Day 16: Buffalo and American Life

Woke up early and with a hangover and put on our snowboarding gear and hiked with our boards all the way to the bridge which crossed the niagara river and through the US border. The border control guy didn't like us coming into the country with only our boards but he let us in anyways haha.

In my first year at griffith i stayed at Metro On Central which is a student accommodation complex. Greg was one of a handful of American exchange students who came to Australia to study abroad for a semester.
I didn't really know him that well, but I did remember he always had a good time and we regularly shared rounds.
Anyways, I hit him up on facebook and he said he only lived 20 mins away so offered to pick us up and take us snowboarding.
He picked us up from the border and we then drove to his place.
He shares with 4 other guys some friends some work mates and the place is sweeet. It's about 4 stories high and has heaps of couches and poker table and fire place and is such a sick hangout.
We dropped the gear we didnt need and went to his parent's house to pick up his brother and some home-cooked food. His mum cooks amazing. A simple sandwich of just bread, home-glazed ham and turkey tasted the most amazing sandwich ive eaten. It was unreal.

We then got to the slopes. I think they were called Holiday Valley. They don't have much vertical descent cos this area is pretty flat, but it had been snowing blizzard-like all day and consistently over the last week so there was heaaaps of powder.

It was suuuch a good day on the mountain. Soo much powder..champagne powder they call it. It was soo soft. We took some tree runs and did a few jumps which were soo cool cos you just land in fluff. I saw a mound of snow and thought it was a mogul like usual and prepared to suspend the impact but the mound just exploded into powder underneath me. The most amazing experience i've felt snowboarding yet and i will never forget it.

We snowboarded all day (there was night skiing) before heading back at about 6ish.
Greg organized cheap tickets for a NHL ice hockey game between the Buffalo team and Boston. We got these tickets for like $25 and normally they're valued at about $180. They're right down the front, only about 7 rows back from the front glass and almost right in the middle. So you can hear all the impacts and see everything.

Walking into this stadium was amazing. It's soo unreal seeing it live. This was a big hockey match and the stadium was virutally packed. Both teams want to try get in a good position to get into the playoffs so there was a great atmosphere.
Greg explained the more subtle rules as they happened and we just watched the game it was soo good. We were really lucky, a guy got a hatrik and it's really rare so all the fans throw their caps onto the ice when it happens. There were a couple of fights which all the crowd get right into. There were big hits. Multiple goals. the game was back and forth. And best of all Buffalo won! :D
It's cool, each whistle they take a break and have time for ads and fun things like shirt shooting, or trivia and other funny things to keep it interesting. Very cool xperience and i can see how people love the game soo much.

After the game, Greg took us to an authentic buffalo irish pub where we ordered a round of drinks and about 30 Buffalo wings for $18. Buffalo wings are world famous. Every american i spoke to before coming over said I had to try them. And these were authentic. The real deal. They're like marinated in a buttery-tobasco type hot sauce with a crispy coating on the outside. There's nothing like them and they're amazing.

We headed back to his joint after detouring for some mixer's and some buffalo-style pepperoni pizza and more wings to eat after we were intoxicated.
The americans showed us a few drinking games and college-life style things.
We played a game where you had to come up with a word which begins with the letter of the first card that is dealt. Very hard and very funny as people get drunker & struggle to think of words
We played a game of Kings.
There was also this game called "Icing". Basically if somone drops a smirnoff ice infront of you or tricks you into finding it, you have to drop on one knee and scull it no matter where or when it is. Some of the more creative ones are hiding it inside a jacket where somone ultimately finds it, or hides it under a shampoo bottle. I got iced just as i was about to fall asleep which was very entertaing albeit hard.
We got appropriately maggot and played beer pong into the wee hours of the morning with the aawesome drinking food of pizza and buffalo wings.

HUuuuge day/night and a very memorable one. Greg and his housemates showed us such an awesome time and showed us how americans definitely know how to drink. They party very hard compared to the Aussie mentality of just driking alot. College life in America would have been soo much fun.