Odyssey - Book 2 - Chapter iv - the South African

Why the South African?? My friend Kyle (who got married over the weekend to my friend Shannon) is from SA .. duh! Anyhoo, a long trip after a long time, added another 2000 miles to my car and met a lot of old friends and generally had a blast.

The trip was primarily to attend my friend's wedding at Tallahassee turned into a sort of whirlwind visiting trip.

It's almost like everybody one day decided that they got to get married this year and add on the peer pressure for happy single people like me! This is the fifth wedding in ninth months for me and there are four more that I am going to this year. You would think that my friends would be gracious enough to find me somebody at all these weddings, but no such luck ... haha ... I think I need to stop making my mom jump with all these statements!

The first leg of the journey to Tallahassee was a stop at Atlanta to meet Katie and her family. They were gracious enough to play host to me ... and you guys know how finicky I am. It is always a pleasure to have a good well informed political banter with them, everytime I meet them.

Day two of my trip saw me in Tally at Koshy annan's place and having dinner at two different places, I cannot be responsible if they decided to have a Indian birthday party when I am there. Dinner with old friends is always good, and trust me I spoke more than I ate for once!

Day three and it was time to take a trip down memory lane around FSU, meet more friends for breakfast and lunch and make a trip to Perry. Starbucks has arrived in Tally and looks like it's got the town hooked on to its brand of opium.

Trips to Perry are always wonderful and this time was no different either. What with Whit getting her Chudi and Mrs. Owens getting a crash course on Indian weddings and customs from me. Ofcourse it was heavily dosed with my prejudice. Also on the agenda was what Indian dress I should wear to Meagan's wedding. It was also time for me to claim my Christmas cake and cookies from Whit ... six months after the event and as expected I wasn't complaining about it. Give me a sec let me grab another piece of that cake, oh did I mention it is delicious??

No trip to Tally would be complete without me visiting Stetsons and showing the kids how it was down. This time it was Whitney's initiation into line dancing at Stetsons, and my perennial dance partner Amy didn't let me down. I might have put on thirty pounds from the last time I did it but my legs didn't give up. It was no time before they knew who owned the dance floor!(down boy!) The line dancing with a small dose of karaoke is definitely my drug. I stayed till the end and helped them close the place at 2:30.

Saturday was the big day and it was wonderful wedding, maybe a tad hot, a mixture of American and south African customs under huge trees. Followed by a huge feast and more dancing. I also learnt the lesson on why not to wear a woolen shirt in 90+F weather. Next time I pack for such a trip, I am going to make sure I don't forget my suit!

Sunday was more laid back and lots of food. It was aunty's birthday and visit to Olive Garden. The trip to snookerd with Koshy and Adriaan was the last thing I did before trying to forget how much more fun Tally is than O'Fallon!

The trip back was 845 miles in 12 hours straight with just two pit stops. Also learned to eat Briyani while driving ... a very important survival skill!

The Pictures are here under two different folders. http://public.fotki.com/falcus007/