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[4th - 5th July...the horror...the horror...]

21 A.D.

The day started badly when I accidentally smashed my eau de toilette on the bathroom floor – should have taken the guidebook’s advice and used a plastic bottle. I managed to clear the glass away, but what would I smell like now, given that I was also down to my last millilitre of spray deodorant? Nyeargh. No one cares what you smell like in New Orleans.

We decided to spend the morning doing the remaining streets of the French Quarter, the plan being to go to the western boundary (Canal Street), up to the northern boundary (North Rampart Street), and then weave our way back down, taking care not to cross the Eastern boundary of Esplanade Avenue. Canal Street is the main drag into the CBD and it’s got plenty of palm trees and liquor stores, as well as part of the main trolley line through the city. Across from North Rampart Street is the district of Treme where jazz was born but which is now a no-go area for tourists. We were able to peep across the street and notice the difference in the standard of the buildings. One thing that has amazed me from the minute I set foot in this country is how you can be in a completely different type of neighbourhood just by crossing a single road. And North Rampart Street certainly felt like we were on the ramparts of the castle of the French Quarter.

I’ve found New Orleans a bit of a contradiction so far – I’m never quite sure whether I’m supposed to go crazy or just zonk out. People in the top half of the French Quarter rise slowly and late, and there weren’t many folks around. In fact, the only people of note who we met were a couple from out of town who were scouring the streets to find Brad Pitt’s house. He was convinced it was nearby, she didn’t think it existed. Bizarrely, I remembered seeing a picture of it somewhere, but couldn’t place it. Their search was unsuccessful (I’m sure Mr. Pitt will have been happy about that).

Come the afternoon and we had several tasks to take care of on t`net, most notably working out where we’re going to be staying next, and in which town. It’s a wonderful sense of freedom weighed down by a bit of tiresome admin. For every reasonable deal we get on lodgings, we discard at least another ten that are too dear, too far out of town, or just too dodgy-looking.

To get searching, we needed free wif-fi, and the last thing we wanted to do was sit in the freezing hotel lobby balancing the netbook on our knees as chattering guests came and went. Therefore we had a quick search for free wif-fi hotspots in the Quarter and found five cafes within easy walking distance. We headed to the first – closed, headed to the second – closed, third – closed (and derelict), fourth and fifth – also closed. What’s going on here? Happy 4^th of July, Grayboys! I hate this stoopid public holiday! Up until then it had been just like any other day, bar a “Happy 4^th of July!” from a checkout girl when we bought some supplies. Then the daily rains came, but we found ourselves within dashing distance to the hotel. So where did we end up? Sitting in the freezing lobby balancing the netbook on our knees as chattering guests came and went!

Eventually the streets dried out and our luck changed - we found a Starbucks near the river with a good internet connection available. Finally we could do a bit of browsing in relative peace! Not wanting to look like a freeloader, I ordered my usual small black coffee. The guy behind the counter handed it over and said it was on the house if I said, “I love America.” I said, “I love America.” He winked and said it was on the house anyway -they are all day because of it being the 4^th of July. I love this freakin` public holiday!

By 7 p.m. we’d finished our admin and gone back to get changed for the evening’s entertainment. Now we were starting to pass enthusiastically patriotic people in the streets with stars and stripes all over them. Tim had requested we go to the Acme Oyster Bar because, surprise-surprise, there had been an episode of Man Versus Food filmed there many moons ago. It was that popular we even had to queue up outside for 15 minutes before a table became free. I thought I’d do the when-in-Louisiana thing and ordered “seafood gumbo”, whereas Tim began his meal with an oyster shot. We have long stopped caring how silly we look taking pictures of our food.

In New Orleans they shoot their fireworks up from barges on the river, but that didn’t start until 9 p.m. To fill the time, we returned to the tawdry glory of Bourbon Street, returning home like heroes on the lash. Now, there is a tradition along the street whereby people hang over the balconies and throw beads down to ladies who expose certain parts of their anatomy. If you’d like to know just what I had to do to get my beads, go straight to jamesandtimsworldtouruncensored.blogspot.co.uk

After walking the length of Bourbon Street with a $3 “big ass beer” (a regular-sized English pint in a plastic glass) in our hands, we headed over to stand with everyone else beside the river. By now the humidity had fallen away and the temperature was just right. And, when the fireworks shot into the night sky in a wondrous display, we stood there as two lone Englishman, surrounded by Americans whooping their delight as they celebrated gaining their independence from our great nation. I gave Tim a quick nudge in the ribs when he tried to break into God save the queen. Unfortunately my camera threw a bit of a wobbler while taking the photos of the fireworks, so it probably doesn’t do them justice, but here’s a selection anyway...

