29th November, 23:17

Aha! and you had all thought some horrible catastrophe had enveloped me. No fear, I've been on the train for 9 hours now... out of 55. Luckily, I met a cool american guy called Wade, who is sitting next to me. By his own admission he's a bit red neck, but is really nice and chatty. He has teh sort of personality that he always repeats how he respects everyone and not to judge people, but at the back of your mind you suspect if you got in his bad books he could flip out. While the sun was gingerly creeping down the sky I relaxed with him in the lounge car and met a jolly nice American called Josh. We all chatted for a while where I found out nuggest of info like they had both been druggies but cleaned up etc. Wade had recently found his best mate dead from an overdose and that had had a profound affect on him. Josh in turn had lost people, but I liked Josh's outlook and he seemed pretty knowledgeable about Britain and History etc.

Wade's reason for travel (to Grand Junction) was to find work at a gas rig as teh demand for tree-climbing tree reducers had diminished. Josh seemed to be going to Sacramento, or there aboust, to join the army. But his shape and secretly Wade, begged to differ. After returning to our, once again, spacious seats we struck up conversation with an english girl, Jane, and Rebecca, and American, sitting to our right. After general chatting we headed to the bar for some beers, where after some depressing drug/death talk, and Wade trying to playing match maker with me and Jane, he headed on up to hang with some other people he met.

Jane (24), it turned out, had been travelling on and off for 5 years, taking a gap year before uni in Africa. When she was meant to go home she decided to stay and has travelling/worked all over the world ever since. Including working in New Zealand, Oz etc. she's now on her way to Denver to work down the country. One of the reason's wade was so up for matchmaking us was, obviously us Britishness, but also our love for Jack Kerouac, who ironically the two American's had never heard of. She also lives in Glastonbury, so we chatted about the festival for a while.

I garnered less info from the quiet Rebecca (23), she works on her family farm, I think. If she could do anything, she'd be a botanist in South Americ, and she has some crazy herbal drinks. She's really nice though and she also handed out some awesome dark chocolate, which Wade had never had and he pretended he like it, even though he hated it. He couldn't believe I loved it.

A few more interesting things to note about wade, he had this barbed wire tattoo around his bicep, which was surrounded by knife stab wounds, apparently done by guy who tattooed it!? He wore cowboy boots that he was very protective over, even though they'd been run over by his girlfriend. Who had also got a DUI and killed someone while drink driving recently. Twas a bit hectic.

In conclusion, journey is good so far, but I'm far too awake while veryone else is asleep. Wade has gone to stretch out somewhere up front and I've resorted to the sounds of Long Island's Brand New flooding into my ears. They guys asked me if I had enough money and could do whatever I wanted what would I do. For some reason I said writer. From this post's 3 page length, I can't for the life of me see why. Plus my handwriting is dreadful.

29th November, 11:00

It would appear I forgot to write down what I did last night. After the awesome Planetarium night sky show and more playing around the exhibits I participated in an El (subway) fiasco, but eventually got to the Lincoln Park area. After realising it was too dark to actually go to the park I ventured up the main shopping part, which was full of hyper expensive, independent, small fashion shops. I also was entirely unsure of the general area as the lighting wasn't fantastically illuminating and I didn't know what the neighbourhood was like. I found a Starbucks though, where I finished my Manga book. Yeah, so manga is very expensive for it's content. I'm not saying it was bad, just short and ended rather abruptly. I then tried to walk to an el station, got a bit off course, aimed for a different one, which turned out to be shut, so had to carry on walking through neighbourhoods that I had a severe lack of knowledge about. It all ended up groovy though, and I walked down the mag. mile for the last time and had a gargantuan Jimmy John's.

When I got back I packed and sorted everything out for the train ride. The night's sleep was pretty bad as loads of people snored and people came in late, banging around. I slept in a bit and then cruised the net for cool N810 apps.

28th November, 13:00

Sitting here in the Adler Planetarium I suddenly had the intense urge to drive to Exeter, A303 style. But alas, those days are gone, no matter, I got to drive a mars rover today, or at least a far cheaper copy. After waking up, a bit late, I decided Planetarium then Lincoln Park was the best bet as I probably know enough Science & Industry stuff already. Plus, it's in an area where I might get roughed up for my lack of modesty.

Anyway, Planetarium is excellent, very hands on, quite quiet so I got to be a big kid. Like most days really. I have some crazy show to see now, something like Night Sky Live! which might prove problematic as it's only 1.10pm. I have to work out how long I can spend here before walking to subway and going to Lincoln Park and surrounding area. I wish I could remember when the sun sets.

27th November, 21:24

I'm currently at the top of the John Hancock Building, and I think it's better than the Sears tower. It probably helps that it's a night, and the low rise neighbourhoods and lake hugging roads look far more impressive. Very festive up here, with many a christmas tree and christmas music playing. I didn't buy the photo I had taken as my eyes are half shut and I look a bit special. I helped a couple have their photo taken, and every time the girl exchanged the camera with me I got a massive electric shock. So she's either a robot or an electric eel in disguise.

More info for your brains: Chicago isn't called the windy city because of the wind, which explains why NYC was windier.It's actually about the long winded speeches that some folks gave when trying to secure Chicago for some exhibition. Also, the river in Chicago was actually engineered to run backwarsd to prevent pollution entering the lake! Crazy Americans.

27th November, 20:00

When I get to San Francisco I should have a day on random unplanned wandering and just with no need to go anywhere specific. I might get time to write some postcards then! Man, I suck at getting things done. Down with Tom.

27th November, 19:47

I decided I should head to the museum of contemporary art as it was free on Tuesdays and shut's at 8pm. You may question why I, again, abused my brain with contemporary art, and with good reason, but it's kind of interesting seeing what these crazy folk came up with.

