On Saturday Sonja and I went to a convention. It was sort of Star Trek themed but there was some other stuff too. A green alien woman was walking around and I enjoyed the fact that when any "average sized" Starfleet uniformed women walked past there would be a Mexican wave of male head turns. Sonja got a photo op with the three Star Trek TNG guys (Frakes, Dorn and Spiner) and she asked me to do background man... I obliged.
Brent Spiner mocked my accent until he realised it was real.
Then Sonja had a photo op with Christopher Lloyd but she didn't want me to do background man this time. We then went to queue up for the Christopher Lloyd autograph line. Tia Carrere's booth was next to Lloyd's but she wasn't there while we were, quite disappointing. Christopher Lloyd was quite lovely like a nice old man because that's what he is. I told him about my love for his final scene in Cuckoo's Nest where he laughs like a mad man and then does a very satisfied face (if you don't know it, watch that movie, it's amazing).
Next was Spiner. He didn't want me to film him but after that he was very cool. I'd heard the previous person talking to him about his music so I walked up to him and said "Old yellow eyes is back!" (the title of his album). He joked about my accent again and he heard me say my name as "Mok". He asked if I've ever been to Milton Keynes so I told him that I'd met him there a few years ago. After some wonderful jokes we got him to sign Sonja's photo with "I love scanning for lifeforms" and then moved on to Jonathan Frakes. He was a bit less engaging but still very smiley. We left pretty soon after that.
Later that night we went to Halloween house party. It was more of a kid's party and Sonja didn't know many people so we had a walk around, ate some Halloween themed snacks, Dave ate all the chicken things and then we made our exit. It would have been good if there were no adults there, I'd be up for a proper kid's party.
Dave and I went to see Paranormal Activity 2 with his friend Joanne because Sonja gets too scared at horror movies. It was pretty much the same as the first one but it was an amusing experience seeing it in a cinema with screaming Americans.Dave and I stayed up pretty late that night watching some of his terrible recorded TV shows Smallville and Supernatural.
I arrived in Dallas at about 2pm and Dave was there to pick me up from the station. I was rather tired so we headed back to the house in a place called The Colony (Brent Spiner doesn't think that's a real place) so I could shower and change. When Sonja got back from work we went to a Mexican places for food. I had something with some stuffed chili peppers, they were quite lovely. I wish I could remember the names of these meals I'm having. We went to the Walmart to buy an airbed, the birds had taken over the parking lot. They're flying south apparently, what's that all about?
My first full day in Texas was probably the one where we did the most stuff. We went to Dealey Plaza for all the JFK related stuff. We saw his memorial which was a bit lame, I'd want a better memorial if I'd been shot. They've put a museum on the 6th floor of the book depository (or "suppository" if you listen to Private Snowball from Full Metal Jacket.... or an old woman who actually said that when we were standing outside it) building from which Lee Harvey Oswald fired four bullets (it was three, I just thought I'd throw that out there). The museum is all about JFK's trip to Texas in 1963 and the rather famous incident where he died. It's quite a tasteful exhibit and takes you through the events of the day as they unfolded. It would have been better if it wasn't so busy, there were a couple of old people tour groups in there with us. They put an X in the middle of the road so I did the obligatory (or possibly frowned upon) 'stand in the road where Kennedy got shot'.
Then we went to check out the City Hall which was used as the exterior of the OCP headquarters in Robocop. While we were walking around, a homeless looking black man growled at me as he walked past, I was expecting him to ask for money so it was a welcome break from the norm. There was also a random area we checked out where they had lots of statues of cows and horses. When we got back to The Colony we went for Italian. I had some minestrone and a salad, lovely stuff.
We didn't really do much on Friday. I think I was meant to go and check out Sonja and Dave's new place when they went to sign the lease but I slept in until midday so Dave had already left. Later on we went to the store and Sonja made cupcakes. Dave messed around with the TV for a few hours to try and make the PC audio work.... he did not succeed. We watched some Monk... then I slept.
I probably had about three hours sleep that night so I woke up a bit disoriented and in a rush to get ready and leave. One of my room mates Derek took me to breakfast. We had a bagel and some muffins and sat with some lovely Scottish women. Derek was going to spend the day with them so once I'd checked out of the hostel we all walked north and I left them at the river and headed west towards the train station. I should have hung around with them a bit more but I'm always worried about missing trains... I ended up with over an hour to kill at the station.
