Alabama, USA

Ok so I got off the interstate and yes it was a lot more scenic. Then it started to absolutely piss it down so called it a day in a town called Jackson. Got a motel and stayed in for the night. Its kinda of annoying because you realize there isn’t much to do in these small towns except maybe find a bar (which we didn’t) but even if you do you have to drive there as everything is so spaced out so only one of you can drink really. The reality of this road trip is starting to hit home. But what an accent they have over here. Remember when you used to have a tape walkman and when the batteries started to run out it all slowed down and sounded a bit retarded. That’s what they speak like in Alabama.

As our detour in Alabama was only for 2 days we headed up to Talladega where, you guessed it, I watched Talladega Nights the movie! And then I went to the actual NASCAR race track. Except there weren’t any races on. This road trip couldn’t get any more exciting if it tried


“Wooohooo!”

Okay, lets start the longest bit of driving I have ever done in my entire life.

New Orleans, USA

Leaving Texas and entering Lousiana, our next destination is New Orleans. A wrong turning that cost me a dollar (it forced me over a toll bridge I didn’t need to go on) later we entered the city. You can see how this place was hit hard by the Hurricane last year but there is lots of rebuilding going on. The trouble is, there is so much that still needs to be rebuilt, its evident that not enough is being done. So I thought I may as well help out and pump some money into their economy (but not much, Im on a budget still!). Tourism is still doing good here and stayed in great motel that had the feel of a bohemian Australian hostel rather than an inner city motel. Cruising round the renowned French Quarter you get to see a whole host of crazy shops and curious French architecture that makes it feel quite different to other US cities:


“Get out of the bloody road!”

You get to see things like these two guys playing harmonica and singing in the middle of the road. Of course there are a hell of a lot of tacky tourist shops selling things like real gators, stuffed to look like waiters holding an ash tray. And also, a much more appealing Santa Doll this time:


“Jingle Jazz”

Wasn’t long before all the walking got too much and we had to hit a bar for a super strength Margarita



“Its got a shting in its tail”

Got suitably drunk for the evening on a street where pretty much every bar has live blues or jazz. Ended the night chatting to 2 girls who told us all about how they lived through Katrina and how it affected both the rich and the poor and that the police were shooting people with AK47s simply for being out on the street. Lovely. God bless America. Then one of them told us about how she ran away from home when she was 13 and was being chased by the FBI for hacking. Hmmmm.

Its at this point on the trip we had a cross roads. Initially wanted to head up to Chicago then go across to Detroit on the way to New York. But as the weather is pretty much freezing up there and Im not sure how good the car will be in the snow, it was decided to stay south for as long as possible and try and catch one last bit of sun before I have to head home for Blighty. So the new destination is Miami with a plan to go off the interstate on the way in Alabama and try and get through some small towns.

Houston, USA

We’d lost our little booklet containing coupons for discount motels in Texas so we presumed we’d just be able to drive into Houston and find one. Nope. After 3 hours of driving around a very annoying city with all sorts of one way road restrictions, we eventually find somewhere slightly out of town to stay at. “Houston, YOU have a problem”. Not me. Did get to see a fair bit of the city mind you. I did however have a bit of a monk on towards the end as it just seemed that nothing was going our way as we kept getting endlessly lost, missing turnings and just not having any luck.

The next day, after a failed attempt at going to the NASA space station due to a wrong turn after a very suspect road sign, I went to a shopping mall to have a mooch. And by pure chance a guy in a music shop randomly said to me that BT (The music guy I met back in LA) was playing in Houston that night! Well this was too much. Left the mall and drove straight there (after taking a wrong turn and getting lost again first though). Was a strange little venue with a lot of the crowd being middle age geeks. The first guy on, Thomas Dolby, was all very New Wave, 80s electro pop and a bit, well, shit. Thankfully BT made up for it when he came on. The trouble was, was that he was playing much more ambient and emotional music which was ruined by a bunch of twats up front who were constantly screaming and whooping all the way through the very nice ballads he was playing. It’s not a bloody rave you penises! Still it was good to see him play live after meeting him in LA.


“B to the T. Indeed”

After something actually going right since getting here, I was inspired enough to attempt going to the NASA space station again. And I’m glad I did. The first part of the museum was an actual tour of the control center where they launch the flights on. As they were launching a shuttle that day from Florida the guide requested that no flashes be used when taking photos when inside as it distracts the workers. There were a shed load of Koreans on the tour and as soon as we got to the viewing gallery and reminded again about not using a flash, loads of flashes started going off. The guide talked us through the various bits and reminded us again about the flashes. I was in hysterics at this point because as he was actually speaking to us telling us not to use a flash all these flashes kept going off.