Therefore, I saw floors made of vinyl records, videos of dead masked spirit girls exploring a western town, many rock inspired art works, and other crazy things I've blocked from my memory. One piece that was amazing was an awesomely paranoid narrative in words and diagrams of a conspiracy theory behind a spaghetti restaurant that never had spaghetti. Very funny. They also had the same damn painting, that is just a big black canvas, that every art gallery in America has because the artist made so many because it's so easy. It's actually split into 9 squares, each a slightly different shade of black, but meh. Anyway, I enjoyed the madness in the end as it was free and Taking Back Sunday kept me sane in there.

I'm now in Seattle's Best coffee, writing this all down before I go up the hancock observatory and see chicago at night. Unfortunately this is in a Borders, so I may get trapped in here a while.....

27th November, 16:30 (Longest Post Ever!)

Right, that's settled, my mp3 player and I have formed a mental bond. I was thinking, I would jolly like to hear Soca Amaretto Lime. I slammed on Brand NEw and it was randomly chosen out of 48 tracks. I love coincidence.

After waking up a bit late, I slammed a new SD card into my camera and steppted out into the bright chicago mornign sun. More cityscape shots it is then. After enjoying the moderate walk to the Field Museum I soon discovered it had about 3 days worth of content and the Darwin exhibit cost more. After greeting Sue the T-Rex at the front I made my way to the evolution section, was was extremely excellent. Though there was many a school child scrabbling through, they were all moving at about 88mph, so it was fine.

Man, there have been some crazy animals, sharks called Helicoprion have some crazy spiralled bottom lip full of teeth for example. They had some cool dino bones and some itneresting videos on mass extinctions and ice ages. Apparently we're currently in an inter-glacial ice age at the moment, hence the polar ice caps. The human section was also very interesting, for instance, until relatively recently we shared the earth with at elast 2 other hominid species. For example, the neanderthals originated in europe, where as we came from Africa.

More interesting things include about 11% of us are missing a Palmaris muscle, which is a remanent of when our tree dwelling ancestors, tree dwelled. Other remanents of our ancestors include wisdom teeth, goosebumps, ear wriggling muscles, our 5th toe and what's left of our 3rd eyelid.

Returning to mass extinction, the "normal" rate of extinction is one species every 4 years. Currently 30,000 species go extinct every year. Human's are the win! or possible something more apocalyptic. I then went to a random plant section which was empty as there were no dinosaurs for people to gawp at. At this point I was slightly delirious from tiredness, thirst and eating too much when I entered the museum. I still took a photo of a model of a tea growing extravaganza for Rex and Tracey though. And also of a venus fly trap biting a man's tongue....

In my delirium I stumbled into a jade and precious gem exhibit, which was also empty and surprisingly interesting. A few gems of knowledge (haw haw) inclued that emerald's are actually rarer and more valuable than diamons, but they tend to be cloudy and have imperfections when they grow over a certain smallish size. Also, gold "carats" are different from diamond "karats" but I'm sure I'm boring you enough already.

I then crashed through haiwai which seemed a very good reproduction with beaches and markets etc. Soon I came across New Zealand and a Mairu house, which all suspiciously merged into Cheyanne artifacts. Then Asia cropped up and I collapsed at a fountain next to Sue's head. After some thirst quenching, reviving aqua, I entered the also barren (of people) Underground Adventure. Where I was promptly shrunk down to the size of an ant, or possibly smaller. What followed was an extremely good attempt at making soil exciting. Including anamatronic insects, very creepy sound effects as I made my way through some underground earth tunnels. After be regrown I used a crazy comptuer to help plan a town's redevelopment and I wa apparently excelelnt even though I paid no attention to the writing and just chose options according to the pretty map and Year 8 geography - sponsered by Crayola.

I then fond myself in Egypt, with some nice recreations of the nile and a display case of all the fake ancient egyptian things the museum had been duped into buying. They also obviously had many more authenetic items, or they just hadn't tested them yet....

I then ran out of time, lucky for you dear reader, which is probably only me by now, and exited from the building. Sun was setting beautifully and I took some photos of the outside brontasaurus against it.

Hoo ha!

I have internet time left, and nothing left in my magic book of wonderment to type up. I am officially caught up with all things that have occurred in the windy city. Which seems to lack wind. Chicago is really great, I really wanted to go up near Lincoln Park and see the posher end of town, as I think they have cool second hand bookshops and the such like. Ah well. Maybe next time, and I'll drag Rex along that time, and destroy him with puns, such as this one I pwned him with today:

Rex: "I like dolphins. Lots. Did you fall in accidentally?"
Tom: "Nah, on porpoise... *gaffaws*"
Rex: "Good night mr tom. *sighs*"
Tom: "*giggles* night dude, you sure set me in my plaice *sniggers*"

Good times, good times. Just done my good deed for the day by helping a person of Scandinavian origin use the vending machine. I should really go to bed as it's 23:45, and I need a shower. I'm a bit scared though as I fear my dorm is full of old men, and they may get grumpy with me for wearing a garish t-shirt and not being tucked up asleep yet. Ah well, us riff raff must continue to be the spanner in the works, the bane of their existence, the apple in there carrot cake, the brick in their washing machine and the suspiciously placed post box in the hanging garden of their hearts....

Yeah, I'll sleep now then.

Newly Revised Chicago Plan:

Tuesday:

• Field Museum: 09:00-13:30
• Planatarium: 13:30-16:30
• Contemporary Art Museum: 17:00-19:00
• All You Can Eat Pizza And Beer For $20: 20:00

Wednesday:

• Science & Industry Museum: 09:30 - X
• Planatarium: X-16:30
• Hancock Observatory: 20:00/21:00

26th November, 23:00

I then headed to the Planaterium (spelling?) as it was free today. It was only open for a short while longer but I saw a show about Black Holes which was quite interesting though I knew most of it already. Though I didn't realise that there is a black hole in the middle of most galaxies as well as our one (the milky way). They had some snazzy computer graphics and liam neeson or someone narrating.