Immediately after the 15 minute display was over, a jazz band started up on the next pier and everyone went wild, including the brothers Gray (I got to see a live sousaphone for the first time ever). After a quick rest stop at the hotel, we returned to Bourbon Street (where else?), which was getting more and more crowded as time went on. There were also more seedy characters hanging around the edges and offering certain exotic wares that ain’t legal in any of the 50 states. There was also more of a police presence (the police horse wouldn’t let me pat it), so to escape the crowds of people breaking into impromptu song and dance routines, we ducked into one of the less dodgy bars and headed up to the balcony (not with any beads in our hands, I might add!)

Looking down on the revellers from above put a new perspective on things. It was also where we met Zoe, the shots girl. The poor lass spent 30 minutes trying to sell us one of her shots, but we steadfastly pleaded our excuses of world-travelling-poverty (for the price she was asking they would have been even weaker than the satchets of coffee the French Market Inn provided). Or maybe she was just happy to talk to us, or rather to talk to guys who weren’t trying to cop a quick feel or shower her with lewd remarks. I even asked her what her favourite Beatles album was, but I forget what she said. She was from Philadelphia, came to study in New Orleans, the money ran out, she quit college, took a bar job, and now she’s stuck here, uncertain of her next step. Why am I telling you all this? Well, it suddenly occurred to me that I write about all these people we come across, but you never get to see them in pictures (and you must be sick of the endless photos of Grayboy#1 and Grayboy#2). It’s not that I don’t want to feature anyone else in the blog, just that it often feels awkward to ask. Anyway, with a few big ass beers inside me, I asked to take a photo up on the balcony, and so I proudly present a shot of Tim with Zoe the shots girl (shots just out of shot):

The debauchery of Bourbon Street continued, but all we did was walk the length of it six, maybe seven times. By then we were getting a bit bored so we retired to the hotel and had a late night chat on the sunbeds beneath a sky that was blackened by the lingering fireworks cloud (neither of us can remember exactly what we discussed, but we agreed it was a pretty meaningful dialogue).

We managed to get up for 8 the next morning, but boy could we have used some more sleep! We took the trolley (a $1.25 fare gets you anywhere you want to go) west to the Garden District to sober up in the calm, but eerie surroundings of Lafayette cemetery. The original settlers in New Orleans had problems when it came to burying their dead – because of the regular flooding, coffins would rise up from the soggy ground and float down the river. Therefore they adopted the Spanish-style practice of erecting large tombs above ground to create mini necropolis-style cities. I’d read that these cemeteries should never be entered alone because they are crawling with armed robbers, but I had it on good authority from the visitors centre that the one at Lafayette was safe – and it was, with tour guides regularly passing through. While growing up back in dear old England, our family would often end up strolling through graveyards after picnics and us kids used to play the game of Who can find the oldest grave? In today’s visit, Tim won the contest when he found a family tomb where the matriarch was born in 1808 (can’t remember when she died).

In the film Easy Rider, Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda came here with prostitutes and took acid...I went with my brother and took bottled water.

My time in New Orleans was coming to an end. I had arrived in Louisiana under a full moon, but I was leaving under a cloud of uncertainty. Our next destination was the gigantic state of Texas and our plan was to stop off at the cowtown of Fort Worth. However, so far accommodation had proved to be far too expensive or too far out of town. We’d sent out several requests to couchsurfing hosts to put us up, but so far none had responded...

Southbound

14 A.D.

[Apologies for the delay in uploading this – blame it on crappy wi-fi connection!]

Old Navy was the priciest place I’d been to so far! No deal to be had there. Thankfully there was a T. J. Maxx around the corner (that’s definitely a ‘J’, not a ‘K’). Here the prices looked even better than in the UK, until one remembers that there’s the hefty old sales tax to be added to the tag price. This was the last chance saloon for a pair of shorts and by hook or by crook I was exiting that store with a fresh new purchase under my arm. After trying on three pairs that were too short, I settled on the fourth. I didn’t get the great clothing bargain as planned – should have bought the damn things back in Blighty! Anyway, that’s another chapter in this great saga closed.

