The American Adventure…in pictures!

Hello again,

I’ve made a cheeky little website devoted to the last three months complete with pictures and videos. Just click on the link below. Enjoy!

www.america.deliberatelydeliberating.co.uk

Back for good

I’m back and it feels good. America was fantastic, truely a memorable experience but I was ready to come home and it’s been brilliant seeing my friends and family again. I owe thanks to so many people who made my trip memorable; from all the families I stayed with while coaching, Gary at Glenwood Hostel, Katie for fixing my bag, Kristine in Davis, Mike and Liesse for all their effort to secure us a car, the Turners for just being great, Cat for sharing her beautiful apartment with us, and anyone else who I met/shared a drink with/pissed off. You all made it a great experience.Thanks also for all the kind comments about the blog, it means a lot to an aspiring journalist.
Now I’m back in the UK I guess the blogs will dry up a bit because, believe it or not, my life here is far less interesting than it was for the past three months. Keeping checking though because I’ll probably post up random shit from time to time.

New York (Better than the old York)

First impression of New York; daunting. When I realised we’d have to negotiate downtown New York to find Cat’s flat I was a little anxious. I mean, it’s a big city. However, that feeling of trepidation seemed to evaporate when we stepped off the train at Penn Station, being replaced with a sense of adventure and proactiveness, in an attempt to find the apartment. In the end it wasn’t that hard at all, Cat left us notes on how to get there and it look less than 20 minutes. The wave of busyness that hits you is infectious, its like a drug, like a natural, frenzied high. And I love the hustle and bustle. I know when I’m older I won’t and will prefer the quiet life but right now I love it. I feel like I’m in the centre of the universe, like whatever’s happening in the world in right here, where I am. I find that I hate missing out on stuff, I have to be up to date and in the know (I think it might be a journalist thing). New York makes you feel like you are, it’s the centre of the world and you’re in it. Cat’s apartment is beautiful, it looks like one that should be in ‘Friends’. Rich wooden finishes, clean white walls, warm wooden flooring and charismatic paintings and pictures line the walls. After all the dirty hostels we’ve stayed in, this is heaven. The view outside is one akin to every postcard of New York you see. I feel like I’m in some romantic-comedy set in NY and that Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks will walk through the door any second. Traffic weaves down Broadway, yellow taxis dotted here and there, the sound of beeping horn skyscrapers disappearing into the distance, people milling from boutique to café. Everything you’d expect to see. Like San Francisco, it’s difficult not to be a tourist in New York. There’s many cool things to see and it would be a crime against travelling not to see them. My previous trip to NYC was a day trip three years ago while coaching soccer in New Jersey. It was nowhere near enough time to see everything so I made sure we had more time (four days in fact) this time round.
We went to Ground Zero, not for the sake of it, but because we felt we should, perhaps out of respect for all the victims, maybe because the whole event was a media spectacle and we felt compelled to go and watch, maybe because it is a defining moment in our lifetime. I don’t know, but once we got there I wasn’t sure how to feel. In fact, I didn’t feel anything. I got a little angry because I felt desensitised and unable to feel anything. In retrospect I think its because although we all saw the even I had little or no ties to it. I’d never been to or even seen the Twin Towers before the even, or eve really cared about them, and I didn’t know anyone who was a victim of the attack. I was just a bystander, a nobody.Then we found a name. The name of someone I didn’t know but now do because of his fund; the Robert Eaton Memorial Fund. Once we found Robert’s name on the list of those who died my feelings changed. Suddenly the even was personal. I felt like I was connected, it brought the whole thing home. Home to England. Home to Sussex. I felt connected as a Palace fan, as someone who has supported the fund and cares about it. I didn’t start to well up, but I felt moved. The whole area, despite being one big building site, is moody.

Behind us was St. Paul’s Chapel which despite being right next to the site was unaffected by the collapse of both towers. There were a row of pictures from that terrible day displayed as you come out of WTC subway station and one is of one of the towers collapsing and the dust cloud is created engulfing the church, the top of the spire just poking out. It’s a powerful image. Its one of hope. The cloud is evil engulfing us but the poking spire represents hope and good, still alive. Just.