After it shut I wandered back to the hostel and via the medium of text organised to meet Tim for drinks. I then grabbed a Gargantuan Jimmy John's sub, which was excellent and then met him outside the Art Institute (though I waited outside for 15minutes because he was late). We then cruised down the Mag. mile to the Hancock centre, which is a massive skyscraper with an apparent very posh bar on the top, but we got in fine. Was quite expensive but the view was immense. I got a coors light ($8.25+tax) and he got some crazy cocktail which was tiny ($12.00+tax). However, his was immensely strong, apparently, and he got drunk off it quite quickly. By this time I had started to realise that he was a bit dull company as he didn't really pay attention or keep the conversation going. He also appeared moderately racist and snobbish towards Americans, which was a slight issue as he would talk to anyone, just often say the wrong things. Luckily, as it was expensive, we moved on, and the next bar we went to that suggest wanted a $10 cover, so we moved on, after a while of not finding a bar he got tired, which I was glad of, and he parted ways to go back. I'm quite glad in the end we only had 1 drink as I think I would have got REALLY annoyed with him as he was extremely hypocritical, especially in that he claimed all American's were ignorant to everyone, which is in turn an ignorant view. Ah well, at least we didn't agree to go to any museums together like we were gonna.

This post may be more rambling than normal, or longer, or something, as I am typing this straight from my neural pathways, because I couldn't be bothered to write it out, and I can type 10 times faster so I tend to splurge my brain on here. Yay me! Man the aquarium was awesome.

26th November, 17:20

Now that was an awesome day, makes me wish I had longer here. After I last left you I bought a random Manga book because I could and the blurb was humourous:

"On his way home from a round of heavy drinking late one night, master Moocher and Game Programmer Keita Ibuki decides to satisfy a craving for ramen at a noodle stand. But instead of slurping soup, he gives up his meal to a cute girl (an apparent ramen fanatic). Unbeknownst to Keita, the girl is a superhuman being known as a Mototsumitama who's being hunted by others of her kind. When a battle suddenly ensues, Keita gets caught in the crossfire and loses his arm. The next time he opens his eyes, he's back in his apartment - arm intact. But just whose arm is it?! Asking the strange girl raiding his fridge only makes things more complicated!"

Anyway, I took a really nice walk to the museum campus, with many trees and statues on the way. I went into the extremely impressive Shedd Aquarium and bought another City Pass. It's amazing in there!!! To start with there was a 90,000 gallon replica of the Caribbean coral reef with Rays, sharks, fish, etc. Even a giant turtle called Nickel, who was injured by a speed boat and swims awkwardly now. When they were rehabilitating her, they also found a Nickel lodged in her food pipe, hence the name. a diver also went in to feed the sea life and a small presentation about it all occurred.

Afterwards I wandered around looking at the huge amount of aquariums in there, with all sorts of crazy fish, eels and turtles. Some fish swim up and knock into other fish so their babies, which they carry in their mouth, fall out and can be eaten! Another type of fish as a long aerodynamic snout which is similar to an aeroplane wing and is needed as otherwise the fish would just swim downwards the whole time. Then I walked out to the Oceanarium, where they have dolphins and a type of whale that I have forgotten their name, but it begins with B. Watched a dolphin display, which was awesome, and shows how well trained and happy they were. Their environment was 63 times the size of the minimum regulations for keeping that many dolphins (5). Down below you could see underwater as well as see Penguins and sea otters.

There was even a lizard section which had some crazy looking critters in there, including some that would drop their tails if caught, and then the tails shatter. They also had a majorly huge and very lazy komodo dragon, but it can't apparently get up to very high speeds. Other sections included more turtles, spiders, another coral reef replica with some cool fishies, electric eels, huge ants and many more fascinating things besides. I took MANY photos. Whoa this entry is getting big.

In between I got a nice salad for lunch, with egg and turkey ham. I also got three cookies cos they looked the yum, plus a cranberry juice. I also scratched my head twice, fiddled with my bracelets, stretched my arms, looked slightly to my left, then back to my right, and all manner of trivial details that you really don't need to know but I seem to tell you anyway and you don't have a choice. Mwahahahaha...

26th November, 10:52

Mmmm coffee and a japepeno pretzel. Good times. Last night after returning and kinda chilling I met an Australien called Time. He lived in Vancouver for half a year but can't find anywhere to teach so is flying back to Oz. Had a really good sleep, and my South Korean chum gave me a subway pass for free as he was leaving at 5am. Jolly nice of him. Today is Aquarium day. woo! and then Field Museum if I have time, possibly with Tim though he's moving hostel today as snoring kept him up (not mine). Awesome quote I found in Barnes & Noble:

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!” - Jack Kerouac

Random Thoughts

• I should get some brain books.
• Hopefully on my big trip I won't be nervous beforehand like with this one, just excited.

Thoughts for your soul

I am exceptionally tired. I may just lace this page with some random thoughts and words. It's also cold. At least outside. Eels are a fantastic band. I forgot to mention something I heard in the contemporary art section of the Art Institute of Chicago, said by a little girl:

"Daddy, I can do that"

so very true and it cracked me up. While I was walking around the streets yesterday a guy zipped by on a black segway. Turns out it was an on-duty police officer! Crazy. I've began to ponder how easy it is to buy things here with a credit card. Today I got a drink from a vending machine simply by swiping my card, same with the Internets. When they do sometimes ask you to sign, they've already given it back to you (the card) so they can't compare anyway.

I might get an early night tonight. Really need to catch up on sleep before the epic train journey to Frisco.