So, Tim did his thing up on the Sears Tower and stepped out onto the great glass ledges at the top of the building to see what he could see. I, on the other hand, went across the street to do the laundry, which didn’t take too long in the washer, but was in the dryer for an aeon. It was one of those strange moments in life when you realise you’re alone in the dingy basement of a Greek restaurant in central Chicago and you’re passing the time doing yoga. Badly. And because I was down there for so long, I didn’t get to have the powernap I had planned. To make matters worse, Tim came back to the hostel to tell me that he’d been waiting for the elevator at the Sears Tower and when it opened a number of Pennsylvania Dutch people piled out (if you’ve only just started reading this blog that will make absolutely no sense, but that’s what you get for joining late!)

Chicago is known as the home of the blues. Did we get to hear any? No! It was enough to give us the blues. We made every attempt to hit the hallowed clubs on North Halstead Street after dinner, but after 45 minutes walking through an industrial graveyard we’d only reached number 1000, and we had to get to 2559. It just wasn’t going to happen, so we trooped back towards Greektown as the sun went down, half-heartedly humming Muddy Waters and Howlin` Wolf songs. Feeling thirsty at the end of the hike, I stopped at a seven-eleven to purchase a can of Blue Ribbon lager...a 710 millilitre can! It took me over an hour to finish it. And it was difficult stuffing it down my jeans and smuggling it past the hostel desk clerk without giving him the impression I was pleased to see him!

We woke up on Wednesday morning and trooped downstairs for My Big Fat Greek Breakfast - part 2. Although we were checking out at 11, we were able to leave our luggage behind the front desk and could spend a few more hours looking round the city, even though there wasn’t much left that we had a burning desire to see. One interesting place was the Chicago Tribune building which had stones from all sorts of exotic buildings around the world attached to its wall, such as a lump of rock from the great pyramid of Egypt. Technically I touched a piece of Antarctica, which was never a scheduled stop on this trip.

After visiting the pier (not sure why, having lived in Southport for 18 years) and sitting through the yawnorama that was Spain versus Portugal, we collected our luggage and headed over to the Greyhound terminal. To be fair, Chicago’s is one of the better ones we’ve come across - plenty of space, power points, TV screens, etc. However, when we approached the front desk to get our bags tagged we were asked to fill in forms, which is something we’ve never done before. Why has the procedure been different at every single leg of the journey??? One routine that we’re getting into is rolling up at the terminal in our dealing-with-the-hot-weather day gear (typically shorts) and changing into our travel gear (trousers, boots, fleece). There’s plenty of space to manoeuvre in the disabled cubicle in the Gents, but under no circumstances should any part of you touch the floor. On this occasion the cleaner had just finished up in the lavatories, but he still had his yellow barrier across the entrance, so I waited patiently beside it. Then this happened:

Some young lad: Excuse me, Sir?

Me: Hello?

SYL: Is it alright to leave my stuff there? (Points to the floor.)

Me: Uh, yeah. Go for it.

Other young lad: Can I put my stuff down there too please?

Me: Sure, but why are you asking me?

OYL: Ain’t you one of the policemen?

Me: Nope.

OYL: Oh...

How bizarre that I should be mistaken for an officer of the law as I stand there in my new shorts! Did it have anything to do with me holding a rolled-up pair of jeans, T-shirt and socks under my arm? Does that make you look officious in this country? Who knew. When I returned from successfully changing outfits and returning to civilian status, Tim pointed out an old man who was queuing up behind us to get on our bus. The funny thing was that we’d seen the very same guy get on the bus that we rode from Cleveland to Chicago! Was he following us? Who is he? Surely he can’t ride these buses for fun as some kind of warped hobby? I’m sure that if he’s a government agent with a secret mission for us then all will be revealed in good time. Right now I’m writing this having just passed through Gary, Indiana – famous for Michael Jackson being born there and absolutely nothing else.

Next stop Nashville!

How the west was won

7 A.D.

Kyle and Betsy are a young married couple of three years, hailing from a military town called Columbus in Georgia. They’ve travelled around most of the country and do the hostelling thing quite regularly (they stayed here a week ago, but were put down in “the hole” – now they’ve been promoted to be with us!) They are the second group of people who think the [English version of] Top Gear is fantastic...I guess old Clarkson comes across well over here! Unfortunately I forget to ask them which are their favourite Beatles albums. We do explain that it’s our first ever night in a hostel, and at this point I should explain that we were expecting the D.C. Lofty to be a quaint little house with two small rooms for guests. It’s not. In fact, there are travellers hanging out of every nook and cranny, of all shapes and sizes, and all nationalities. Some of them are very loud indeed (and that’s just when they’re holding a normal, sober conversation), but it’s quiet enough where we are on the second floor. Like I said, Kyle and Betsy consider our room promotion.

