Yeeep that's right.

I have nothing else to do but write pointless nonsense, so here goes.

I think today can be summarised by the below 2 catagories..
THINGS THAT HAVE MADE ME SMILE

• On The Road - Part 2 - Chapter 8 - "What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too huge world vaulting on us, aqnd it's goodbye. But we lean forward to the next venture beneath the skies"
• A REALLY old Maori chap wearing a full 1990's Liverpool F.C tracksuit.
• Discovering Summer Roll, which in summation is the good part of a Double Decker (the nougat), coated in Chocolate and rolled in Coconut.
• Lyrics from "My War" by Black Flag appearing on the Lyrics of the Day chalk board as I walked past the record store, normally it's some inane drivel by Coldplay or other radio friendly dross.
• Buying a coffee because it comes with a free muffin, only for the Indian lady to tell me she is out of Muffins but I can have a free home-made Samosa instead. Cheers little Indian lady, you made a little English boy happy.
• Interview at the Animal Control Services going well and being asked for a 2nd interview. Maybe some luck on the horizon and I can start buying things like tattoos and meat.
• Albert Park in the sun (for the 3rd day running), a lovely little spot to read my book and get a tan, in April.
• Fulham getting to the semi's of the Europa league, Hodgson and Zamora for England.

THINGS THAT MADE ME FROWN

• My current form with Man City in Football Manager 2010, and my Champions league form in particular.
• Having some beers here but nobody to drink them with.
• Eating pasta, tuna and sauce AGAIN.
• Walking more than 5 miles every day, up hills.
• Portman for not being completely smoking in Brothers, 15-20 minutes max I'd say...and I think she may have had a boob job, which is not the way forward.

More to come as appropriate, but for now. Football Manager

Time for a change

My last set of travels were a bit 2 years ago and it's time to move on...by moving on I mean getting my flights booked for New Zealand on 4th March 2010. I'm going without any sort of plan, I can work for a year and stay for 2..not sure how long I'll stay for, looking at 6 months to forever, I'm easy.

When recently asked what I wanted out of life and where I lived the answer was simple. Coffee, cake and beach..I'm pretty sure that is all I require at the moment, along with laptop, ipod and sun.

Anyway...

The Rest of it..

To cut a long story short, we basically covered the following.

USA
New Orleans
Austin
The Southwest Deserts and Grand Canyon
Las Vegas
San Diego
L shitty A
The Big Sur
San Fran
Yosemite

MEXICO
The Baja
Mexico City
Cancun
Tullum

CA
Belize
Guatamala
El Salvador
Nicarugaua
Costa Rica

SA
Ecuador
Peru
Bolivia
Paraguay
Argentina
Brazil

Highlights
PADI scuba dive course on Belize
Seeing an active volcano in Costa Rica
Mayan ruins of Tikal in Guatamala
The Amazon
Iguazu Falls- greatest place on earth.
Rio

Gravy at Breakfast

THE SOUTH - 2 weeks in Virginia, North Caroline and Tennessee

We hired a car from D.C Central station and headed off on a 2 week adventure. Eventuallywe manged to navigate ourselves out of downtown DC and onto the highway, passing the Pentagon and Arlingto Cemetary which we wold later visit. Our first port of call was to follow the Blue Ridge way (a National Park/Highway) into the Smokey Montains National park which borders North Caroline and Tennessee. We stop at a Wallmart and so begins our love/hate relationship with the place. The place where you can absolutely ANTHING you need, but the place here you lose both hours of your trip and your companions. We stock up on camoing gear that would last us the whole 3 months in the US. Tents, sleeping bags, gas cookers, everything. We also buy a hug holdall to cary it in which would become the bane of our existance. Lugging that around was a nightmare.

Anyway, moving on we hit the Blue Ridge and its getting dark so we pull in somewhere to camp It's late and the office is shut, we set up our tents and discuss our morale dilema. Do we get up early and clear off without paying or do we act like normal people and pay the camoing fees. Needless to sa I enjoyed being $10 better off when we hit the road again. The Blue Rdge was quite nice, see below. But wasn't too diferent to suff I'd seen before both in Australia and Wales!