After that we went to Times Square and basked in the busyness. We went for lunch at TGI Fridays but it was twice as expensive as the one we went to in San Diego. The recite came with a ‘suggested’ tip amount, with a minimum of $4. We gave two. Suggest that. We went back to the apartment after that, tired from lots of walking and slept the afternoon off.

The next day we headed for the Empire State building after a well earned lie-in. As we walked down 33^rd street towards it we spotted blackboard outside a bar advertising the ‘Liverpool-Newcastle game. 2.55’. We checked the time. It was 1.00. Perfect, we though. We’ll head up the Empire and get back in time for lunch and some proper English footy. And we did just that. The queues were non-existent in the tower, we got up in about half an hour, had a look around, took a few pictures and left. We went to the bar, had some lunch and watched the game. Everything ran like clockwork. At the bar we got talking to some German guy who worked in the city and we all agreed that Gabor Kiraly is a nutter. After that we headed to Macys for a look around. Not really to buy anything, but just because its such a famous store. It wasn’t all that.

The next day, our last in America, we headed to Central Park, which covered about 400 square blocks. It puts any park in England to shame mainly because it’s so varied and beautiful, and because its right in the middle of Manhattan! We chilled out for most of the day and then headed to the Guggenheim museum. Unfortunately, it closes on a Thursday and typically, it was Thursday then. Also, they were refurbishing the outside of it so we couldn’t even go and take pictures of it. So we decided to check out the Metropolitan Museum instead. It was big and impressive. However, all the exhibitions were $20 and none were free entry (despite me asking in my nicest accent if any were). So we sloped out and headed back to the apartment. I spent the rest day packing to go home because I was fly back to London at 8am the next day. That meant I’d have to be up at 3am, to get the subway then NJTransit to Newark.

Has-beantown

Day 22Time flies when you’re having fun they say and they, whoever they are, weren’t lying. Since the last blog the days have flown by and have been highly eventful, fuelling my blog and keeping us busy.
You know how I was talking about stereotypes and that? Well, Seb and I offered another example to even the equation the other day. We set off to Boston on Monday, wind in hair, hope in heart, not much money in pocket. After much mucking around on the train, something we did frequently to try and pass the time, and as a result being administered some glares from other passengers, we realised that we didn’t know where our hostel was or, in fact, what it was even called. We’d made the booking online and had noted down the reservation number but that was it. We had a lot of time to think about what we were going to do (20 hours, in fact) and in the end decided to call the one person we were sure would be able to sort it out for us; dad. If there’s ever a practical problem that needs sorting he’s your man. So we sent him a text knowing he’d be at work at the time and able to access the internet and explained everything. There were a few stumbling blocks, like there being no confirmation email from the hostel in my inbox, but dad kept plugging away until it was sorted. He even phoned up the hostel to make sure they were expecting us. This isn’t the first time (in life) he’s bailed us out and probably won’t be the last, so thanks Dad, for generally being a legend. We’re lucky to have two incredibly supportive parents and without them we wouldn’t have been able to embark on this trip, or do a lot of the things we take for granted. So we appreciate it, you two.