25th November, 15:25

Well after a large blogging stint I hit the sack and woke up a bit late (9am). It only feels late because most people leave at like 7.30. Shwoered, checked email and then hit the streets where I walked to the Sears Tower with a purpose. No one around, and no queues so I went straight up to top. Lift goes 18mph, which I'm told is fast for lifts. Audio tour was pretty good and the view was nice, though doesn't quite compare to New York. They had an interesting display around the observation deck about Chicago and it's achievements. There's also a cool toblarone shaped prison you can see.

After grabbing some Maccy D's, as you do in America, I began to walk to Michigan Avenue, and through a nearly deserted Millenium Park, which was a bit spooky. After some suspicious road crossing, I made it to the lake shore and harbour. This also lacked any form of life and boast. After a nice walk along, followed by a very dangerous and back-alley style ascent across the river, I made it to the Navy Pier. I took some photos of my confusion along the way to help the narrative.

Navy pier has a shopping/restuarant type plaza followed by a long building holding various things such as a festival hall and ballroom. There is also a free stained glass window museum there, which is the only one in America/World apparently. Probably with good reason. There was also an interesting display on drugs, people who had died from them and policing methods/equipment. At the end of the pier I helped some crazy people take a photo, as we were as lcose as you could get to the light house out in the harbour. There's also a very big anchor.

After that I went up to the roof where there is a ferris wheel & spinning ride, but as i was winter there were very few people around. Next to the little theme park is the crystal gadens, which is a huge green house with big palm trees and awesome "jumping" fountains. After that I started writing this and get dodgy chinese all over my book again...

24th November, 20:35

Well today was full of disappointment, but I still enjoyed it, so take that Santa! After bursting through the doors of the Art Institute of Chicago, I cleaned up the strewn glass and ran around like a crazy mad man on my Hopper Hunt (TM). After 30 minutes I asked someone where it was and it turns out it's not on display at the moment... but don't worry it's back mid feb...

DAMMIT, I was extremely distraught and exceptionally upset. Then I realised I was getting far too dramatic over a single painting, even if it is the best in the world, so I spent the next 3 or so hours enjoying the museum. Not after first getting steak, 2 cookies and a smoothie too cheer me up. There are some very good paint and Asian pieces in there, and also some extraordinary bad contemporary art which looked exactly the same as some other stuff I've seen in the past art galleries that I frequented.

After that, I walked around Millennium park in the sunshine and went into dunkin' doughnuts for a bagel. Where I had a chat with a guy about black-on-black racism, and how he'd been shot and beaten into a coma. It would appear he didn't fully recover, but it was still a nice chat even if he did tell me he was a black muslim called Kahlid about 30 times as I think he kept forgetting he'd told me.

After rollin' to the hostel I utilised my sensual n810 to check for stuff for tonight on Timeout and also talk to Stu. Turns out The Academy Is.. was playing tonight!??!!!!!

OH MY GOLLY GOSH!

Then I found out it was sold out. Blast. Nothing else took my fancy so I decided to just walk down state street and the magnificent mile. Grabbed a salad in Macy's and took some pretty night time photos. I walked into bloomingdales and my wallet promptly died from shock. $165 for a random shirt, $20 for a hot chocolate! I formed a plan to use my poshest English accent and claim to be a duke of Antioch (yes I know it's in Turkey) if my raggedy presence was questioned. After that, I did my normal borders patrol. Haw, haw, get it? I don't. I decided I might get into Manga, but the choice was immense and I knew nothing. So I ran. I need to actually type some of this up as I am days and days behind.

To the hostel ->

Oh I may try and get tickets for theatre or something of equal night excitement. I still can't upload photos, *shrugs* maybe I'll do it when I get back to Orp.

24th November, 10:00

Woke up, showered and rolled down stairs. Called my Mummy *waves at mum* and then utilised the free coffee here, woo! Chicago Institute of Art time.

mmmm NightHawks.

23rd November, 23:00

Well that was frustrating, after exploring Chicago up State Street & down Michigan Avenue, which was awesome, blue skies and all, I came back to check in, only to find Sta Travel had failed to pay for my hostel. And so I won the international award for longest sentance. After two hours of waiting it was all sorted out, I showered and cruised down to Jimmy John's or something, that made really nice sandwiches and was scaring away all the custom with heavy death metal playing. After that I went back and chilled at the hostel as I was bushwacked.

Hostel is EXTREMELY nice, very clean, like all of chicago and people here are quite friendly. In a 10 person dorm room with some nice peeps. Chatted to a guy from South Korea for a while, he's 27 and studying a year abroad here (in Microbiology). In South Korea they have to do military service for 2 years, which explains his age. He was stationed as a medic in West Tameria in the UN peace keeping force with people from Australia, Portugal, Japan etc for 6 months. Amazing difference in lives we have. He supports Liverpool, as apparently the premiership is big over there, more so than their own league.

Also met a guy called Adam (what a stupid name) from Ohio who is just here for weekend and majors in Digital Design. He was cool but also tired and a bit ashamed he only came from Ohio.

Argh I forgot to really talk about town. Book shops are dope, I had to restrain myself from buying all of them. I got a foolish looking hat from Seas and bought a new memory card (4gb) from Radioshack, which then spent rest of the day setting off all the store alarms. Down the magnificent mile I saw a cool ice rink and crazy sculptures. Finally, I wandered randomly into a comic store and bought the first Angel: After The Fall comic. Woo.

23nd November, 10:44

Chicago you say? a might nippy but quite excellent. I easily walked to hostel and they let me store my bag there for the day. As it's Black Friday I thought I'd hit State Street and then the Magnificent Mile. Been distracted by a Barnes & Noble, it's coffee, a jalepeno pretzel and a free copy of the chicago reader.

They have an interesting "I Saw You" section where if you saw someone you liked but were too shy to tell them, you can post an advert about it. On an unrelated note, people in chicago seem nice, it's quite quiet right now though.

