[fannish brain dump]

[hackthis]

We all know I'm a fannish raccoon. If it's shiny to me, I will write about it until I find another piece of foil. Doesn't matter if it's brand-spanking (have I done a spanking fic? Wait, digression!) new or hanging out in the garbage. My current lust is the Olympics. Yeah, I know they over. In fact, let's have a brain dump about this

Comments

[berreh]

Hey, starfishchick pointed me in your direction as both a native of Gainesville and a lover of Michael. :D I'd be happy to fill you in on what I can, but it's hard to get specific b/c I don't know much about Lochte. The Gainesville experience is very different depending on if you're a preppy/frat type, scene kid, hippy, geek, student, non-student, or that rarest of minorities, middle-class families who have nothing to do with the university. Now that I've been out of college for 5 years, the UF student ghetto is a different world. It doesn't help that they're building something new every 30 seconds.

Tell me what typical houses are like.
We have everything from trailer parks to student ghetto shacks to suburbia to mansions. I don't know where Lochte lives, but lots of jock types live in the luxury condo places, or frathouses, or 10 guys crammed in a concrete block ranch house from the 50s.

Where do people skateboard?
Everywhere. >_<

What's the weather like?
Hot and muggy as hell. The reason Gainesville is nicknamed The Swamp is because that's literally what it is, a huge paved-over marsh. No cross-breeze, no sea air, lots of bugs, damp and jungle-y all the time. It does freeze in the winter, but mostly it's wet and gray. We do have lots of trees, though - it's not like SoFla at all.

Where's the best cheap food?
There are a million hole-in-the-wall places, and new ones spring up every day. Name a genre!

What do you do at three a.m.?
I sleep. Everyone else drinks. All bars here close at 2am, releasing the masses to drive home all at once. Hooray!

How far from the beach?
At least an hour, depending on which coast you want. Gville is smack-dab in the middle.

Where would you go to hear live music and *not* be seen?
I have no idea, as I am old and uncool. But Gville has a big indie scene and a lot of booty-type dance clubs. The places I used to go to that are still in existence today are Common Grounds (indie), Market Street (dance), and Durty Nelly's (pub). The thing is, Gainesville is a huge amount of people crammed into a not-very-huge town. You can't really go anywhere public and not be seen. If I wanted to sneak out with, say, my adorably goofy teammate, I'd go out to Payne's Prairie and look at the stars, or walk around the dark corners of campus in the middle of the night, or make out in the UF observatory telescope room. Or go skinny-dipping in someone's pool. (But not any natural body of water because you'd get eaten by alligators.)

How long does it take to get to Daytona if you're commuting to your swim club?
I think Daytona is about 2 hours away, but I rarely go there. I prefer St. Augustine. Maybe Google map?

What's the airport like?
Tiny. Connector flights only. Most people go to Jax or Orlando.

I'd be happy to answer any questions!

[hackthis]

Okay, hi, I love you, thank you for doing this. Seriously. Now I will ponder what you've said. I'm kind of going back and forth at the moment, because Ryan went to UoF and he said he's got a house there, but he trains with a Daytona Swim Club, so when you tell me it's not within commuting distance I'm kind of like huh. I mean okay, it's commuting, but not the kind of thing you'd want to do if you didn't have to. *ponders hard* *double checks*

No! As of 8/21 he was still in G-spot training and living. Thank goodness. Moving onward! Ryan's got endorsements and he just finished college, I'm thinking it's got to be sort of a smallish house with both a front and back yard that he never mows, until his mom comes by and then he pays some neighborhood kid to do it.

Thank you for the bit about the swamp weather -- these things really are important in my head -- as is the stuff about not hitting the bar if you don't want to be seen. I can totally see Ryan thinking it would be way better to trespass in somebody's yard and go skinny dipping. *blinks* Wow. Where was I? Tell me about the observatory tower. I am DEAD curious now. Is it always open? If not, do you know the hours, or the area, or something.