We arrived in Boston to, you guessed it, more rain. Thankfully our hostel was more centrally located, only a short subway ride away from the Amtrak and downtown. As usual our train was late, getting in at close to 8pm, so dumping our stuff in our room, we headed out for something to eat, settling for some take-away burritos. The next day we went to explore Boston but, yet again, rain delayed play. So we popped into the original ‘Cheers’ bar for a pint and a photo. We got chatting to an older English couple from Leeds in there and swapped stories of the States and life back home. After they left we deliberated on what to do, seriously considering staying in the bar for the rest of the day, but decided to brave the weather and head out. We found a sports bar for lunch which was showing the Spurs Uefa Cup game. It began to rain so we legged it into the place and camped out there, having some lunch and watching Spurs struggle to a 1-0 win, while we studied the map looking for somewhere to hide out for the afternoon. Finally, we plumped for the ‘Commonwealth Avenue Mall’. So we sprinted a few blocks through the rain to Commonwealth Avenue but when we got there, there was a sever lack of a mall, just a promenade with a few statues and monuments.
”Oh, that kind of mall”, we sighed.
We trudged back towards downtown, not bothering to run through the rain anymore, looking for somewhere to camp out and play a bit of pool. We spotted a little bar that looked promising so ventured inside to ask if they had a pool table. They did, they said, but it wasn’t open for another 20 minutes, and would we like to have a drink at the bar while we wait. We would, we decided, so did just that. Beside us were a bunch of four English lads and we got chatting, again about stories from America and home etc. The night quickly descended from a few quiet drinks into a proper piss-up as the drinks flowed. The night culminated in Seba’s fake ID getting conviscated by some arrogant bouncer with obvious personality issues (ie, he didn’t have one). I took down his name and the number of the bar in an attempt to scare him into giving it back but to no avail. So we just went home cursing his name all the way back. We guessed that this was going to happen at one point or another on the trip, but we peeved at his aggressive, smug attitude. We couldn’t decide if it was a bouncer of Boston thing. Still, it’s all part of the adventure.

Day 25

The next day we jumped on a train to Portland, Maine, where we would be staying with Mike and Liesse whose house Dan (a guy I coached with last year) and I crashed at one weekend. We got there and Mike was painting the idyllic, suburban, prairie-house with a brush and tin of paint, like some scene from a generic American family movie. The house is the sort that line the streets in every teen comedy, complete with a row of trees disappearing down the avenue and postcard blue skies.
We unpacked our stuff in the same room I slept in last time and started on a plan of action for the next day; I wanted to go up to Oakland (about an hour and a half away) to see the Turners, a family I stayed with last year who became like a second family to me. Because public transport in Maine is non-existent at best we needed to hire a car, so Mike set about ringing companies and people he knew to sort us a hire car for the weekend. Despite numerous set-backs (mostly based on the fact that neither of us were 25 or owned a ‘major credit card’) he didn’t give up and continued to try to find a way to get us a car. Eventually, after exhausting nearly every possibility (including renting a motorbike) he and Liesse decided to register one of their cars and allow us to drive her already registered pick-up truck. It was a manual gearbox and I didn’t really fancy driving it (anyone whos seen me drive one will know why) so I asked Seb if he would and he jumped at the chance, and ended up doing a really good job of it, even if I had to remind him to stop at STOP signs. Mike persistence and effort, which was much appreciated, meant we were able to see the Turners and we spent Saturday with them, watching Ally and Taylor play soccer before seeing my first ever field hockey game, which Mikayla was keeping goal in. I was really glad that we got to see them because, at one stage, it looked like we weren’t going to be able to. The best thing about travelling is making friends and they’re ones I’ll treasure forever.

We had a massive steak dinner at the Turners, the best meal we’d had for weeks, and headed back to Portland in the evening. The next day we headed into downtown Portland for a bit of shopping and I managed to pick up the new John Mayer and Razorlight albums for a combined fee of £9. I love this place. On Monday we head to New York, our last stop before home.

Puns On The Brain

I’ve had it with the mother fucking waits on this mother fucking train!

See what I’ve done there? It’s a clever play on a line from the film ‘Snakes On A Plane’ with Sammy L Jackson. If you haven’t seen it yet (I’m not sure if it’s out back home yet) do. It’s a terrible movie but I think it’s supposed to be a parody of action films – it’s certainly filled with every cleche in the book. If that’s not the case then laughing throughout the whole thing, as I did, maybe wasn’t such a good idea.

