Florida: Days 1, 2 and 3

Day 1: "It's definitely not on Snow St"
I got up at about 5am after not really getting to sleep until at least 1am. Sonja was up early to go to work so I got to say good bye. Dave drove me to the airport and I when the lady at security checked my passport she said "cheers". This has happened a couple of times before but it just didn't register. Oh those Americans! I had a short, easy flight to Tampa. When I arrived Dani showed me the roof of the car park and a really nice view of downtown in the distance, she said she always does that if she picks someone up from the airport. We went back to her place and chilled until about 6pm. Dani really wanted me to have some good veggie food so we did a bit of research and found a couple of places nearby. We ended up spending an hour trying to find a place, mainly because Dani didn't believe the street name I'd written down and thought it was somewhere else. Of course when we eventually found it the place was closed. There was some sort of street party going on near it which added to the difficulty of finding it. We gave up and headed to Qdoba, a Mexican fast food place near to Dani's apartment. I had veggie gumbo which was actually quite nice. I like these Mexican places, I must petition to get them in England.

Day 1: "They sure swim fast don't they?!"
I woke up deciding I needed to get my hair cut. I researched a few places and settled on one round the corner from Dani's called Toni's. We figured it was short for Antonio so were expecting a Mediterranean..... more fool us. It was an East Asian dude with diamond earrings and beautifully kept silver hair. He was very efficient to say the least, I was only the chair for about ten minutes. He had a cool hair sucker thing attached to the clippers which I've only seen before at the dentists.... for teeth rather than hair. We then went thrift shopping because I was after some new shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, I think the 90°F+ temperature had gone to my head. I didn't find any shorts and all of the shirts were too big for me. In most of the shops we went in the shirt sizing by section was SMMMLLLLLXLXLXLXLXLXLXLXLXLXLXLXLXLXLXLXL. I noticed that the other guys shopping there were either massive or they were wearing shirts that were way too big for them. Food time! We went to a place that I'd researched the previous night called Chaat. Dani had never had Indian food before so I figured it was about time someone introduced her to it. They had a lunch buffet for under $7 which was purely vegetarian, I got a bowl of each thing and Dani tried most of the stuff. It was all a bit hot for her and the milder coconutty stuff was not to her taste. I ate more than my belly could take. The best purchased food that I've had on this trip has been Indian. The staff very friendly too and they let us try a nice little sweet thing for free. Dani wanted to show me sunset at the beach so we headed to Treasure Island beach in Saint Petersburg (near Tampa). The shell and rock filled sand was a bit hard to walk with bare feet but the view was really pretty and I was surprised how warm it was even that late in the day. The sunset was stunning and I even got to see some dolphins swimming out at sea. Dani said that was rare, the only disappointment I had was that for a split second I thought they were sharks. There was a guy trying and failing to run alongside the dolphins, "They sure swim fast don't they?!" he panted. On the way back we stopped in to see Dani's friends David and Rick, they were nice and we chilled at their place for a little bit. Rick let Dani borrow some horror films and so that night when we got back I watched Dawn Of The Dead (I've been to that mall!) and Night Of The Living Dead while Dani did some sewing on her friend's Halloween costume.

Day 3: "Denny's wins!"
We got up at around 9am on Friday and went to the library to print off the BOGOF voucher for Kennedy Space Center... then we drove to Kennedy Space Center. It was about a two hour drive and I had my mp3 player hooked up the car stereo so we were wonderfully entertained for the whole journey. As we approached Cave Canaveral there were some dolphins swimming out in the water alongside the bridge. We arrived at about 2pm and started with the two hour tour of the area. We got to see Discovery from a distance, it was on the launch pad being prepped for launch. At the time of writing this it still hasn't been launched but it was meant to happen three days after we were there. Part of the tour took place in the actual control center for Saturn V... which was nice. There was lots of space stuff, all of which I'd forgotten from From The Earth To The Moon, then we went back to the main center. We watched a 3D film about the 2009 repairs that were done to the Hubble telescope, it was narrated by Leo DiCaprio, he drives a Prius, he kept mentioning how precious our planet is. It was a really good film though. Then we went on the space shuttle simulator... because you have to don't you? We sat down and it shook a bit. On the way back Dani wanted me to a beach on the east coast but it was late and there wasn't an obvious place to go so in the end we gave up and went to Denny's. I knew they had a nice veggie burger so it's always my safe veggie back-up. When we got back to Tampa we saw lots of strangely dressed people lining up for a Halloween party. There were also some women in only their underwear but I couldn't turn my camera on quick enough to get them. We continued the tradition of having one cider every night and I went to bed at about 4am.

Texas Part 3: "Roads? Where we're going we don't need... No wait, we're only going to Fort Worth."

We had a very lazy Sunday. I carved my pumpkin a bit and did some planning of what I'd be doing after Texas. I properly watched a new episode of CSI Miami live for the first time and then watched Premonition. I love Bullock.... but it was awful.

On Monday Sonja received some bad news so she decided not to join me and Dave at a screening of Back To The Future. Seeing Christopher Lloyd's face on the big screen brought so much more to the movie. His expressions are amazing. I continued with my pumpkin carving.

Tuesday was Fort Worth day. Dave and I headed out around midday and went to Brenton's rather wonderful house. I got to investigate the tree house he built for his kids and then he took us out for pizza at a place called BJ's (chuckle). The other guys struggled with their small pizzas and we spent at least an hour full of pizza and pumpkin ale at BJ's (chuckle), then we went back to Brenton's to chill for an hour. Dave and I left and went to the Fort Worth Water Gardens where they filmed some of Logan's Run. One of the big water features was really cool but the other ones were a bit too simple. We then headed to the Omnitheater and watched Mystery Of The Nile, the big screen made Dave feel sick. Dave cooked a stir fry which I had two helpings of, I'm not sure if it was really good or if I was just really hungry.

Texas Part 2: "Old yellow eyes is back!"

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.

Texas Part 1: "Book suppository building"

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.

Chicago: Day 4 + the train to Texas: "Where I'm at?!"

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.

Chicago: Day 4 - "Three Brits, two Americans and a German walk into a blues bar..."

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."

Chicago: Day 3 - "I don't remember his real name so I'm just being racist"

This turned into John Hughes movie location day.

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.