Sweet home Alabama

[Monday, 2nd July]

19 A.D. 

Who has heard of “couchsurfing”? Didn’t think so. Couchsurfing was set up about ten years ago by a Dutch traveller who wanted to get around the world without having to pay any accommodation fees. Somehow he managed to create an international network of people who provide couches for people to “surf” i.e. sleep on. It’s essentially a free place to kip for the night, and it may be more than a couch, i.e. a bed in a spare room, a hammock in a barn, a vacant wing of a mansion, etc. Over the ten years, the Dutch traveller built up a massive network of people around the world who were willing to let others stay with them for gratis.

Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? But it is. Tim and I looked into couchsurfing prior to starting our trip, and anyone who knows what meticulous planning we did for other aspects of the journey will know that we did our homework. We had couchsurfing as a back-up option to use if necessary, especially if the money was getting a bit tight, but not as a first resort. “But James!” I hear you cry, “Isn’t the world full of complete nutters like yourself?” Of course it is, but couchsurfing uses a reference system – you stay with someone, you give them a positive and detailed reference, and they give you one as a good surfer. Therefore if you’re doing it for the first time you avoid the people with zero references.

Does anyone remember Giselle, the travel-hardened lady we met on the bus to Philadelphia? Giselle couchsurfs like it’s her religion and when we emailed her to say we might be stopping off in Alabama on the way to New Orleans she recommended we stay with someone who she’d stayed with, provided they were able to accommodate us for that night. It turned out that they were.

So, on Sunday morning we awoke to the baking Tennessee heat and checked out of the Knights Inn – very pleased with our stay, will give them a glowing reference. We’d wisely decided to book a cab to save us sweating like Niagara Falls on the way to the terminal, but when we got there it was packed with people and the aircon was barely working. As is the norm with us, we queued up and immediately got asked where we were from by a young chap who looked a little like Johnny Vegas. My attention was immediately drawn to the fact that his only luggage was a carrier bag stuffed with fast food and a battered old HAM radio. When I asked why, he said that his luggage was lost by Greyhound somewhere between Pittsburgh and Indianapolis and said luggage contained two more of these large HAM radios. Why??? Who travels cross country with one of those things, let alone three? He also claimed it was the first time he’d ever travelled Greyhound! Before I could work out if I was talking to another Billy Bullsh*t (the terminals seem to be crawling with them), Johnny had eagerly told me about how often he uses his HAM radios to talk to people all over the world. Curiously, when Little Johnny later said he’d like to travel “the whole world”, he was actually referring only to the USA. Other pearls of wisdom that I gleaned from Little Johnny during our lengthy chat (which continued onto the bus as Tim dove headfirst into the laptop to escape) were that every single flight into the USA from abroad goes through New York and it is impossible to buy a beer anywhere on Sunday in Alabama. Dang!

[Sign on the cafe door at the truck stop in Athens.] 

I eventually made my escape from the differences-between-UK-and-USA conversation by claiming that it was tradition for me to listen to Freebird as soon as I left any American city. Little Johnny wasn’t pleased, and he kept looking round from his seat to catch our eyes, but we kept them buried in our Ipods. Hey man, we need to recharge our batteries between cities, not talk at length about how you can use the same parts in an `87 Chevy pick-up truck as you can for a Chevy of today! This journey down into Alabama took in brief stops at Athens and Huntsville. Somewhere between these two one-horse towns we saw a roadside billboard that contained a one word advertisement – simply read, “Guns!”

“Don” was recommended to us by Giselle and he was waiting to meet us at the Birmingham terminal. He was polite, funny and happy to see us, even though our bus had rolled in 45 minutes late. I knew when we met him that I wouldn’t have a bad word to say about Don, and writing this after our stay, I don’t. He was keen to show us the civil rights museum that was close by, and this made sense - Birmingham is most famous for being the centre of the civil rights struggle in the early 60s. Unfortunately the museum was closing in 15 minutes and admittance was closed, but Don negotiated our entry saying, “They’ve come all of the way to England to see this exhibition...” And despite it being a whirlwind tour, it was a powerful and moving experience, especially as right outside across the street is the famous church that was bombed by the KKK and four girls died whilst attending Bible class in the basement....the kinda stuff that gets you thinking.

[Church in the background, civil rights museum to the left.]

Don took us back to his apartment on the safe south side of town and we worked out sleeping arrangements – my lankiness meant I had the futon in the spare room (but not the window seat on our next overnight journey) and brave Tim would get the couch...well, it is couchsurfing after all! Then we went for dinner a couple of blocks away – southern barbecue style with lots of meat in buns and hot sauces to dip stuff in. Yet again I had mac `n` cheese as a side order! Don is extremely well travelled and he’d been to quite a few of the countries we’re hoping to hit in south east Asia. They say that the homeless is like one big family and I think in many ways the world-travelling community is the same (not that we’ve seen many fellow globetrotters this far south!) Don said that he started hosting couchsurfers to give something back for all the times that people have put him up when he’s been abroad, and that’s basically what makes couchsurfing work so well – you take from it, then you host and give something back. And would we do this if there weren’t two of us? Nope, probably not (unless there was a pretty, rich widow with a spare room!)  

After a few beers and bit of trashy American TV we headed out to Don’s local bar – Our Place – where everybody knows your name. Being a Sunday, it was pretty quiet, but it was happy hour all night, and the Grayboys love to be happy. That said, it wasn’t a late night and we returned hit the hay early after a few bottles of Yuengling (from America’s oldest brewery, fact fans). Obviously you will have worked out that it IS in fact possible to buy beer in Alabama on a Sunday, and Don also busted the myth that every flight into America goes through New York – take that, Little Johnny Vegas! I wondered if I’d be able to sleep, what with the deafening chatter of the cicadia beetles outside, akin to a steam locomotive that got stuck in the trees right outside the window. I slept just fine.

[Downtown Birmingham from up above.]

Next day we got the full-on tour of Birmingham, which is something we never usually get – the insider knowledge of a local. Okay, so there’s not a huge amount to see in Birmingham, but we were able to pack in a full days’ worth of places, such as seeing the 56 foot tall statue of the Roman God Vulcan that looms large over the town, as well as the disused-but-preserved Sloss iron ore furnaces that played a key part in the heavy industry that built the city up from a humble railroad crossing to become the largest settlement in the state. We also woke to torrential rain which was a welcome relief from the intense heat that I’ve been boring you stupid with in previous blog entries – no doubt it will return again soon! The thunder in the night only woke me briefly, but it shut those darn cicadia beetles up. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention about couchsurfing – you’re supposed to do a good turn for your host if possible, like mow the lawn, do the washing up, whatever – just something to say thanks for letting me stay with you. We bought Don his breakfast, though he paid for his own “grits”.

["Grits" - essentially ground corn (do not add sugar!)]

My time in Birmingham was almost coming to an end, so we concluded our stay with a meal at ‘Sweet Tea Restaurant’, during which I ate battered catfish fillets with sloppy mashed potato and steamed cabbage on the side – gotta get those greens! The waitresses in these places have never met an English person before and they cannot stop telling us just how much they love our accents. I told them how much I loved their catfish in my most dulcet-laden Hugh Grant tones.

[Arlington House - first ever building in Brimingham. Once upon a time Don's great grandfather met here with his posse to drive the remaining native Americans away.]

The great couchsurfing experiment had been a roaring success and we said our goodbyes to Don after he dropped us at the Greyhound station. We’ll give him another great reference to add to his collection, and hopefully he’ll do the same for us. The next leg of the journey is overnight, but we’ve got a very special event coming up in a very special place...it’s 4^th of July, baby...and it’s in New Orleans!