Laramie

The main reason for this trip was to attend my cousin's wedding in Laramie, Wyoming. I flew straight into Denver where my Uncle picked me up and drove me up to Laramie. I think I visited there about 16 years ago when I was last in Wyoming. If I did, I couldn't remember it.

It is a university town. Not particularly big, but with a lot of students. I wandered around the campus quite a few times. There are genuine frat houses. I am sure they're called something official, but they're all named like gamma-gamma-alpha. I walked around with another of my cousins (From the UK) and we were both going "It's like the movies!" It is a nice campus. Fairly typical for a university, some nice areas which are where the visitors go and some not so nice areas which visitors would be discretely steered away from.

The town itself was a nice place to wander around, lots of very typical US streets, which had me going "Oh, it's quaint". Some of the things that surprised me - the number of food places available to eat at. I could not believe the sheer volume of them. The other thing that bemused me was one afternoon I was walking back past the (massive) stadium and there was pumping music, the sound of a crowd and I thought, "There is a game on."

There was no game on, just practice, but they crank up all the effects in the stadium. So lots of sounds of chanting and cheering, music, cameras, all the lights. Ok, I can understand you don't want your players being awestruck by the atmosphere on game day, but I still found it a very American thing to do.

The wedding was good. My Mum would have cried if she was there. Nina and Michael, if you're reading this, may you have a long happy time ahead of you and when are you coming to Australia? Like most weddings, I got to catch up with the cousins and relations (counsins x times removed and all that). The relations you only ever see at these big family things. (The last time I saw some of these folks was at a big family reunion about seven years ago). Looks like I might have to get married if I want to see them again.