23nd November, 06:16-07:50

06:15

I can't get no sleep

07:30

Argh. Sun rise pretty. Old man next to me has vanished. Strange. Hope he didn't die in the loo or that I threw him out of the window while I slept...

07:50

Holy moly, Christmas pudding and pie. Father Christmas and an elf just came down the carriage...

23nd November, 03:15

If I wasn't so awesomely tired right now I would write something exceptionall poetic about the full moon shing down on the rail yards and highways of North East USA. But I am too tired, so I hope you can just imagine something that's pretty amazing, and similar to what I stumbled to describe.

Things I'm seeing include lots of rusty cars, piles of gravil, SNOW!, large suspicious looking complexes, a selection of patrol cars glistening and covered in snow, distance neon lights, toll gates, a wind mill, some form of big sports stadium for the Cleveland Browns which I think are an American Footie club, woodland, a harbour, more piles of something, and many more things beside.

I finished A Catcher On The Rye, good book if somewhat of a limited vocab, but that was part of the point I think. I really need to try to sleep.

22nd November, 21:20

I'm learning a lot from this trip, including that it's hard to write on a train. You should never judge people, as although 95% of the time you'll be right, the other 5 will surprise you. Though better advice may be to be wary of your judgements and allow for amends.

Doors between carriages here appear to have buttons at the bottom that you can kick if your hands are full, or have been lost in an unfortunate previous door related incident. Very cunning. The snack bar is pretty cheap, I got a pot of hargan Daz (spelling?) for $2 and then got a huge turkey and cheese sub, bottle of water and a mountain dew for $9.25. And because I put 75 cents in her tip thing she gave me a free small can of "mist", or something of equal chemical content.

Was just wondering what smokers do on massive journeys like this, apparently some stops there are opportunities to smoke. Those crazy addicts. Talking of long journeys, I'm destroying my latest book, The Catcher on the Rye. Much good. I can't remember if I gave you my conclusions of Breakfast at Tiffeny's. But it is this: "meh".

Sort and meh.

22nd November, 18:22

Oh Albany Rensselaer, how you mock me, bringing our train to a halt with no explanation. How tiresome. Seems we're accepting a load of passengers from another train *shakes fist*.

To Do In Chicago?

• Shedd Aquarium
• The Field Museum and Underground Adventure
• Adier Plantaerium
• Museum of Science & Industry
• Hancock Observatory
• The Art Institute of Chicago
• The Chicago Culture Center
• The Sears tower
• Millenium Park/Buckingham Fountain

Ponderment

I'm really worried that I'm not apprieciating this trip of a life time. As in, in X years I'll look back and be like "wow, that was amazing, why didn't I do this or that". I mean, I'm taking the train across the entirety of the United States of America. That's epic! Not many people have done that! or maybe they have and this is all a trick *waves hands mysteriously*.

When I tell people I'm doing this solo, they always also if it's lonely. Surprisingly it hasn't been, although I can, and have, identified things that would be better with someone, I haven't actually been lonely. I don't know if that's because I'm always doing something, there's lots of people in NYC or I'm just comfortable with my thoughts.

There's no cats in New York.

22nd November, 16:06

Currently on the train, it appears to be running on silent. I can only presume to avoid bandits, or some other form of crazed outcasts or misfits. My seat is so large I could store a zoo under it. Extremely spacious and very few people on here. Probably as a 19 hour train train, to chicago, over thanksgivings night is only for people with no friends, family or cyborg pets. Turns out there is a power outlet as well, tho it may not work and I only have my n810 charger. And as there is no wifi I'm not sure how useful it will be.

There's a jolly nice Indian guy from chicago on the other side of the isle, who has crazy fantasies of the lounge carriage being entirely glass. I am suspicious. We're currently following the bank of a river, which in turn is following the railway track. There is a large amount of autumnal magic all around.

Although New York was amazing, I'm happy to be moving on now. I retract my earlier statement that I could live there, I love it, but it's just not England.

Even if we can't play football.

Hit it Norah.

22nd November, 15:30

I rolled back to the hostel where I walked in and grabbed my stuff from the apparently "locked" luggage room. I then proceeded to Grand Centrla station, got horrible confused, realised I was going from Penn Station, caught subway back to there, checked in my bag, had some crazy pizza and got a few supplies for the journey.

Then I basically did what anyone does at a station.

Wait -> Train.

22nd November, 13:00

I majorly overslept today as I keep waking up at odd hours. I also hope the spanish people don't realise it is me who manages to stink an entire room out while I sleep. Though to confuse matters the guy told me it was 10.30, when it was acutally 9.30, possible Lost In Translation moment, without the sad romance. Soon got ready and check out, and dumped my main bag in the luggage room. I then watched part of the Macy's Thanksgiving parade on the tele in the jazz cafe.

After careful ponderment I decided it was unlikely I could get in a decent spot in the crowd to see anyway. Instead I took the subway to 72nd, and chilled in south central park, which had a strange clam bustle about it. Sitting by "The Mall", there was a saxamaphonist saxamaphoning away. Very nice. I also utilised the free park wifi again, and Shing could hear me for free!

If you want to communicate with me, via sound, for free, make sure to have a pc microphone and Google Talk. Some form of skype phone may also work.

I exited the park via Strawberry Fields, which was very pretty.

21st November

Today I have mostly been forgetting to write this journal. And as it is tomorrow my brain is murky with the details. I began the day waking up with my 3 new spanish chums. A guy and 2 girls. They're nice.

I then cruised to central park and celebrated it's autumnalness. At 11am I hit the Whitney Art Museum which I was extremely excited about. This was mainly due to their large amount of Edward Hopper works. Unfortunately,

1) Most were sketches
2) Most weren't on display
3) The security guards were mean. (I blame rex mainly)
4) Not allowed cameras
5) The rest of the museum was aweful. Full of pretencious snobby excuses for art that ached my soul

Never the less, the 2 or 3 Hopper paintings there were AMAZING. As was stuff by Charles Sheeler, who was a fellow precisionist, though more so. Only a few there by him as well. Ah well, NightHawks is at the Chicago Institue of Art. Wooo!