After another days drive we make it to the Smokey Mountain National Parl and setup camp for the next few days. During our time we saw a Black Bear run across the road right in front of our car, hat was prett special. Whilst on a trek Emma and I were held up for 10 minutes whilst a massive Copperhead snake hissed at us and blocked our path, I actually pooed myself and never want to see one in the wild again.

Hat, Nails and Emma decided to spend the day White Water Rafting (Emma bottled it, yet ended up doing it in Ecuador and loving it, a story for later) on the way there I got pulled over for speeding by Mr Redneck build like a brick shit house Policeman, he let me off for being English and not wanting to sort the paper work. Rafting was great fun, Nails got turfed out the boat on the first set of rapids, his terrified face was amazing.

Our next port of call after the NP was Nashville, we arrived on Country Music Awards week without realising it and the campsite was full of Billy Ray Cyrus' offspring, rednecks and perms EVERYWHERE. Nashville was a nice City, not much going on if you aren't down with line dancing but the museum was cool, we did however go see the minor league baseball team Nashville sounds. It was a good evening, only 5$ tickets and 1$ hot dogs. Hat also got hit in the mouth by a foul ball which wasn't nice/was funny, poor lad. Nashville was also our base for our visit to the Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchberg. The Town with one stop light, even though there are two. The Distillery was great, the tour was free and it was good to see how the drink of kings was made. Only downfall was that because it is in a dry County they couldn't sell it and we couldn't try it!

After our time in Nasville we drive all day and stay at a motel outside D.C, our last day with the ca was spent seeing the Iwo Jima monument and the Kennedy's graves in Arlington Cemetary. A great place.

NOTES ON THE SOUTH - There is a breakfas chain called Shoney's, it's a breakfast buffet open all day, here they serve such healthy treats as Fried Chicken and Gravy, Fried Ham, Fried Eggs, even the fruit was in syrup.

We did have great food at a rustic restaurant called Cock 'o The Walk. Cat Fish, collared greens and my new fave Hush Puppies. In the South we also rediscovered our love for Denny's that we found on or first visit to the US a few years prior. Ah, foods great.

Hey, you guys are from British

WASHINGTON D.C - May 2007

We arrive fairly late in the afernoon/evening to begin what is an utter shambles. We arrive at the shit hole hostel in Georgetown (which is a massive shit hole) and some hairy dude in a weird shirt tells us that he has given our room to someone else as we didn't tell him what time we were coming. Dick. Also turns out he had given our room to 2 Swedish idiots that we semi met in Philly the night before. They mocked us for going by Greyhound "Isn't the Greyhound full of crack dealers and there isn't aircon right?" and "We are renting a car" brilliant. You don't get any sun during the Winter in Sweden and your all miserable.

We decide to get a bus into Downtown, so we jump on the next bus. We appear to be the only white people and stick out like a sore thumb due to our pasty faces and massive rucksacks. Not daunting at all! Turns out all the people on the bus are super nice, a lovely man comes and asks us where we are going and if he can help. He tells us what stop o get off and we thank him. We have nowhere to stay and it's starting to get late, I get out the Rough Guide/Bible to travelling and find a hotel, we head there. On the way we pass some builders, as we pass they hear us speaking and one of them says "Hey, you guys are British, welcome to the United States of America." Amazing, made my day.

The Hotel is awesome, for us anyway and it wasn't too expensive. Hat takes his position 2 inches from the TV watching baseball with the volume on full, how he isn't deaf and blind is beyond me. We have showers and go get some food. Can't remember what though.

THE MALL - DC really impressed me, everything you see if straight out the films. We have breakfast and go off sightseeing. First up was the White House, real cool, and to think I am only meters from the place where Clinton got a goo gobbing off a Ricki Lake lookalike.

(Jennnnyyyy)

We happen to be in DC on Vetrans day, so there is LOADS of old 'Nam Vets in all their getup and loads and loads of bikers because for some reason ALL Veterans turn into haggard bikers. The Mall is great, loads of free Museums that we didn't visit due to queues, the Lincoln and Washingto monuments are great as are all the other little bits. We spend all day walking around in the heat and head back to get some food and stay in. We pick up the car tomorrow for a 2 week stint in the deep South for some hardcore Country and Western. We do however return to DC for another day of fun, but that comes later!

