopping which meant that we didn't have time to go to Walmart. I spent quite a lot of money, especially in Banana Republic but I got a $10 hoodie in Forever 21 which was a great bargain.
In the afternoon, we went to a baseball training session so that we understood the rules and how to play as we were going to a match on Saturday evening. I have absolutely no hand-eye coordination so I was absolutely rubbish at it but I learned the fundamentals of the game at least. Afterwards, I went to play tennis with Emma and Josh. Having not played for a good five years, I was really bad and could barely return any shots - but I aim to get better over the year that I'm here!
On Friday night, we went to a party at our French friend, Aimelyne's house. She lives with two older American men so they had a few friends there as well. I experienced beer pong for the first time which was very entertaining. American beer tastes so weak but definitely leads to a very bad hangover! Basically all of the international students showed up besides the Asians - we've all became quite close over the first week. Highlights of the night included a huge traffic jam outside caused by an insane taxi driver (leading to us shouting GET OUTTA THE WAY ASSHOLE in our best NY accents) and the police showing up to complain about noise levels - all in all a very good night. The alcohol laws made me feel like I was 17 again.
Most of Saturday was a write-off due to bad beer hangovers but at 5 p.m. we went to the downtown campus to get on the bus to go to a baseball match - Tri-City Valley Cats (Tri-City being Albany, Schenectady and Troy) vs. Hudson Valley Renegades. The quality of the match wasn't great as the league the two teams played in was apparently 4 down from the MLB where the likes of the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox play. It was a completely different experience compared to a British sporting event - it lasted the best part of three and a half hours due to the constant breaks and the amount of advertising was ridiculous! Every couple of minutes or so, a strange event took place to entertain the crowd as the actual sporting event was pretty boring. The most memorable of these was a man dressed as a hot dog on a tricycle being chased by people dressed as mustard and relish on a car and motorbike and people with huge plastic heads having a race pretending to be local mayoral candidates. As we soon discovered, it was easier not to ask why these things were happening but to ask why not? After the match, all of the women who attended the match were invited on to the track to dig with spoons for a pair of diamond earrings that was buried - it must have been quite degrading for them as a crowd of men ogled them bending over and digging in the dirt but Aimelyne beat at least a hundred other women to win the earrings and hasn't taken them out of her ears since!
After the match, we went to another house party with lots of the international students. We played beer pong again and an American/French adaptation of ring of fire which wasn't very good for me as I ended up being violently sick in the toilet and having to get a taxi home by myself. In the taxi, the driver and his wife (who was in the front passenger seat) interrogated me over my thoughts on Barack Obama for about 10 minutes. I'm not entirely sure what I said but it probably wasn't the best time to talk to me about politics!
Sunday morning and early afternoon was used by most people to wallow in their hangovers but I felt fine as I must have thrown up all of the alcohol I'd drank! Later on, we went to a block party at a nearby halls, which was kind of like Freshers Fayre at English uni's - I signed up to the university TV and radio stations, newspaper and, more randomly, the ski club - as I'd like to learn but have never had the opportunity, apparently they go on trips every Saturday later in the year. There was another barbecue which was nice, then we went to the downtown campus to watch an open air film on a big screen. The film happened to be The Exorcist which I thought was an inspired choice! I actually found the film pretty freaky and I think if I watched it alone, I'd be terrified - but everyone laughed at all the scary parts so it wasn't too bad really.
Classes started today, which was quite strange because it was around 35 degrees so it felt like I was on holiday. My first class was History of American Foreign Policy which was far less interesting than it sounds - the lecturer mainly talked about corn - so I decided that I would drop it. The second class was American Political Theory, which was actually more interesting than it sounds so I'm going to keep it. The lecturer reminded me of Tina Fey, which has to be a huge plus point. My third class was Topics in American History, which is based around the 1970s and the emergence of Ronald Reagan which sounds very suitable as it fits in with what I'm thinking about doing my dissertation on. After classes ended, I went to Walmart with Emma to buy some much needed bits n bobs then popped into the mall as I ordered some trainers from Footlocker last week and they were due to be collected, but they'd completely messed up my order and sent the wrong trainers so I had to re-order them and I'll have to wait another week for them to arrive. So annoying!!!
I have three more classes tomorrow: The World at War 1939-45; American Social History and American Legislatures - one of which I'm intending to drop, as we only need to do 4 courses per semester to fulfil our visa requirements.
Anyway, I've blabbed on enough so I'll update you of more significant events in a few days time. The weather is supposed to be even hotter tomorrow which might be a bit unbearable cos my room is still too hot at this time of the day (00:16) even with the fan on!!!!