Tim and I went up to our room abut 10.30 for an early night. After talking about anything and everything with K and B, we suddenly realise it’s gone 12.30 and we need to get our heads down. By this point in the evening we have been convinced not to bother going to Atlanta as originally planned, and to consider swapping Memphis for Nashville. Our first night sleeping in a hostel could not have been better, but it sounds like we got lucky. When we arrived yesterday we met a young South Korean boy called Josh who was given a bed in the basement with 9 other people. Josh reacts to the smallest statement with wild enthusiasm, but he wasn’t too impressed with D.C. Lofty, especially because the water in his shower wasn’t going down the plughole and the staff were reluctant to provide him with a coat hanger. For some bizarre reason Josh is staying here for six nights, but Kyle and Betsy were here for just the one, which was a damn shame.

We were up and out next morning by 8.30 to go and do the nation’s capital. It was already roasting and I had decided that it was to be a day of shorts from the get-go, given that it was expected to hit 37 degrees at some point (Fahrenheit people need to multiply by 2 and add 32). Our first destination was the Washington Monument, which is a great big phallic thing...and that’s as much as we knew about it. By this point we had to make tactical decisions on whether it was worth risking leaving the shade for a closer view.

A walk around the lake brought us to the Jefferson memorial, which contains several grand statements that the great man made, and damned inspiring stuff it was too. If you will indulge me in one of them:

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, but either way James Gray still needs more shorts.

Not bad, eh? Somewhere close by was the Pentagon, but we couldn’t get a view of it through the trees, and given its high-security status, we weren’t likely to. Instead we carried on around the lake until we got to the Lincoln memorial and by this point the heat was pretty stifling. Every time we passed a drinking fountain we refilled our bottles. As for the memorial itself, well, it was good – one of those things you’re supposed to see when in D.C., though technically it’s just a big statue of a Victorian chap in a chair. Maybe if I was born here I’d feel different, but I haven’t regressed my past lives far back enough to recall what I did in the American civil war.

Next stop was the White House, or rather the White House from a distance through a fence. Obviously since 9/11 they have put huge restrictions in place for getting tours of the building and you need to contact your representative in Congress one month in advance...not sure what the MP for Southport would have made of such a request. By the way, the small bunny rabbit you can see in the picture is called “Pip”. Pip belongs to a friend of mine, and if she hasn’t worked out that I’ve stolen him to take around the world with me then she didn’t love him half as much as I thought she did! Pip is enjoying himself immensely and is posing for pictures outside all of the famous landmarks so far.

The afternoon would be spent in museums, free museums, which was handy because it kept us out of the midday sun. First we hit the Museum of American History, which was perfectly fine and told us yet more fascinating facts about Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln et al. The Museum of Natural History was next door and Tim was able to show off the knowledge he gained from his biology degree to the member of staff who approached us at the sound of our quaint English accents as we discussed the differences between Homo Erectus and Homo Flacidus. She said that I sounded like a young Paul MacCartney, so I took the opportunity to ask her what her favourite Beatles album was. She said she didn’t have one and I decided it was already time to stop asking this question to everyone I meet in the US.

Our third culture conquest was the National Museum of Art, which contained plenty of Renoir, Cezanne and Manet, and I spotted a few by Pissarro, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gainsbrough, Church, Constable and Turner. Also present was a cast of The Thinker, but you’re probably getting sick of me posing for those shots by now! It was at some point while viewing this assortment of paintings that I realised that we’d now been on the road for exactly one week...feels like five! Only 20-something more to go...

Our final destination was to Capitol Hill (we hoped by now the sun would be a bit cooler, but it still felt seven inches from the backs of our necks). Various body parts were now turning red, in strange V-like shapes, despite the factor 30. Here we saw the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court, and some other important-looking buildings. It was now time for dinner and a beer and we headed to yet another Irish bar. We are finding it cheaper to eat out than to shop at the supermarket. Yesterday I wanted to make some sandwiches, so went out to get some basic provisions. Unfortunately I went to a place called the Wholesome Food Store, which is a health-conscious place big on organic produce and not my typical kind of shop. It was also bloomin` expensive. I struggle enough with a new supermarket back home, so what chance do I have here? I vaguely remember picking up and putting down the same pack of cheese slices six times and leaving without buying them. Kyle and Betsy assured us that things will get cheaper when we leave the north east bubble.