“Ok can I remind you all again not to use a flash when taking a picture”

FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!

“Ok. I’ve just had….”

FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!

“…three phone calls from…”

FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!

“….the control room about the fl…”

FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!

“IF YOU HAVE SOMEONE WHO NEEDS TO TRANSLATE FOR YOU CAN YOU TELL….”

FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!

“Oh I give up”

Fantastic. Absolutely made my day that these poor guys didnt understand a word he said. Of course I managed to get a picture without a flash being the good boy that I am:


“Houston, can you tell those bloody Koreans to st….FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!”

I also noticed that the Koreans like to take pictures of things with them standing in front of it, hands by their side, looking very serious. So I tried my hand at it:


“One for the arbum”

I think I came off as more miserable than serious. Although Im not sure what my serious face is like as Im rarely very serious in life. As has become customary on my trip I like to try and get as many waves out of people as I can. So if another tour bus of people goes past, I’ll start waving to see how many wave back. Didn’t get as many in NASA although its going to be tough to beat my record in Melbourne when I managed to get an entire bus load of Koreans to spontaneously start waving at me as they drove past. Try it yourself, you’ll be amazed how much fun it can be.

One thing you don’t expect as you’re driving in between buildings where they train astronauts and launch multi million dollar shuttles into space is this:


“Put away your steak sauce sonny”

That’s right, a load of cows. Very strange. But this is Texas I guess. Lets MOOOOve on. Sorry.

Afterwards you get to “experience the amazing sensation of an actual shuttle launch!!” which is actually watching a shuttle take off on a cinema screen with the volume turned up very loud. Then you move on to a museum which has displays of cool things like the pod that came back to earth after the first space launch and lots of info about the history of American space travel. The one display that got me was one showing a timeline of events in recent history along with what was happening with space travel at the time. The event list read like this:

2001: Terrorists attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
2003: The film Harry Potter and the Socerers Stone premiers
2004: Saddam Hussein is captured by American troops
2005: Tsunami devastates Asia: 200,000 killed
2005: Hurricane Katrina causes much destruction along the Gulf Coast.

Sorry what was that? Hang on a minute. 2003, Harry Potter gets released. Was the film of a small bespectacled boy conjuring up frogs and shit really such a major news worthy event compared to the largest terrorist attack in history and the toppling of autocratic empire??! I think not somehow.

There was also a display showing that contrary to popular belief, the moon, in theory, has all the correct chemical compounds to sustain life (given a bit of technological gigery pokery). It was certainly interesting to see how they could develop moon stations and that a shuttle load of moon dust contains enough H3 helium to potentially fuel America for a year with little waste. However Im not sure they should be planning to start a new civilization on the moon when they can’t even get things right back on Earth. Right blog fans?

That was it for Houston. Went out that night for some drinks and when we asked the locals how they get home after a night of drinking they looked at me sort of puzzled and said “We drive man!”. Okay….Taxi!

Road Trip, USA

And away they go! We hit the interstate and headed off to the next state of Arizona. Where we stopped in a motel. Then we got up and we drove some more into New Mexico where we had some lunch. Then we drove some more into Texas where we stopped in a motel. Then we got up and HANG ON A BLOODY MINUTE! This is shit! I had images of this road trip being full of adventures and meeting weird hill billies. Not motorways and motels.

Ok, I think my error here has been a complete and utter lack of planning (as usual), not buying a lonely planet (although we have bought a little cactus for the car which is a lonely plant, ahem) and generally sticking to the motorways. Im also extremely annoyed with myself in general for the timing of my whole round the world trip by living out two winters in one year instead of no winters like what I should have done.

The weather out here isn’t bad, but its not sun bathing weather I can tell you. But most annoying is that all the fantastic theme parks and water parks are closed!! One of the main reason for coming on this round the world trip in the first place. CURSES!! Well never mind. America will always be here (well, unless it doesn’t get nuked by Iran or North Korea or Godzilla) so Ill just have to come back another time and do all the theme parks. As Im here cruising across the southern states I might as well try and make the best of it.


“The rooooad is looooong. Very very very very long”



“Shouldn’t you be on the road?”

Entering into Texas you realize this is a BIG state. The road goes on straight for miles and miles and miles with nothing but desert all around you. Not a place you’d want to break down really. Hmmm, why is the engine temperature gauge maxed out and that big red light with an exclamation mark flashing. Oh shit.

Actually it’d been overheating for a while but we managed to cool it down by adding more water. Luckily we managed to finally stop at a petrol station where I looked under the bonnet pretty clueless, hoping the problem would fix itself if I stared at it long enough. No luck. However a German guy did come over and start poking around at it.