The train journey was scheduled to be almost 22 hours long but after a few major delays I knew that wasn't going to happen. I had two seats to myself so it was very comfortable, once again luxury compared to the plane or the bus. I'll list some of the journey highlights.
People getting on the train at St Louis and their greeting of "What's going on?", that leads me to believe that people from St Louis are in a perpetual state of unknowing transpiration.
A gangsta looking black man offering me "blow" and after I'd turned him down asking if I was German.
An old woman on the phone filling a black stereotype by shouting "Where I'm at?!" which is such a bastardisation of the English language that I love it.
A water tower with A New Hope written on it.
Seeing a bald eagle just after riding into Texas.
My constant walks to the food cart to get vegan burgers.
That all took about 24 hours and I managed to sleep for at least a couple of hours when it got dark.
By the time I'd woken up I'd already decided to spend another day in the windy city (windy like a spring!). I couldn't be bothered to get up for breakfast so I slept until about 10am. I said hello to my room mates again, actually being able to speak above a whisper this time. Of the ones I met I discovered that two of them were leaving today and one of them was from Birmingham, England. They had a whole day planned but I had a few things I needed to do before I headed out for the day so I let them go and headed down to reception to book another night's stay. I also had some problems with a broken locker but I managed to get that sorted out fairly quickly thanks to Mario the maintenance man (he didn't have a moustache and he wasn't Italian). I had a look at some of the notices posted around the hostel and signed up for an excursion to a blues club that night. They also had a notice saying that the aquarium was free. I headed to the library for some free internet access and to plan my day.
My plan started by walking to the aquarium. When I arrived I was convinced that I saw Kayo from Polysics, I knew she'd been in California on holiday since leaving the band so I figured there was a slight chance she was in Chicago. It took me about a minute to catch up to a random Japanese woman. There was a big queue at the aquarium and it took about an hour to get in. This was when I realised Americans don't know how to queue. They seemed to think if they keep bumping into the back of me that we'll get to the front sooner... this is not how it works. The free area was only the bit with mostly small fish tanks. It still took me about two hours to get round there, mainly because of how busy it was. They did have some quite interesting stuff but I think I was a bit animalled out from going to Columbus Zoo the week before.
I then walked back through Grant Park and Millennium Park. The water jets on Buckingham Fountain looked slightly different but I think I missed the hourly show by about a few minutes. There was a couple having some professional photos taken and was thinking of doing "background man" on my own but I figured that's more just ruining someone's photo with no evidence to make it worthwhile. I went back to the library for a second session of free internet (you're allowed two per day) and decided on where I was going to eat. An Indian place called Chutney Joe's had been recommended by the hostel. On their website it had a "fun food fact" stating that "curry is not a spice"..... thanks... because I totally thought it was.... Upon leaving the library a shady looking character said "Hey man, I need to talk to you, get me onto a computer, I've got some important stuff to check out." I negated his request.
Chutney Joe's is a fast food Indian place. You pick if you want a naan bread or some rice, then pick one or two side dishes. Being an Indian they had some vegan options which made a nice change. I had a potato thing and a dahl which were both quite lovely. I'd recommend this place to myself next time I'm in Chicago.
When I got back to my hostel room there were three half naked New Zealanders stretching after a run. I said hello, quickly got changed and headed up to the lounge to meet up with the people that were going to the blues club. The room quickly filled up and by the time our volunteer guide had arrived there were about twenty-five to thirty people hanging around. I spotted one of my room mates and quickly buddied up with him. He introduced me to some people he'd met and thus our group was formed.