After that, I was a bit disillusioned, so, via random wandering I came across the central park zoo. Entry only $8, bonus points, and in wifi range! I saw: sea lions, some form of water baboon, RED PANDAS!, penguins, seals, all manner of birds, frogs, snakes, lizards, fish, fauna, various monkeys.

I then evaporated from there and hit rockefeller plaza once more, followed by Times Square. This was mainly because I had to buy clothes for tomorrow. An element t-shirt, gap jeans and sock laters, I was ready and bushwacked.

That evening I spent ages sorting what I could chuck/leave behind. I may need UPS ship and pack in Chicago. Especially for the amount of books I'll need for the 55 hour Chicago to Frisco journey.

20th November, 18:37

Okay, so this is the most awesome salad ever at Sugo! 45 Street and 5th. It's about the largest ever. Today I have woken up, traversed successfully to the ferry port, where it rained buckets. And I queued for ever and I had no umbrella, hood or general waterproofing device. I became so wet that when I moved I looked like a wave. Eventually we got on the ferry where I used the medium of coffee to return movement to my heart. Then we landed on Liberty Island. She's very big. And very green. Rain had stopped by now, but I was still travelling around in my wave persona. After exhausting the audio tour and photograph points, I got the ferry to ellis island where there is the immigration building and museum. And although it was interesting, some of it was a bit... odd. Some of the racism back then was shocking as well. Nearly as shocking as the old woman in starbucks last night who was the most racist person I've ever seen. Humourously, although she was mainly targeting non-white people, the closest two white people to her was me (English in case you didn't know) and a dutch lady, so we were foreign anyway.

After returning to Manhatten island, I accidently took the subway to Brooklyn. Then managed to return, intact, to Grand Central.

Which was another "whoa" moment. Then I cruised shops till I arrived here. My salad ingredients? Lettuce (mixed), carrot (grated), tomatoes, crazy peas, mushrooms, eggplant, olives (black) feta cheese, balsamic vinegar and some crazy chicken. It's BIG!!

In other news, why did the public have to pay in donation's to restore the statue of liberty when they're selling mini statues for $450?!?!

Photo Mash

19th November, 22:39

After a moderate starbucks confusion, I met Erika and we wandered towards Times Square catching up on the debacle of the weekend. After I drank 50 litres of Dr Pepper in McDonalds we explored the most awesome Toys R Us ever. Ferris wheel AND massive robot dinosaur. Nuff said. We then chatted for ages in Starbucks, while ignoring a particularly racist old woman and confusing a dutch lady. Erika then discovered how little English school kids read and was shocked at my lack of Dickens and Austin reading. Finally we got a random dude to take our photo in Times Square to prove our simultaneous existence to Rachel. Erika's off back to Virgina for thanksgiving, so I'm left to fend for myself from now on. What all you crazy people don't realise is my feet stink and my knowledge of Chicago is less than 7.

Yay for solo travel \o/

I just finished On The Road. Oh my God what a book. It's a flurry of words. A structured ramble, vividly exploding every minor scene and manages to describe such vibrant passion. Erika is right, my lack of book reading is totally shocking, and must be rectified post-hast. Book suggestions are welcome, though current topic is America.

Once I get back to Blighty I'm gonna do the London tourist thing, as there's so much to see that I haven't. I also need to go to Bletchly park.

I think I forgot to have dinner.

19th November, 16:30

Okay,why are there never any bookshops and especially internet cafes when I need them. That aside, I'm making a surprise recovery from my leg related injuries as my limp was starting too make all my joints click. I decided instead to just walk normally and try to ignore the pain, which seems to be working. Bonus points.

MoMA was very good, some of it was a bit abstract or just trying too hard for my liking. I also sat in front of Monet's water lilies for 10 minutes to try and "get it". Needless to say I did not. Then I found the single piece in the MoMa that was by Edward Hopper. And I was muchos happy, screw the picasso, dechumps and Monets of the world. Afterwards I wandered around bit and played in the Nintendo world shop.

19th November, 11:07

I think I've fallen in love with the Rockefeller centre and it's surrounding plaza. Got up early and limped to the subway, and then got a coffee in Pret. I then wandered up to the Top of the Rock place. Lift up is awesome as the roof is transparent, with a translucent projection on it. The top was amazing, not only the view but there was much more space than empire state building, barely anyone there, it was day time so I could see the wonderful colours of central park AND it began to snow. Good times. Even took some humourous photos of my face, so a normal photo then. I then went down to the NBC shop, but they had run out of the heroes t-shirt I wanted to spite Adam with.

Save the cheerleader, save the world.

And although the NBC tour sounded interesting it wasn't around the shows I knew much about. So I went to Mancha Wok, which explains the sweet & sour sauce all over this book. I'm using chop sticks this time cos I'm cool like that. Did you know that chopsticks originated in China under the Shang Dynasty (1766-1122 BC), as a substitute for knives at the table. According to Confucius, knives were equated with acts of aggression and should note be used to dine.

In other news they still have no Mountain Dew and I'm going to MoMA.

18th November, 23:00

Monday

8.30am: Top of the Rock
NBC
MoMA
6pm: Meet Erika

Tuesday

Liberty Statue
Eliss Island Immigration Museum
Grand Central Station

Wednesday

Central Park
Whitney Museum (11am)
Museum of TV & Radio?

Hey you there. Check out my plan of days to come. It's far too organised so will of course fail at some unimaginable convoluted sequence of events. One can but dream. You may be wondering where the whitney museum comes in to play. Well it would appear one of my favourite artists, Edward Hopper, has nearly all his art there, save for NightHawks. Grand.

