From Oxford to Foxwoods

Here beginneth the first verse of the first chapter of the Trip According to Mr. Pink...




Sunday 20th March

Miss Pink was actually the first of the Pink clan to quit England. The idea of her having to spend two weeks in Oxford while I swanned around the US was a little too much so she toddled off the Cyprus for a week's vacation with her parents and sister. Vacation might be a little inaccurate since most of would be spend visiting family and dropping off wedding invitations, but still a much more attractive option than staying behind and grafting at work
Rather than head straight back to Oxford after dropping the girl at the airport and generally hanging round getting bored for a 24 hours before my turn came to leave, I decided that it might be good idea to get some last minute live poker practice in by heading to The Gutshot Card Club in London. Check back to this post for the gory details (in essence, I managed to burn about £400 of the £1,200 bankroll that I'd allowed myself for the trip. Not the sort of start I was looking for.

When I eventually dragged my arse back to Oxford, I just about had enough time to pack my luggage, send some last minute emails to contacts in The US and print out a whole load of itineraries, maps etc that we'd be needing before heading out and meeting half of the group for the bus to Heathrow.

In case I've miraculously acquired any new readers over the past couple of weeks, the purpose of the trip was as a tour of the North East Coast of the USA with the a capella group a sing in, The Oxford Gargoyles. When I wasn't playing too much poker or writing my thesis, I'd spend much of the last term organising it all. We were gonna be staying with various other a cappella groups at schools between Boston and NYC, doing gigs with them and generally partying quite a bit.

[I need a new computer. It's now crashed twice while I've been trying to write the next paragraph]

Monday 21st March

The bus journey to Heathrow was fairly uneventful save that I managed to forget the folder with all the directions, itineraries, contacts details, and other useful info that I’d spent two hours of potential sleep time printing out earlier. Grrrrr. At least I’d remembered the tickets.

Our rousing rendition of “My Baby Just Cares For Me” (available on our latest CD priced at a very reasonable £10!) greatly entertained the lady at the check-in desk but failed miserably in getting us an upgrade. I did mange to get an emergency exit seat so there would be a little room for my oversized legs but the down side was that I found myself stuck between two sets of parents with kids. Our plan for combating irritating children on the plane had been to sing a cappella at them until the ceased in their irritation, but we were too spread out to implement such a plan. Fortunately, however, I had been sufficiently deprived of sleep over the preceding 24 hours that I was oblivious to the world for the best part of the flight and before I knew it we’d arrived in Boston.

Our first appointment was with the Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones. Despite getting lost in the one-way system of downtown Boston in the Vans we’d hired for the trip we found ourselves to Cambridge in time to grab a beer and a burger before jet-lag began to set in.

This is going to get a tad long and tedious at this rate so I’ll try and move onto some poker action more quickly.

Tuesday 22nd March


Rehearsal on Boston Common

A side from an open-air rehearsal on Boston Common, we spent the following day doing typically touristy things before our gig with the Veritones in the evening. The Veritones were shit hot (in case that’s UK-only slang, I’d like to make it clear that they were AMAZING!). We sang pretty well and people seemed to enjoy it so we were pretty happy given that it was our first gig. There was a third group visiting from Berkley who also sang. They were terrible, but entertaining nonetheless since they had us all in stitches.

We didn’t party particularly hard after the show (other groups we stayed with subsequently weren’t too surprised – apparently Harvard folk don’t have a reputation for living very wildly. I wouldn’t like to make any generalisations especially since I met up later with a couple of friends I have who go there. We went to one of their Reading Societies (That may or may not be the proper term), which was some ridiculously posh hangout of theirs. We drank and smoked fairly copiously and they called a few friends to get a game of cards going. It was only a $10 buy-in, which was probably just as well considering the state we were all-in, but I managed to end the session about $30 up.

Wednesday 23rd March

I awoke the following morning with just enough time to meet up for a tour round Harvard that one of the Veritones was giving us. I wasn’t particularly compus mentis but a healthy breakfast of pancakes, eggs, corned beef hash and coffee sorted me out afterwards.

Our next stop was with the Jabberwocks of Brown University. We’d hired two mini-vans to get ourselves around and although the van I was driving was a lot more tame than the other we had a moment of some excitement when Anouhska realised that she’s hadn’t managed to hook up with anyone in MA (her goal being to hook up with someone in each state that we visited). Just as the “Welcome To Rode Island Sign” came into view she grabbed Claire and they had a good snog. I just managed to avert my eyes in time to swerve past the truck that had come looming up in front of us!

Providence seemed like a pretty nice city and the Jabberwocks seemed as though they were gonna be a lot of fun. Despite the previous day being sunny and really quite warm, by the time we had dropped our bags off and headed out for some ribs with them, it had started snowing. An hour or so of noshing later and there was a decent covering. Enough for a hearty Gargoyles v Jaberwock snowball fight, but not quite enough to stop me from driving to Foxwoods.

It didn’t look as though there were many Gargoyles up for partying that night and the possible home game that might have been going on with one of the Jaberwock fell through. This suited me fine since Foxwoods was only a 45 minute drive away and I probably wouldn’t get another opportunity while we were nearby.

There were only two slight problems it was past midnight and now snowing very heavily. But then, I did say they were only slight ones.

The drive took me a good 90 mins because I got stuck behind a fleet of snow ploughs. Still probably better than being stuck just in front of them. As I turned off the I-95 and drove a few miles, Foxwoods rose up out of the snowy forest like some kind of degenerates’ Meca. It really was quite a sight and any hint of tiredness soon left me.

To be continued....