He discovered the problem and in the next 2 hours he actually managed to replace one of the hoses from the water pump as it had a hole in it (I hadn’t done that many handbrake turns, honest!). Absolutely amazing bit of luck considering we were in a tiny little town and it was dark and here’s this random German with tools and replacement hoses with the know how on how to fix it all. When I asked him what he wanted for it he just grunted at me. In fact as we thanked him over and over he just seemed to get more grumpy. Very strange but I wasn’t gonna argue with a free roadside repair. Best leave before he decides to eat my head.

Back on the road you discover the joy of American drivers. My god. They really are terrible. Apparently there is lane priority where everyone overtakes on the left but no one takes any notice. And nobody indicates. Its more of a problem in the cities where nobody has any courtesy whatsoever. If your indicating to change lanes and starting to make a maneuver, the guy behind you will try and beat you to it. They swerve in front of you with no indicators, usually with a phone glued to their head and most of them drive cars the size of buses. God help them if they had to deal with manual cars and roundabouts that’s all I can say.

Made a stop in San Antonio where I discovered the wonders of A1 Steak Sauce. I have now succumbed to the evil of American junk food and I am no longer caring about eating healthily. The way I see it is that I can get back in shape when I get home so for now I might as well enjoy it. So now some days I might have pancakes from breakfast and a burger for lunch followed by a burger for dinner. 40% of Americans are obese and it’s so easy to see why.

They say there could be an obesity epidemic on the horizon but I really don’t think its going to effect me do you? So sod those fat bastards give me your burgers baby!! And being fair, they do make the best burgers over here. I plan to make it my mission to have a burger in every burger restaurant. And what choice you have; McDonalds, Dennys, Burger King, Wendys, Shoeies, WhatABurger, InNOut Burger, Carls Jnr, Fuddruckers and White Castle. There may be more and I plan to sample them all.

They also had this building there which I forget the name of now:


“Remember the…errr…remember the ah…err…the…nah, its gone.”

And my personal favourite “Only in America” moment so far:


“That’s right. A Santa Claus doll with army fatigues and a fucking gun”

Another good one I found is whilst driving along the desolate interstate roads you’ll suddenly come across a road sign displaying “DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS”. “Err, ok. I, err, wasn’t planning to”. Silly people.

That night, Teddie had a dream that we got pulled over by the cops for speeding. Of course, next morning what happens? I get pulled over by the cops for speeding. You could say it’s a weird coincidence but I think its more a matter of inevitability when you’re traveling and nothing less than 90mph most of the time. Luckily I gave him a load of “Yes sir. No Sir. Three bags full sir” and he only gave me a warning. Good job he didn’t check up with the San Francisco police department about my $335 in parking fines. Lets get out of here baby.

For a humourous slant on the American culture read this (it’s not written by John Cleese though, contrary to what it says)

http://www.liquidtype.net/node/781

San Diego, USA

Guess what? That’s right, we traveled further south to visit even more of Teddies friends and more free accommodation in San Diego (I knew I invited her to join me for a reason). This time it was a friend of hers, Helen, who she knew when she was doing an exchange program in South Africa (I cant keep track of it all either). So again it was a big old Swedish fest with me trying to pick out words I understood, like “I” and “a” and “Today”. As you can imagine, my limited Swedish vocabulary meant I understood sweet fanny adams but they did all speak English most of the time for my benefit.

The one thing I did not think Id be doing is boarding a submarine on my travels so imagine my luck when our hosts invited us to jump on board for a nose around! Tobias (Helens boyfriend) is a Submarine Commander in the Swedish navy and they’re currently helping Americans to be not so shit at driving submarines around. Hence being based in San Diego, the main naval hub on the west coast of America. So we actually got to go on board the Swedish sub and get a guided tour which was very interesting. The best point for me is that the Swedish have an engine that although has pistons, does not use combustion to drive it and hence allows them to be a lot quieter underwater. This is an engine only the Swedish government know about which makes they’re subs and they’re crew some of the best in the world. Was allowed a few snaps inside too:


“Feel free to look around just don’t touch anyth…….”


“A fine vessel. The subs not to bad either. Arf!”

And yes, that is my homemade Anchorman T-shirt which I found rather appropriate as I was actually in San Diego at the time (although I did look like quite the tourist prat). I also watched the film whilst their too, how cool am I? Although I later discovered most of it was filmed in LA. Knights of Columbus!

Also popped into the bar where they played the piano in a scene from Top Gun:


“I know exactly the scene your talking about...eh?”

Didnt stay though as it was a bit of a dump. Instead, it was about time for drunken shenanigans with the Swedes so here we go:



“Hello Sailor. Sorry, commander”

“You get as good as you give”



“A deformed Justin Timberlake look-a-like demonstrating how to bring ‘sexy back’”

And yes, that is a bit of sick on my right shoulder after very nearly winning a bet to eat half an apple in one bite. It went well until I realized I couldn’t really chew and it was getting stuck in my throat and making me gag. So I had to spew a bit to get it out and it got kind messy.

