The happiest 5K in the world

For those of you who know me you'll know I ran my first 5K 'The Colour Run' in early October in Oklahoma City... Now for this post I'm going to play catch-up and tell you all about it although it happened weeks before I began this blog.

The above picture was taken when myself and my international friends finished the run and amazing 'paint party' that followed. Now i've never been greatly athletic but I was very proud of myself when I managed to jog/run the whole 5K and not look like the usual beetroot I've been known to turn into after exercise. This however was not the most exciting part of the run for me.. The most exciting part was that it wasn't cancelled! See, the night before the run I witnessed first hand my first of Oklahoma's thunderstorms and I must say, it was not fun.

The whole day we'd been having severe weather warnings however the sky was blue, sun was out and it was around 22 degrees if I remember right. It wasn't until midnight when I was cycling back from a friends birthday party that it started to pour down with rain, despite that I managed to fall asleep only to be awoken at 3am by the brightest flashes of light I have ever seen and thunder so loud I thought my ceiling was caving in. When I realized I wasn't getting back to sleep any time soon I received two text messages from two friends living in other apartments who were equally as terrified as I was..After an hour it finally calmed down to the point I was able to fall back to sleep. When I woke at 6.30am ready to leave for the city in time for the 5K it was still dark and windy outside but the rain had subsided. No one knew whether we'd be able to run or not but by 9am the sun was shinning and all was back to how it should be - summer time in October!

I guess that's what Oklahoma weather is all about. Crazy.

Back to the point of this whole blog, I would totally recommend anyone who gets the chance to do the colour run do it! The whole run they provide you with paint packets to throw at each other and at the end all participants surround a stage playing music and throwing paint everywhere. I mean, what more could you want?

GW Rescue Zoo

Yesterday I had one of the most amazing experiences of my life...

My flatmates and I decided to take a day trip to an animal rescue park in Wynnewood Oklahoma where they allow you to take a tour of their endangered animals and interact with some of the babies. I was lucky enough to hold a baby alligator, several snakes, baby pigs, skunks and a baby tiger.
Upon arrival we drove into a small carpark only big enough for around 12 cars and found our way to a small shop which served as the entrance. There we were greeted by two women, one cradling a baby human and the other placing a baby snake in her hair where it remained quite content for the rest of the day!



Its safe to say the park was very humbly run by volunteers, most of which are from the same local families. It has no grand entrance, fancy signs or expensive food stands.. It is simply a park filled with animals which you can experience up close and personal guided by people who have dedicated their time to learn about and get to know the animals you're handling. It was a very grounding experience to appreciate the animals for what they are - beautiful - and see what people are doing out there to try and conserve their natural environment as well as breed those they have in captivity so that my children, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren can also experience what I did today.

As well as hold many of the baby animals I also got to see the white tigers feeding time, which was slightly terrifying, and meet a very angry goat who took great pleasure in throwing himself full force at the feet of a camel which i'm told is his best friend, who would have thought? I also saw my very first Liger - offspring of a Lion and a Tiger - which was breed and born in the park. Ligers have no growth gene so they continually grow throughout their lives. The one I saw was 7 years old and already larger than both its parents and will only continue to grow!

So playful you forget it could be dangerous..

Frat Parties

A week or so ago two friends from home emailed me and asked what an ‘American Frat Party’ was as my home university’s student union was trying to re-create one. For those of you who don’t know, this is what it is…

A frat party is held at a Fraternity house on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. A fraternity house is the male equivalent of a sorority house; a house occupied by 60 or so American University boys and one poor house mum who takes care of them all. Fraternities share the same recruitment process, secret pledges and Greek names as their sorority counterparts however the rules for a house full of boys differs ever so slightly from the rules for a house full of girls as you can well imagine.

By the time the weekend roles around the sorority girls, most of which are below legal drinking age and who are not - under any circumstances - allowed boys passed the living room of their sorority house, are more than ready for a party with the boys. The huge frat house is turned upside down with music, traditional red party cups and holy water. Holy water is the name given to a traditional concoction of pure spirits the frat boys unleash on the unsuspecting girls; something I can live without trying.

Now here’s where it gets tricky. Technically, as the University of Oklahoma is a dry campus (no alcohol permitted on campus AT ALL) and the fraternity houses are part of the Uni, alcohol is not permitted in the frat houses.  This however doesn’t stop them, it just means you have to be prepared to dive under any table, bed or bush to hide from security if they come to break up the fun.  In a sense it’s like having a giant party at your parents’ mansion only they come home from holiday a day early… And you’re in huge trouble.

I appreciate that it’s probably my British upbringing that makes me sceptical about fraternity boys but there is something about a man in his twenties choosing to sleep in bunk beds in a room with one or more men that is not quite right in my mind. I understand the bond of brotherhood they achieve and that it is a fantastic way to make friends in your first year of Uni but it just doesn't sit right with me. The only thing that gives me hope is that Brad Pitt was a fraternity boy when he was at Uni in Kansas; this I found out from my sorority sister whose Dad was in the same house as him at the same time… I guess Brad turned out alright.