Mark from Peterborough, England (that's me)
Andy from Germany
Richard from Cheltenham, England
Anny from Windsor, England
Devon from California
Roxy from California
Andy, Richard and I ended up missing the first subway train so we got separated from the group but we knew where we were headed.... well I say that... we arrived at the correct station and headed in the correct direction thanks to my compass but as soon as I left it up to the guys we ended up trying every road at a crossroads except for the correct one. We eventually got to the blues club called Kingston Mines about forty-five minutes after everybody else so there were no spare seats. After a couple of bottles of beer that didn't matter too much. There were two rooms to the venue and once one act finished another act would immediately start on the other stage so all night we were switching from room to room following the live music. The two acts playing that night were J.W. Williams and Carl Weathersby. As an introduction to the world of Chicago blues J.W. Williams was exactly the kind of stereotypical blues man that I wanted: a big black man with whitish hair and a waistcoat. He and his band were awesome, his banter between songs was great and his attempts at screaming some notes was rather spectacular. Next door it was a band of young dudes with old man Weathersby stepping in on a few songs. They were great although I did a lot more chatting in this room, getting to know some of my fellow hostellers. Devon and Roxy were grad students on a field trip to Chicago studying something to do with landscapes and architecture and Devon is a big soccer/football fan so we had a bit of a chat about that. Anny told me about "Jason Doner Van", amazing.
As the drink flowed more people started dancing and it seemed there was some sort of dancefloor love square going on between Andy, Devon, Roxy and an Australian girl that had appeared out of nowhere. That stuff is quite entertaining when you've had a few drinks even if it's imaginary. We all left at about 2am, we said hello to all the blues men and went to get some food. Lots of drunken discussion ensued between Roxy, Anny and I including breakfast cereals, funyuns, ingesting substances through your gums and Islam.
We somehow made it back to the hostel and went to bed. The last thing I remember from that night is me and Devon standing next to our bunk in our underwear and him saying "This is kinda awkward."
We'd played around with the idea of visiting some movie locations because Angie had printed a list off and some of them seemed quite close to Chicago. It turned out that they were all within about an hour's drive of each other so we just went for it. We started off my heading to the school from The Breakfast Club. It's now some sort of police building so we couldn't go inside but after speaking to a friendly policeman called Hernando (I don't remember his real name so I'm just being racist) we figured that they'd completely remodeled the inside anyway. We did a recreation of one of the opening scenes from the movie.
The school from Ferris Beuller was next. I totally couldn't remember it but I know it'll flood back when I next watch the movie. They were playing football on the field so we couldn't go there but that was the field used in the final scene of The Breakfast Club where Bender punches the air. We did another little scene in front of the school. For some reason I was made to play the leading role again.... so annoying.
We then moved on to the house from Home Alone. I wasn't sure I'd remember it as I haven't seen that movie in years but as we pulled up to the house it totally came back to me. It's a lovely house in a really lovely area. We also visited the church and school which featured in the movie but I had no recollection of those whatsoever. The Uncle Buck house was just a few minutes up the road so we checked that out too.
On the list that Angie had printed off we pretty much just went to the ones I was interested in. I was forced into being the decisive one so that's just how it worked out.
I was staying in a hostel that night so Angie drove home and Carrie dropped me and Lacey at the train station so we could head back into Chicago. I checked in and then walked Lacey to the bus station. She got lucky with a crazy but funny bus driver who decided to leave half an hour late for no apparent reason. I felt a bit scared walking back to the hostel on my own, mainly because in a lot of downtown areas the streets seem to be empty after dark. I suppose it's the same at home but Peterborough's city centre is not as big as Chicago's. I got back to the hostel, briefly met my room mates and then went to sleep at about midnight, still not knowing if I was leaving Chicago the next day.
The plan we had for the day was planetarium, zoo, Willis (Sears) tower, boat tour and we didn't do too badly on that..
We headed towards the planetarium and saw the big fountain on the way but when we got there we decided it was too nice a day to walk around indoors learning about space. There was a beautiful view of the downtown skyline when we got to the planetarium so we hung around there a bit and tried to do "background man" photos with some people who were taking wedding snaps. It proved quite difficult but we managed a few. We then walked north up to Navy Pier and managed a 9/10 background man photo. For some reason Carrie got a stranger to take her photo even though we were there and able :P There wasn't too much going on at the Navy Pier so we got a water taxi through downtown and to the (watchu talkin' bout) Willis Tower. On the way they'd timed it wrong so we ended up going through some sort of water sprinkler thing which soaked everybody, I thought it was hilarious but there were some quite angry faces. Up we went to the top of the Sears Willis Tower (after two hours of queuing) and it was a pretty cool view from up there. I did some joking around including doing the Rainman scared noise when we were in the perspex box (with a see-through floor) and also jumping up and down in there to scare some terrified women. We got some funny photos and headed back down to ground level. We then had some sort of food somewhere and went back to the hotel. The hot-tub still wasn't fixed so we pretty much went straight to bed.