And that was the end of the west coast and Calafornia. Its now just me, Teddie and the Green Danger to high tail it across the states in the mother of all road trips. Heeeyaaaaaa!!


“Ah San Diego. Drink it in, always goes down smooth.”

Orange County, USA

Onwards in the Green Danger to visit more friends of Teddies. This time its friends of the family who they spend there summers with in Gothenburg. I’m willing going along as it means getting to meet more locals (well they’re not really locals as they’re Swedish) and of course more free food and accommodation ;). I was even more happy when we found out that they’re not shy of a few pennies and live in an awesome
house with all sorts of luxurious goodies.


“Well it’ll do for now I suppose”

Thankfully they were a really grounded down to earth family. Was interesting to look through some of they’re recent photos of a charity bash they attended with Hans (The Dad of the family) in photos with some of the Kennedys. “Hang on a minute that’s bloody Swartzenegger’s wife isn’t it?” I was thinking. Apparently they’ve had dinner with the Kennedys. Bloody Nora! Was also interesting to chat to him about driving around the Nuremburg race track. I tried to sound as knowledgeable as possible but as he’d actually done the real thing and my experience was only limited to doing it on a video game it didn’t go to well. Was nice of him to show me his spanking new Carrera and inform me that a good mate of his actually designs Porsches (he’s just started work on the new 911 turbo apparently). Really nice bloke though and a lovely family.

Went on a little day trip around the area to see the sights. Visited Newport Beach which apparently has some of the most expensive real estate in America. I suppose it was a pretty nice area but nothing that really sets it apart from other costal towns Ive been to on my travels.


“There are certainly worse places to be”

However my favourite sight was this mad woman pushing her dog around in a baby stroller.

“I take the ruff with the smooth”

Also got to admire some impressive architecture:


“Haha! Fooled you all. This is actually Ikea”

Yes, went into Ikea, but not for furniture. They have a little shop at the exit where they sell all matter of Swedish food and Teddie went bonkers and bought 20 bucks worth. I guess it was like me getting loads of Monster Munch and Quavers when I was in the British shop in Sydney.

Overall a pleasant couple of days spent relaxing and brushing up on my Swedish. I can now ask people to have a drink at my house in Swedish. Useful.

Monterey, USA

After San Fran, Terry and I made our way down the west coast of California in the “Green Danger” (The new name for our rental car, courtesy of Teddie) to visit her best friend from Sweden who lives in the USA with her American boyfriend. Turned up at a place called Monterey where Easton’s (Teddies, best friends boyfriend – I know, bare with me) family live. That’s all by the by though. Booked a motel through some website and checked in where I quickly went for an urgent number 2. All was good until the manager was banging on the door and very rudely said to Teddie that our booking wasn’t confirmed and we had to get out. Trouble was, I was still getting used to the thin American plumbing and managed to block and overflow the toilet with my fresh creation, flooding the bathroom floor. Quite embarrassing walking out of the room telling the manager that he might want to “mop that up”. Teach the silly bastard to be so rude to us though.

Apart from toilet troubles, we got checked into another motel and got invited around for dinner at Eastons family’s house. It was really nice to experience some American hospitality with very generous amounts of food and drink and a family that made us feel really welcome. Although I think I might be noticing a certain trait about Americans. I think they talk too much. Maybe it’s the just the differences in cultures but there was constant chatter the whole time I was there. Its like they talk about everything and anyone. Whereas back home it would take 11 pints and to be lying in the gutter, covered in vomit and crying to get some of your more personal feelings out, these guys do it at the drop of a hat in normal conversation. However they were all very nice and I gladly accepted a great free meal from them.

“And the winner of the best unwanted xmas jumper of the year goes to…..”

We were actually here over Thanks Giving which is an American tradition of celebrating the fact that when the original settlers were dying of starvation because they didn’t know how to harvest the land, the native Americans helped them out and showed them how to do it. Obviously before they got the hang of it and decided to kill them all off in return. Anyway a massive feast with turkey is usually the deal so wanting to be a part of it me and Terry had some turkey slices in our sandwiches in the motel room to celebrate.

Not a great deal else to report. Did a little ice skating to practice before we hit the Rockafella ice rink in New York, and once again I was out done by four year olds as I imitated a pissed up Bambi. Lets hope it goes better in New York. Also went to a nice house party with all of Eastons mates where we were introduced to people as ‘Awesome!’. Tch! Americans. They’re so over the top, ho ho ho.