We worked out that we’ve been travelling on trains for 105 hours, thats 4.3 days or 13% of our trip. By the time we fly back home next Friday we’ll have done 120 hours travelling. Of course, the travelling has been part of the adventure, especially the west coast views by Santa Barbara and the winding route through the Rockies but now its becoming a burden. We’re tired from travelling and tired of travelling. It’s taking a big toll on us – we smell, look terrible and are highly irritable. Thankfully the biggest chunk is donw, all we have left once we get to Boston, our next stop, is a cheeky trip north to Portland, Maine and then the last leg down to New York. We’re both looking forward to seeing NYC and we’re having a great time but secretly we’re both ready to come home.

All that jazz

Chicago may be known as the Windy City but today it was the Wet City. We awoke, surprising we got any sleep really seeing as our room neighbours a subway line, to a familiar sight – torrential rain. Hard, face-melting rain. Nether-the-less we braved it, resulting in soaked, dirty feet. We skirted over to Sears Tower in the morning after hearing reccommendations and stories of six-mile views across Illinois. Typically, though, when we got there we were told visability was ‘zero’, the clouds lying so low the top of the tower resembled a fairy-tale like picture of it dissappearing into the clouds, seemingly going on forever. After deliberation we decided it probably wasn’t worth it at $12 each.
Instead, we headed downtown for lunch and ended up in a bar & grill type place that was showing, shock horrow, soccer on a big screen; revolving highlights from Italy, Spain, Germany and then, probably to fill a gap, Peru, Ecuador and Chile. While we injected ourselves with soccer like some heroin addicts who haven’t had a fix for weeks, we bought lunch, ordering a club sandwich each which was true to its name – it could have fed a whole club. The peices were actually too big for my petite english mouth. That’s all America is, one big mouth feeding a giant belly of WMDs and McDonalds. On the subject of monay – I’ve run out. It seems I underbudgeted for this trip by some distance and now, for the last week or so, I’m going to have to rough it out (unless mum and dad feel like helping me out…again). The porter at our first hostel in LA made quite a profound and apparant statement when, asked if the pool table was free, said, “Come on, this is America, nothing is free!”

Meanwhile…

The all-consuming gash in the side of my bag has been fixed. Katie Moran, musician, craftswoman and all-round talent sewed it up with her sewing machine. It now means I can travel without the fear of my clothing falling out and being left behind in Colorado or Illinois or wherever. Thanks Katie.

The Amtrak Diaries (Part XXIIXIV)

A few days back. About midnight.

The train is moving fustratingly slowly. When we organised this trip I half expected our train trips to be at top speed, something akin to the Bullet train, the outside world but a blur. The reality is different, the scenery crawls by so slowly I can read road signs and advertising boards in full. The view inside the train is like a stuck video, the same faces keep appearing in the ails, processing up and down the coach like clockwork.

It’s almost midnight and I’m the only person awak in the coach, my reading like cutting a lonley sight in pitch blackness of the train. As if to test my patience and see how I fare as a real traveller I’ve got the most annoying set of neighbours. There’s the woman a few rows infront who seems to have a constant furball stuck in her throat, wretching every ten seconds or so in that horrible gagging, back-of-the-throat noise. On second thoughts, maybe it’s not a furball afterall. There’s also the toddler sitting behind me, newly arrived at Denver with her mum who, now asleep, seemingly hasn’t noticed herlittle angel has left a deposit in her nappie, filling the train with the unmistakable smell of poo. And, of course, there is the generic snoring man, a few rows back, who is snoring so loudly I’m surprised he hasn’t woken himself up, especially as a few people are beinning to stir as a result.
Only 15 hours till Chicago.

Stereotypes

A porter at Glenwood Station, upon sorting out tickets out, claimed that we “did’nt have the sort of English accent I’d expect”. He said we sounded more Autralisn, a statement I’ve heard more than once over here, but what he said got me thinking about stereotypes. We all have them, of different sorts of people, different nationalities and even each other. We expect certain people to act and speak in a certain way and if they don’t it seems strange, even if the original stereotype is way off the mark.
Since being here we’ve been a walking advert for the UK and have had the chance to amend many peoples stereotypes of Britian. I’ve also been exposed to all types of Americans and have been able to change any stereotypes I had of Americans. Some for the better, some not. For example; I’m not an advocator of the stereotype that Americans are dumb, I’ve met many who blow that notion out of the water, but we’ve been treated to a few gems. Like the waiter who, after finding us a menu for a fast food chain that wasn’t open yet, asked us, “Now, do you have any other simple questions I can answer?”. Simple you say? Erm, how about ‘What is your name?’
Or the American version of Trivial Persuits which included the question ‘Who wrote the diaries of Anne Frank?’