The first day we spend in a new place is always weird, but by the second day it's like we’ve been there for ages, and so it was as we returned to the D.C. Lofty. Suddenly though, we were struck with a dilemma – our next destination was Niagara Falls, but the Greyhound website was stating it was a whopping 14 hours away! How were we going to manage that and still book into accommodation? But there was no time to worry about that when we got upstairs and saw our new room mate for the night – Anna, 20, from Sweden, extremely timid. I shall make no further comment for now.   

  

This picture

5 A.D.

Q. What's wrong with this picture?

I'll leave you to ponder that and tell you at the end of this entry. Yesterday I left off with the news that I was heading to K-Mart for shorts...I didn't buy any. $27 a pair? That's dearer than Primarni! I'll wait `til we get further south, where I am assured that prices go down. Philadelphia isn't as expensive as New York, but it's not far off.

Yesterday evening we headed out for a bite and a beer, stopping at a place called Lulu's where pizza was on offer. We got chatting to a lad named Chaz (originally from Atlantic City) who recommended we try the locally-brewed beer named "Yuengling", supposedly brewed longer than any other beer in the country, and damn fine it was too. We spent about an hour and a half at Lulu's, discussing religion, politics and everything inbetween, especially those good-old major differences between the US and the UK. Chaz is a musician and his favourite Beatles album is The White Album. He even bought us our second Yuengling of the evening, but even without that bonus it was great to have taken part in our first barroom banter with the natives. Let's just hope Chaz sticks to his word and goes to travel Europe some day.

We left Lulu's and continued eastwards until we got to the Delaware river, on the other side of which is Camden, New Jersey. The bridge in the above shot is named after Benjamin Franklin, as is pretty much everything else in this town. Philadelphia was the original capital of the US from 1790 until 1800 and it rose up to its height during the industrial revolution, particularly through steel production. Here endeth the history lesson for now. We walked up and down the pierside looking for a place we'd seen on the map that played hot, smooth jazz. We failed to find it. And so we walked back to the Society Inn Hotel and drank a couple of "Tecante" beers in the bar next door.

A - there are no curtains on the window to the right (as I'm sure you guessed). I had to hang a blanket over it to block out the light.

We slept pretty soundly on our double bed, though I later discovered I'd been bitten on both elbows (though not by Tim). Even so, I feel like a piece of meat. After the regulatory morning apples, we walked west towards downtown, though we'd been warned against crossing the river into West Philadelphia - it may have been where the Fresh Prince was born and raised, but it's far too dangerous a place for us to spend our days. We did the toursity areas very quickly - the original state bank here, the first Quaker meeting house there and finally we took our place in the queue to see the infamous Liberty Bell.

Yes, yes, I know it's just a bell (and a bell with a huge crack in it for that matter), but it's more what it symbolises than what it looks like. It represents freedom for all of the American people, even though it hasn't been rung for about 150 years. And it was free to view, which was great for budgetary reasons.

We continued into downtown and back to the Greyhound terminal to try and reserve seats on the 10 am to Washington D.C. tomorrow, but we were told that we'd have to just turn up on the day. We didn't have that problem in New York and I'm wondering if the Greyhound staff are getting together to try and thwart us at every turn for their own sick enjoyment. 

We headed north west across the city, past a mixture of old industrial buildings and murals like the ones above. Skies were cloudy overhead and the temperature not too high, which was fine by me, given how humid it normally is in this town in June. And Chaz said that the whole of the area used to be swamp, but I won't be keeping an eye out for any alligators that have survived in the sewers.

The Rodin sculpture meant we'd reached the Philadelphia Museum of Art and that just meant one thing...nope, forget the exhibitions for Cezanne, Gaugin and Matisse, we were there for...The Rocky Steps! If you haven't seen the film, it features Sly Stallone training so hard for his fight with Apollo Creed that he runs all of the way up the steps and does some euphoric jumping with arms waving in the air. And so did we. It may have needed several takes to get it absolutely spot on, but we were able to capture both of us doing our best Rocky impersonations for the camcorder. I'd love to upload the footage for the blog, but it would take far too long. Maybe I'll sell it on later as part of a DVD compilation of the best moments of the trip. 

After all that exercise, it was all we could do to find a street vendor and buy the cuisine that Philly is famous for - the cheese steak. Now, I know it's a bit of risk eating from the mobile greasy spoons, but we bought them in the CBD and made sure it was a well-visited place. And the guy did at least have plastic gloves on. And how did the cheese steaks taste? Just like the Prince - fresh!

Burp!