I was at the Greyhound station until about 1am because the bus was delayed. A drunk cowboy from upstate New York started talking to me while we were waiting. He was pretty cool, asking about English stuff and telling me that most American people are not like the people at Greyhound stations. The blonde girl with the pillow also started talking to us and she fitted every stereotype she possibly could. She said she was studying civil engineering to which the cowboy said "you must be pretty clever", she replied totally straight faced with "yes I am pretty clever" and continued to big herself up, it was pretty bloody funny. I took the Greyhound as far as Cleveland and was panicking at the end of the trip because I needed to get to the Amtrak station and wasn't sure if there would be taxis at the bus station. It all worked out and I got a taxi to the train station only to find the train was delayed by at least an hour. It was about seven hours on the train to Chicago so I tried to sleep a bit. Some bloke offered me cookies but they looked weird so I turned him down.
I arrived in Chicago at about midday and Lacey was there to meet me. She'd travelled about ten hours by bus to spend the weekend with Carrie, Angie and myself. Lacey and I spent the afternoon wandering around Chicago without any sort of plan. On our walk we discovered that in Chicago cars will randomly honk at you and cyclists will ring their bells to say hello. When we decided to find somewhere to eat we took about two hours to decide upon Panera Bread where we sat in the cool comfy seats near the window eating some nice foodstuffs. We were too tired for more random wandering so when Carrie and Angie said they were at the hotel we chose to head straight back there to meet them. It was quite a nice hotel and it worked out at $22 each per night. Before we went to bed Lacey and I made use of the pool but the hot-tub wasn't working... which was a bit disappointing to say the least.
I'm getting a bit behind on my blog so I'm doing this from badly written notes and a badly organised memory I'm also writing this after only sleeping about 5 hours in the past 48.
I think this starts on Friday because that's where I ended the last one. I've written down "pomme d'ouef" but I'm not sure exactly when that happened. Basically Brannon and Rheiner acquired a multitude of apples, a multitude! So they've been trying to make things with apples in them. Brannon found a recipe for some sort of apple cake and they made it. It tasted liked apples and eggs, hence the name. Not the best dessert I've ever eaten and I think we had about two slices each before it was binned. Rheiner and I played some xbox during the day on Friday and that night I met up with Brannon's now ex-husband Jeff for a couple of drinks at O'Reilly's which is actually the first bar I went to in Columbus back in February with Bran, Pat and Luke,
Saturday was the day I popped my Renaissance Faire cherry. If you don't know what that is, look it up, I dare not describe it because Sonja may read this and I'm staying with her at the moment.. Highlights included two guys dressed as Link from Zelda, everybody doing terrible English accents and trying to speak olde, a "little woman" in a wheelchair wearing pointy ears and unintentionally looking very Yoda-like... and a bloke dressed as an Arab. I made the effort and dressed as a man wearing green tights, a green tunic and a green hat, later on I found a bow and my outfit was complete. After a 9 hour day we went back to Columbus and watched five minutes of Anaconda 3 (dvd was scratched) and I watched most of My Weird Science Project. I'll be watching both of those films in full when I get home.
On Sunday Lacey from Pittsburgh drove to Columbus and we went to the zoo. It's meant to be a good zoo and it was. We spent about five hours there making up stuff about the animals hoping that kids would overhear us and be confused. It was a perfect day to be at the zoo but it meant a lot of the animals were hiding in the shade, I blame Richard Attenborough and his Dino-DNA. That night I went out for drinks with Jeff again, this time at a bar nearer to where he lives. We were shooting the breeze, downing some pumpkin ale, having some pseudo-intellectual intercourse, then we fell asleep to some awful film which I don't want to remember.
I woke up on Monday on Jeff's couchfeeling a bit hungover. It was now that Jeff decided to tell me the pumpkin ale was 8%. We watched Toxic Avenger (amazing film!) and then headed out to Ohio State University campus. Jeff gave me a bit of a tour and we walked up the main street to find somewhere to eat. We had some Thai in a cool little place and then headed back to Jeff's. NHL 11 is too hard, we played four games and scored one goal, sudden death in the last game went on for about 30 shots, ridiculous! I went back to Brannon's and we ended the day with Mega Piranha, slightly awful film with Tiffany from the 80s.