Yo Adrian

PHILADELPHIA - May 2007

Philly is great, the Greyhound trip was only 2 hours from Central NYC which was good news, driving in we got to see a good view of the skyline and Lincoln Field (would have been great to watch the Eagles but it was off season and we were on a budget). We lugged our bags through downtown Philly and found our hostel which was in the old town.

So we only had one full day in Philadelphia, so we wandered off round the old town taking in th sights. Independence Hall was over run with kids and was also being repaired so that was slightly disapointing, the Liberty Bell was fairly impressive though.

You cannot go to Philadelphia and not have a Philly Cheese Steak...easily the greatest sandwich I've ever had. Cheese Whizz, thin sliced beef and onions, pure heaven. We went out for beers to a couple of hip bars and tucked into our usual $ beers during happy hour.

Emma, Nails and I decided to stay in during the evening and settled down on he worn sofa's in the hostel to watch the jo that is Groundhog Day.

The morning was spent at the Art Museum..aka The Rocky Steps. We ran up and down them like morons and like everyone else. Then headed to another Greyhound station to get a 4 hour bus to Washington DC.

New York / New York

NEW YORK - 20th May? 1 week

New York is simply one of the greatest Cities on the planet. I never had any real desire to visit, well I wasn't in a hurry to visit more like. But as soon as we came out the Lincoln Tunnel I was blown away with the skyline. It was HUGE, way more impressive than Chicagos. We pulled into the station and jumped into a yellow cab and headed to our hostel on Broadway in upper Manhatten.

Our dorm was TINY, 4 of us crammed into a train carriage sized room with 2 bunks, the hostel itself was ok though and was in a great location. I think we had breakfast at Broadway Bagels every day for 7 days, it was cheap, fast and nice.

I think the thing I liked most about New york apart from the architecture was the Villages, East and Greenwich..you could wander around for days just looking in shops. Being on a budget turned us onto Happy Hour, something I wish we had in the UK, it's great finding a nice little bar and drinking dollar bottles in the afternoon. I much prefer the drinking scene in the US, it's more laid back and more focussed on talking with friends, similar to the Australian drinking scene..in fact I think it's only the UK that drinking is focussed on load music and talking desperately to the oposite sex. It's not all like that but you know what I mean.

Anway, we spent a day wakling round lower Manhattan, we caught the free ferry to Statten Island which is grea because you get to see Liberty Island and Ellis Island fairly close without having to pay for a ferry tour. Ground Zero was ok, seems like they've left it like it is for so long purely for affect when a new tower or statue or monument would be a lot more fitting.

Another day was spent in the Villages and Chinatown as mentione before, went to a cool little record store and bought some nice records which I then had to carry round with me for the next 6 months.

A day was spent walking the Brooklyn Bridge to....Brooklyn. Nails needed a pee a quarter of the way across, not realising how bloody long that Bridge is. We finally get across to the other side and the queue to the pizza place under the Bridge (Grimaldi's - check it out, it's awesome) anyway, Nails skipped the queue and ran in to relieve himself. The pizza was good and we jumped on the subwa to Coney Island....What a shithole. Coney Island is nasty, that said we rode the old wooden big dipper that was actually more fun than a lot of modern rides and Hat got to have a Hot Dog at Nathans.

(Me, outside Nathans)

After the "delights" of Coney Island we went for drinks and "thrift store" shopping in Williamsburg. I really liked Williamsburg despite the hipsters, I think they added to the place. It's weird sitting in a bar where a group of 20 somethings are sitting ound a table drinking, all have thei dogs with them in the bar.

Oh, we watched the Champions league final in NYC, Liverpool lost. We along with 2 Milans fans were the only ones watching it in the bar.

What else? Empire State building, that was cool..one of my fave building and much more to it than Sears Tower. Times Square was pretty average, Central Park was great, got to see the Lennon Memorial and took some pics of the Dakota building.