I feel like we also need to make a midnight trip to the grocery store. I have no idea why. Probably that two a.m. last call, which is also super important in my head. Jax or Orlando. Hmm. See, now I need to check flights. Do you know how far is either one from Gville? Michael's into Chinese food, is there any particular hole in the wall you can think of? I think I need to see the observatory on line. Have you visited it recentlyish?

Also, would it be possible for me to ask you more questions later, if I have them? Regardless, thank you SO much. This is way more than I'd hoped for.

[berreh]

I was just telling my husband I've become Resident Gainesville Consultant, and he's like, "Romantic slash set in Gainesville? Now that's talent!" :D The thing is, Gainesville is very liberal privately but very conservative publicly. We have Gay Pride Week, but only one gay club (that contains mostly straight people). In regular bars, two girls making out would be totally bitchin yo, but two dudes would be get-a-rope time. You rarely see real same-sex couples showing PDA, if ever. It bums me out. :( But at parties or raves, or at UC (the gay club), or in the bathrooms of straight clubs, or on campus, heck yeah, especially with the younger crowd and their crazy bandom ways. :D I only bring that up so that you didn't have them making out at Denny's or something. That probably wouldn't go over so well.

For late-night food runs, Waffle House and Perkins are both super popular. After last call, both of them would be packed. Wal-Mart is open 24/7, but it's more popular for feral teenagers than college kids. The 24-hour Albertson's (grocery store) recently closed, but I doubt anyone would call canon on you for that. There are tons of CVS and Walgreens around that are 24/7, too. Plenty of places for late-night snack runs and covert schnoogling.

My favorite Chinese place by far is Szechuan Panda (or The Panda) which has the most kick-ass buffet ever. I can totally see them kicking Michael out after his 6,000th calorie run. :D There's also a sushi place that delivers called Sushi 2 Go and a couple of Bento and pan-Asian places. Buddha Belly does huge baskets of curry for dirt cheap.

JIA is about 1 1/2 hours from Gville; OIA is more like 2 1/2 with traffic. I've used both tons of times to get to moots and stuff. And the UF Observatory is open to the public on Friday nights afaik. Maybe he could get in during off hours? It's not very crowded, since it's not a bar or club. :D My school, SFC, also has a brand new planetarium. And a zoo!

Feel free to ask me whatever. I feel all useful and stuff. :D My gmail is "berreh", and I'm always around Steph's journal too.

[hackthis]

a) Your husband seems, like, kind of awesome. Rock on.

b) I most definitely wasn't planning on them going crazy at Denny's; I feel like that would just be a bad idea in any part of the USA. I've lived in some of the biggest cities in the world and you don't really get any PDA. The few times I thought I was seeing it, it turned out the guy was just less guy looking than I expected.

c)The closed Albertson's is actually a really good point. I can totally see the stoner mistake of showing up and then remembering, "Shit, that's closed down, I forgot."

d) I am very interested in the boys hitting up The Panda and trying to "kill the buffet" (ever done that?). What's the decor like? Dingy? ascetic? Brokedown college palace? I presume they have a soda machine on the wall and plastic trays and utensils?

e) BWI to JIA for arrival in the middle of the night it is. Michael fucking hates daytime flights these days, too many people at the airport. Night flights though, you only get people drugging their kids and businessmen.

f) THANK YOU. Seriously. I cannot begin to tell you how much I appreciate your help.

[berreh]

There are two Pandas, and both are fairly run-down/patched together. Chinese lanterns with Scotch tape on them, peeling paint, Asian flea market kitsch stuff everywhere. It's awesome, and the people are really friendly.

If you want a feel for the area, try ufl.edu, sfc.edu, and some wiki pictures. It's hot as hell and the students can drive me batty, but there are some really pretty places. And we do have blue skies and clouds. :D

[hackthis]

Wicked. I can not come to the keyboard right now as I am on a virtual tour of UoF. Dude, Lake Alice is a gator sanctuary! And bats! That's totally Ryan's idea of a destination spot. As long as you stay in the car and there are no lizards. I get the impression he's really not feeling the lizard thing.

Again, thank you.

Thank you.

[hackthis]

So, the story has been written and posted and I just wanted to thank you (again) for all your help. I greatly appreciate it.