For Tuesday and Wednesday I've written down "Not much, trying to sort out Chicago, Frogs, Space Mutiny."
Thursday was mostly sorting out Chicago. I'd cocked up my travel plans because of confusion with which day an overnight train was so I had to totally re-plan that. Also I'd shot off some emails about some weekend apartments on Craigslist the night before and the replies were so badly written that they were obviously scams. In the end I found a hotel near the airport that between four of us would cost $22 each per night. Angie booked it and we were sorted. That night Brannon, Rheiner and I went to an all you can eat pizza. Rheiner's mission was to eat twelve slices and he succeeded.... much to the nasal displeasure of the patrons of Barnes & Noble where we'd chosen to head to next to read some sexy books. Then it was time for me to leave Columbus, a place in which I've spent a total of three weeks this year. I said my good byes and headed into the Greyhound station to chat to the cowboy and the girl with the pillow......... To be continued......
Brannon was working on a wedding dress (she makes clothes) for the first few days so we didn't really do much. It was nice just hanging with her and Rheiner. We've watched some awful movies such as The Room, Pinocchio's Revenge and Shark Attack. On Wednesday Brannon made some Mexican food, tacos and guacamole and salsa, it was much better than any fast food Mexican stuff I've had. Also on Wednesday we went to Old Man's Cave which is a bit of nature about an hour's drive from Columbus. Lots of cool rocks and some waterfalls without water in them. It was more fun than it sounds. I got a US phone sorted out thanks to Brannon's friend Sidley. On Thursday Rheiner and I went back to Brannon's workplace with her at lunchtime. I had a quick chat with Pat but the shop was so much busier than February so we couldn't have a proper talk. There was a crazy man with a horn, he wanted a grey one to match his truck. Then me and Rheiner went to the electronics store and played some UFC and Halo Reach. We spent the next few hours just chilling with some bagels in Panera Cafe. Chocolate chip bagel, yum. That evening Brannon made some macaroni cheese which was rather lovely and I ate all of the leftovers on Friday.
Corinne forgot her cake so we took it to the pet store where she works. We'd pretty much just woken up and driven straight there so I wasn't very awake. We met Lacey who also works at the pet store, she seemed rather taken with my accent. Again there was no plan for this day but we decided to go with one from Corinne's list. So we picked up Mike and headed to the Andy Warhol Museum, he was from Pittsburgh. Some of his stuff was a bit weird but some was pretty cool, some was weird AND cool and there was a room full of penises. That's my in-depth review of the museum.
We drove back to Butler, had Taco Bell on the way and also stopped in to see Travis' friend Jason. He loves Ghostbusters so I showed him my NYC photos and videos. Lacey came round to Corinne's and we all played a word board game thingy - "Filthy = Oral Surgery", that kind of thing. I won by default. We left Butler at about 10pm and headed up to California, PA, where Travis goes to college/uni/school. The campus looked like a campus should look, towers, buildings and a sign saying "Welcome Students!". I slept in a bed and Travis had the sofa downstairs, such a nice boy he is.
Day 4
I woke up at about 11am and Travis room mate was already in the room, that was a bit weird. She was cool though. We went to the school canteen to have free food. I had some sort of bake thing and some salad. We managed to do the only thing in Pittsburgh that wasn't on Corinne's list, we went to Monroeville Mall where Dawn Of The Dead was filmed. They had a little zombie museum and we also went to JC Penney but I didn't slide down the escalator. After a few hours in the mall we went back to Pittsburgh to meet Corinne and went in to the library and another giant cathedral style library where I did a couple of Speed quotes in the elevator. We went to Lulu's Noodles and I had veggie lo mein, which is the same as veggie chow mein.
After an emotional goodbye (Travis was crying) I got the Greyhound bus to Columbus. Three and a half hours was bearable because I was sat with some non threatening women. The driver was a bit miserable and snapped at a women for making him repeat something but when we arrived I said "Thank you Mr. bus driver Sir!" in my most proper English voice, he liked that. Brannon and Rheiner picked me up from the station at about 8.30pm and we went back to their place to start my Columbus experience with a movie called Thankskilling, which is about a turkey getting revenge through the use of axes, guns and lines such as "You just got stuffed!"..... amazing. Airbed, sleep.