I migh tneed to investigate getting more socks. And a pair of jeans. I can do that Tuesday Night

18th November, 20:11

Okay I'll be the first to admit I was an ickle bit hungover this morning, so I got up a bit late. I wandered out of the hostel and realised my leg was still in quite a lot of pain. I ventured to times square as it seemed the place to be. I then went down to union square, and checked out the greatest 2nd hand book shop ever, the strand. It apparently has 18 miles of books, or something equally crazy. After wandering around there for a while I went in the forbidden planet next door where I browsed some of the comics etc. I cruised back to times square where I got some pizza at John's Pizzeria on the advice of Kath, which was yummy, Olives, Ground Beef and Pepperoni. I have two slices in my bag now actually, for later. I then got some supplies to fix my leg and took the subway back to the hostel. And did the internets.

Slammin'

18th November, 04:30

Whoops.

That was all fraught with danger and intrigue. Well not really, but after the Irish couple left, I had a few more in the current Irish pub, and had some really nice spring roll type things at the bar. I then went out, and back into an Irish pub next door. Which was bigger and actually nicer and the bar guy there seemed to like me. I let him choose my lagers so I experienced the wide range they had there, I even got 1 on the house at one point, which was a bit annoying as I was about to go but I had to stay for another one. I got a free pen as well as I wasn't sure I'd find it again if I wanted to come back.

It was now 2 or 3 am and I attempted to go back, but managed to walk completely the wrong way, and hurt my right leg somehow. Still I eventually found that right subway station and limped home. Had a good time though, and met some interesting people.

Photo Shambola!

17th November, 20:54

Well that was successful. I randomly went into an Irish bar near times square. Found out that Israel beat Russia at the last minute and England "just" need to draw against Croatia. What was far more cunning was that an Irish couple invited me to drink with them, which I gladly did. They were extremely nice. They were from east of Dublin, over here for a week and even gave me a free ticket to a comedy show and bought 2 pints of an American lager for me: Samuel Adams. It's not fantastic, but I foolishly had it when I joined them so they thought I liked it and I didn't want to break their hearts. They liked gigs, and we discussed such festivals as reading and Oxygen. The guy had seen Pantera and proposed to her in strawberry fields 4 days earlier; those two facts aren't fully related. We chatter about America, music and drink.

Very enjoyable.

17th November, 15:16

I see the Gods' game, making this nice chinese restaurant run out of mountain dew. Little does Zeus and his armada of Demi-Gods realise, but diet pepsi does the trick just as well.

So what have I been up to? Everything! But mainly having an awesome sleep, I then slung on my new and sexy quiksilver t-shirt and sauntered out of the house. hark! What did I see but a small farmers' market across the street where I bought a huge multi-grain French loaf device. Which I ate on a bench in central park watching some ultimate frisbee and making Rex jealous with my locational awesomness. Crossing central park I ventured into the Guggenheim Museum which was extremely good. Skipping the free audio tour I opted for a soundtrack of Lemon jelly and Mr SCruff. Although I found some of the cubism ironically samey/unimaginative and picasso over hyped, the rest of the gallery was surprisingly enjoyable. Some good first half of the 20th century photography, specifically war era photo montages as well as some other stuff I've forgotten the name of.

The main spiral ramp which is the core of the building was an exhibition of Richard Prince, who is kind of the DJ Yoda of art. i.e. cut and paste sampling. Some of it was funny as well.

Overall, it was short and sweet. Very good. I wandered out, grabbed cheap hot dog and water outside the Met and wandered haphazardly to the subway where I watched a man get mashed by the subway doors, much to my amusement.

Needless to say I waited till the next one with my Starbucks. Got off at 51st and looked at the outside of St Patrick's. It looks so out of place amongst the modern day buildings that are all reaching to the heavens.

To be honest I knew I got off here for some other reason but I couldn't remember what it was. I wandered around until I walked into the rockafeller centre and so after the laughter died down I scampered inside.

Very odd in here, normal kind of shops, very few people but it's all done up EXTREMELY POSH. It's a bit of a maze to get down - argh spicy chilli - to the shopping part which is probably - *cough, splutter* - why there are so few people down here. I found a magazine place and bought Time Out for myself and Maxim for Sarah Michelle Gellar.

I was gonna grab sushi but I found this dope Chinese place that was cheap and called Manchu Wok. 8 dollars for rice, 2 thingys and large diet pepsi. Now I have to decide what rockafeller based activities I should pursue.

Photo Bonanza!

Note: I've changed how I display large collections of photo, because this is neater and doesn't hurt my soul so much when I upload.

16th November, 23:30

I basically spent the whole evening wandering around times square with slack jawed awe. Found they have a quiksilver shop, which was entirely bargainous, but only purchased 1 t-shirt, for about $20, as I promised myself I'd investigate some of the cheap shops mentioned in my Time Out book.

Before heading to Times Square I got some North Face gloves, which seem quite a popular brand over here and allowed me to set off the door alarms. I grabbed a slice of pizza from a random place as well so I could use their loo. I then wandered around Virgin Megastore and finally got subway back as my feet exploded maiming a number of nearby orphans.

Large dilemma of what to do tomorrow. I kinda wanna see the England Match, no idea where though. I also wanna check out 2nd hand bookshops and do postcards and find clearance stores and eat healthy and cut down caffeine and use internets and buy Time Out Magazine. I need to do all of this with minimal walking to save my feet and knees. Oh the rigours of old age.

-Insert Emo Post-

I'm not sure what I expect from this trip. I'm not really sure what I expect from myself or even what to expect from this. I think I don't know what I want, how to get it or if I can. I'm so tired right now that my thoughts are awkward and laborious. New York as a place, and an environment is amazing and spell-binding and the freedom of being a solo traveller is refreshing. However, a lot of experiences to be had in New York are to be had with someone else, or someones else. I also imagine the biting cold across the atlantic to be less harsh with someone to soften it's glare.