On the flip side we have hardly helped the reputation of Brits. In Glenwood we must have made on particular couple think we were the thickets pair they’d ever met. Firstly, after leaving our table by the cafe they told us that Seb had left his sandals there. Then, a few minutes later, as we were trying to exit to the swimming pool through two ‘automatic’ doors that weren’t working the same couple came to our rescue and pushed the door open. Then a few days later in Chicago we went in search of the Sears Tower but after a few blocks realised we were heading in the wrong direction. We half expected the same couple to tap us on the shoulder and say, ‘You two really are stupid, aren’t you?’

So, in reflection, it’s swings and round-a-bouts, although they call them rotaries here.

(Jesus, that’s a rubbish blog. I apologise)

Good Old Glenwood

I know its corny but I guess the best things in life really are free. Ok, not the best things, but some really cool stuff are available for nout. Yesterday, Seb and I had an action-packed and highly adventeruos day and it cost us absolutely nothing. We started by braving a hike, and not just a pansy one, a black-line rated one, up one of the mountains that surround Glenwood Springs. We’re not big hikers, far from it, but we decided that we owe it to ourselves to give it a go, especially in a place like this. Rather surprisingly we completed the 7-something mile hike in about three hours, which we considered good going. Along the path, which peaked at 8,500 feet and included some punishing gradients, we were rewarded with some breath-taking views of Glenwood valley which, of course, we took loads of pictures of. The camera, though, did not do the views justice.

In the afternoon we slept the treck off before heading down to the Colorado river which meanders through the town and found some natural hot springs. Despite smelling like bad eggs, a smell tht attached itself to us and is still lingering after numerous showers, the springs were deliciously warm – a little present from nature cornered in the cold river. We paid to see the underground vapous caves and hot spring swimming pol the day before, but got just as good stuff for free yesterday. We were escorted down to the springs by Katie, a bubbly resident of the hostel, who has more interesting stories than the local library. Before stopping in Glenwood Springs she’d managed to have her car impounded, get into Jason Mraz’s sold-out Labour Day concert for free and then get invited back to his house in San Diego for an after-show party, have a 4-hour sleep in a matress store and get banned from every naval and air force base in California. Not bad for an 19-year-old independent musician who reminded me of a modern-day Jem from to Kill A Mockingbird, and left a relatively well-paid music career to travel on a whim, from Camada. Her cheery character is highly infectious and she’s become the third member in our gang while we’re here, making this stay the most enjoyable to date. Plus she’s a big Jason Mraz fan which makes anyone instantly cool in my book.

Today’s rain brought an end to our exploring of Glenwood so we made use of the boardgames on offer at the hostel, culminating in a three-way game of Monopoly that ended with yours truly monopolising in style – a hotel an every property, no less.
Tomorrow we leave for Chicago again enduring a 24-hour train journey. It almost feels like we’re leaving home, this hostel and it’s inhabitants have made us feel instantly welcome, claiming the two English guys to be ‘really cool’ and making us feel like the toast of the town. We’vee quickly slottd into life here with ease as a result. We’ve managed to find a little home from home here which when you’re so many miles from your real base maked it seem a little less distant. Glenwood Springs reminds us a little of Edenbridge , in fact – a similar sized town with similarly small-town folk, only with a slightly larger and more famous river running though it. That and the homely atmosphere created by Gary, the owner, is probably why we feel so settled here. On the horizon is Chicago, Boston, Maine and New York, in that order, and just under two weeks to go.