I woke up at about 8am, half an hour before I'd gone to bed. I think I was still drunk but managed to pack and say goodbye to Suzy. Luckily Mike was headed in my direction so he made sure I got on the right subway. Once he left me I managed to get off at the wrong stop anyway but only had to walk about five minutes in the heavy rain. It was the first time I'd worn my rain jacket.
"Sit still Amadeus!"
Nine hours on an Amtrak train turned out to be quite lovely except for the kid called Amadeus who kept screaming behind me. I had two seats to myself and there was a few bits of nice scenery. The food was okay, I had a couple of vegan burgers. The deterioration of the restroom over the nine hours was very interesting, it was pristine to begin with and by the end it was like someone had a tp party in there.
I arrived in Pittsburgh at about 8pm, Travis and his friend Tara were there to collect me and we drove to Butler which is about an hour north of Pittsburgh. Travis took me to Eat 'n' Park which is apparently a local hang out for the cool kids... we were the only cool kids there. We met up with Travis' friends Corinne, Bryan and Lucas there, I had onion rings.
Day 2
We had breakfast with Corinne's dad at a diner in Butler, I had a nice veggie omelette. I'm not quite sure where we were most of the rest of Saturday but I think it was mostly Pittsburgh.We went to meet another friend of Travis' called Chris and checked out a few stores in Carson City. We bumped into some more of Travis' friends including Dylan who worked at Goodwill. Chris invited us back to his for some food and he made (microwaved) me some veggie burgers, we watched the end of Rocky II while we ate. We left Chris at his place and headed over to Mike's to watch the end of Back To The Future. Mike joined us as we headed over to Dylan's place, we chatted in his room for a bit and then took him and his friend over to Merritt's place (six in a car, lovely). There was a bit of a party going on at Merritt's but we didn't let in the random trashy looking blondes who tried to get in. I chatted with Merritt's friend about England and I realised my English geography knowledge is quite awful.
Some of us headed to a club called Brillo Box and watched a performance called Night Of 1000 Horrors. It was basically some transvestites acting out classic horror movies to music. We left when the black guy dressed as a nun came on. It was definitely interesting, possibly entertaining but mostly unbearable. We spent the night at Corinne's because she has beds rather than sofas.
I made another good plan and followed it quite well. I got the subway down to Brooklyn Bridge and walked across it. The weather wasn't too bad, it was a bit cold and windy but not too wet. After the bridge it got a bit confusing but I figured out where east was and headed that way. It took me down a street called Myrtle which for about ten blocks was only black people and then I turned north into Israel. There was only amazingly dressed Jewish people for the next ten blocks. Then I hit Williamsburg and it turned into funky town, lots of trendily dressed young people. I had some pizza at a place recommended by Mrs. Reed, it was the biggest slice of pizza I've ever seen in my life, bigger than Mrs. Reed. I then walked up to Greenpoint because it's supposed to be cool and Keanu had been spotted there the day before. I didn't see him but there were some more interesting shops and stuff.
I got the L train back to Manhattan, which going by the name (and the one in Chicago) I thought would be elevated but it went under the east river I think. I headed back to the apartment Suzy and Mike were home from Rhinebeck. We all ended up going to Suzy's parents just to relax and chat at their lovely apartment.
Around ten o'clock I left, said my goodbyes (I was leaving NYC early the next morning) and headed down to around 54th Street where I was meeting a girl called Andrea who I'd met in the Scottish bar a few nights before. We left the first bar after one drink and got a cab up to the Irish bar further north. Connor and Kevin were both working (I'd met them in the Scottish bar) so we chatted with them and played some pool. Then I was told the three bar staff I'd met at the Scottish bar had been fired. Connor arranged for us to meet up with Aiden and Colette in a different bar so he, Andrea and I got a taxi there. I was a bit drunk by this point so I was no good for serious conversation. I just carried on drinking and saying hello to people I recognised. After an hour or so we returned to the Irish pub and to cut a short story short I discovered Andrea had a boyfriend and I felt a bit upset that she hadn't told me, I made a fool of myself by overreacting and then left them to it and went home to sleep at about 3am.