I'm enjoying odd pleasure, like reading on the subway with some acid jazz fed straight into my cortex. I think the combination of exhaustion, frustration at my exhaustion, On The road, acid jazz and a conversation with Louis has made me reflective but with emotastic undertones. Utilisation of a top bunk has also allowed me to gain a vantage point over my thoughts as well as be closer to the light.

Then again I could be eating too much junk food.

Quickfacts

• The pier where titanic was set to arrive at is a multi-storey driving range now
• Only 5 people died making the Empire State Building, 2 by falling and one had his face removed by a lift. Normally back then, the expected death rate was 1 death per floor built.
• It took just 14 months to build.
• Zeppelin dock at the top turned out to be far too windy to be usable.
• On completion it was 6 inches shorter than planned because of the foundations compressing.
• I bought a photo of myself. Haw Haw.
• All the Broadway stage hands are on strike, so no shows are on. And they're all picketing. Lucky I'm too disorganised to have got tickets really.

16th November, 19:13

Whoa New York is pretty. Especially 86 floors up on the empire state building. Bit of a queue but it's alright. Not much space at the top, and my camera seemed to struggle with the night time lack of light. Very hard to move around at the top and it was so incredibly freezing I thought my face would fall off. Free audio commentary with my city pass as well. I'm hitting up Macy's again as I need a hat, gloves and maybe new headphones as these ones lack volume. So it's draining my music battery like crazy. Crap. I need to eat. I'll see what happens in Times Square.

16th November, 16:12

With grace and elegance I utilised the subway to 42nd and wandered to pier 83 where the cruise boats go from. Turns out at this time of year there's only one 3-hour cruise a day, at 12.30. So I booked a ticket on that and grabbed a coffee.

Trip was really good, we saw all of Manhattan, liberty island etc, with a quite humourous tour guide. I took loads of photos thanks to my cunning pre-planned (w00t?) spare camera battery and SD cards. Though I think most of the photos are the same. On board it was ABSOLUTELY FREEZING, I tried beer, hot dogs and hot chocolate in an attempt to warm up. I think I'm starting to put on some winter hibernation fat.

Took subway to 3X street to go to empire state but just wandered into Macy's first. Confused a techy dude and retired to a table with a lemonade to write this amazing amalgamation of autonomous continuity....

16th November, 09:34

After meeting Erika, last night, we chilled around Times Square after grabbing some starbucks hot choc. We browsed Virgin for a while discussing the various varying popularity of music, and seeing as she was the first person I'd met who have heard of Straylight Run I was muchos happy. I got some new headphones for my mobile music generation device. Subways were a bit slow, so didn't get back till late, dude in dorm was asleep and I woke him. Excellent. Not a great night's sleep as I just walked into bed fully clothed basically. And we all know being vertical screws with your sleep pattern.

My big toe absolutely canes today, which can't bode well. And I thinkI have mountain dew withdrawal. I have a plan for once, hit the ferry around islands, then chill downtown, followed by empire state building. Map reckons 11am boast is least crowded, oh wait, it's not October. Who knew. Dorm dude's, who is from Chile, mobile keep ringing, but he's in the shower or hunting or something.

15th November, Some time or other

Haha! Take that you crazy Americans, thanks to Erika showing me around last night I'm now totally comfortable in New York. Took the subway to washington square where I strolled to 6th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue, and swaggered into an Indian that took my fancy. I grabbed a poppadom, 2 meat samosas, Lamb tikka biryani and a cobra beer. Which was in fact called Krait instead but guy knew what I meant as I was english today. While waiting for food I carried on reading On The Road, which is defo my style of book, just an explosion of worderific thoughts.

Afterwards I strolled around, and while walking past a bar/tavern/pub I spied the Arsenal - Reading match on re-run with 20min to spare. So I went in, grabbed me a pint of guiness and saw Arsenal destroy Reading 3-1. I then wandered out, with alcohol warming my insides and glided into some form of cafe/sandwich merchant. Bought a tall black coffee off a woman with a moustache and then managed to an atm to work. Music in here is a bit suspect, "We Are Family" just played. Though my coffee is far too hot, I don't think it's related.

15th November, 17:00

On the twisting, twirling route back from the Met, I met a clambering raccoon that was far too interested in me. So I snapped its photo and scarpered. Looks like someone has moved into my room. I think it's just 1 person. I'm gonna guess they're half cyborg, half horse and half skittle.

I now have the excellent idea of going to "curry row". Which should be full of culinary delights at an affordable price. This is assuming I can work the subway with my limited brain power, yet stylish micro fleece....

Art I Liked:

Some notes on the Met Museum of Art

You may recognise where I am on the left, in hindsight, from the film I am Legend. It's most excellent (the Egyptian place, not the film).

Although a lot of modern art is extremely ridiculous, I enjoyed reading the blurb about each one as they seem to scrabble for a meaning or reason in a large canvas painted half red.

There are some really good paintings, but the ones I enjoy the most involve crispness. Maybe a result of such a large exposure to the digital age. Or maybe cos they must make more sense

Audio tours sound far better in an English Accent, people should make free audio tours for mp3 players so people can download them before they go to such places.

I think a lot of this shows that people who can't draw become art students.

Museums are odd places, the downstairs sections are always thriving with people. In this case mainly looking at greek/roman statues. Yet venture just a floor up, and some parts are empty entirely. Currently in the Japan section, it's selection is vastly more diverse, thought provoking and presented in a far more warming environment. Where as in contrast the Greek/Roman section is cold, and harsh, full of many statues all devoid of paint, looking identical. The detail on some of the Japanese wall paintings is insane.

Whoa, this may seem as though I don't like the met, but it was awesome. I just wish I had more time in there.