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World Trip 2014 - Part 8

Here we are, the final leg of my trip. It's hard to believe that three months have gone by so fast, yet my hair is in dire need of cutting. I've spent twelve days here in New Zealand, and I couldn't have asked for a better place to finish my travels. I've been staying in Queenstown, on the South Island, but not in the classic backpacker style. I've done things in a less conventional sense. My mum's friend Tessa has been hosting me, in her big house above Lake Wakatipu; I seriously got lucky, check out the view:

So what really struck me about what I saw of New Zealand was that every day seemed to be in a totally different kind of environment. The first couple I spent on the hills and beaches around Queenstown, just getting to know the place. It's all so bloody picturesque, you're just constantly having to be like "whaaaat? That's not a postcard, it's the view from my bedroom window." And I got a weird sort of comfort knowing these hills are where the Lord of the Rings was filmed, that I was in Middle Earth. The hill right behind my house was used for all sorts of scenes from the Two Towers, can you believe.

I'd been told by a few people that I couldn't miss the Shotover jet, a superfast jetboat that flies down a canyon river. Everyone's been on it, judging by their wall of fame: Will and Kate, Peter Jackson and half the cast of LOTR, even Ugly Betty... Everyone piles in, the driver introduces himself and what follows is like the fastest fecking half hour of your life. He flies down the river, turning towards boulders and cliff faces at the last minute to scare folk - but heeee knows what he's doing. Also, a lot of 360 turns. Ooh boy, I should go to theme parks more often.

One of the biggest highlights of the trip was Milford Sound. It's not actually a sound, it's a fjord, but who really even knows the difference eh? I won't ramble on about how amazing it is, but let me just say that's it's become one of my favourite places in the world. It's like a set of prehistoric mountains were just flooded by bright blue sea, and penguins and seals came to live there. The drive over as well: mirror lakes, valley floors, ancient rainforests, snow-capped mountains, avalanche debris everywhere, it had it all. We even got to pull over to fill our bottles with glacial stream water - but then some turdburger threw his cigarette stub in and pissed off the bus driver.

It turns out New Zealand is pretty hard to traverse unless you have a car, but thankfully Tessa took it upon herself to show me around. We went out to the edge of civilisation, like the place you can only go in a 4x4, and guess what it was called... Paradise. Yep, I've officially been to paradise. Awful lot of sheep. We also took a ride out to Wanaka and Lake Hawea, and I can say it's the best lake I've ever seen. And I come from the Lake District. It looked like a solid blue platform you could walk on; yet another place you'll have to believe me when I say how amazing it is.

I saw a couple of gold-mining towns, one of which has a fancy little cinema with chandeliers and padded walls. I saw the new Hobbit film there, and there was a video beforehand where the cast thanked New Zealand for having them; the kiwis loved it until Cate Blanchett joked that it wasn't as good as Australia and people got riled up and booed. I sponsored a native tree to be planted at a bird sanctuary to ease my carbon-footprint guilt, I rode a steamboat to see a New Zealand farm and watch sheepdogs herding sheep (like I can't get that at home, eh?), and Tessa took me to the desert to a winery on Mt Difficulty so I could murmur in appreciation of wines I can't fully appreciate. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the wine, it's just my pallet ain't refined.

And so ends my trip. If you've been following this blog then I'll give you a sticker for making it to the end. I've had the most amazing time, seen countless incredible sites, and been hosted by the most generous people. I even managed to make it round the world without eating any meat (apart from the occasional bit of fish when the situation demanded it, and a piece of chicken I was told was fish and then didn't want to waste it after I found out...); and I really do love meat, I'm just aware of its impact on the environment so I thought I'd test myself. I'd also like to thank my grandma for making this trip possible; I'd like to think she'd be happy with how I spent her inheritance because she was a cool lady. Or maybe she wanted me to invest in future technologies and nobody told me. If that's the case, sorry grandma.

[alstravelblog]

World Trip 2014 - Part 7

Let's talk about Australia, as I do like visiting the colonies. Alex (whose blog this is) and Lachy (her fiancé/my brother from another mother) met me at the airport, holding a sign with my name on to make me feel special. We drove back to their kickass studio apartment in one of the hippest parts of Melbourne - that's right, I said hippest - where I was given a quick tour before bed.

So the situation was this: I'd hang in Melbourne with these guys for three weeks, and we'd nip out and do all sorts of activities. So I don't bore you all, I'll list the highlights of my stay.

1. We drove down to the coast to stay at Point Lonsdale (Bonus: we had his brother's dog Biv with us). We drove along the Great Ocean Road, threw stones for Biv on the beach, visited the ACTUAL lighthouse from Round the Twist, and made homemade pizzas before watching Doctor Who.

2. We took in some culture in Melbourne. I saw baby penguins being fed at the SeaLife centre, I saw the skin of the famous racing horse Phar Lap and went underneath an indoor forest at the Melbourne Museum, we saw Interstellar at the third largest cinema screen in the world, I went swimming at an open-air local pool, and ate a ton of food from quirky local restaurants (like Trippy Taco and Po Boy. Also Nandos. Although It hasn't reached the dizzying heights of quality like it has in Britain - they don't even do halloumi.)

3. We visited Healesville Animal Sanctuary so I could get my fill of Australian wildlife. Kangaroos, wombats, wallabies, dingos, echidnas, Tasmanian devils, possums, kookaburras, lyre birds, I done seen 'em all. They even have an animal hospital there to look after anything that gets injured in the bush fires. Speaking of which, this country has fire danger levels ranging from low to high to code red. Yep, code red. That's when the whole country just explodes. So yeah, it's taken me this long to realise that wombats and echidnas are two of the greatest animals on earth. Also, dingos are fluffy as hell.

4. We drove up to the Blue Mountains to stay on top of Mt Buller. This was one of the most picturesque places I saw, just endless gumtree-covered mountains stretching off into the distance - and they look blue due to the eucalyptus, little fact for ya there. There's a town of second, or third, homes on the summit, but because we went in the Australian a summer it was a complete ghost town. Very cool. On the peak there's a metal pyramid, where rangers keep an eye out for bush fires (of which you could tell there had been a fair few). While we were here, we took a walk in the humid forest below, following the river, and saw two poisonous snakes and the biggest spider any of us had ever seen. It's like Australia was putting on its best performance for me. We finished off with a balcony barbecue, a dip in the jacuzzi, [Alex note: only Lachy and Al were in the jacuzzi, with beer and nachos.] and the four of us (including Alex and Lachy's friend Tatiana) playing dungeons and dragons. Go team.

5. We went to Equitana, a big horse festival at the Melbourne showgrounds, where we saw all sorts of horseback events -including cutting, where the rider has to separate a cow from a herd and prevent it from rejoining said herd. At one point I found myself at the cowgirl riding school demonstration, and the woman on her horse said "Anyone else a D-cup?" Woahh, hello. Some people put their hands up. "Well I wear two bras, cos these bad boys will knock you out if you're not careful." Then I noticed I was surrounded by women, all murmuring in agreement. It sounds great, but then I realised I was a bit of an outsider - I don't even like horse-riding, let alone have breasts.

6. A bit more "culture". We went laser-questing, bowling, served ice cream at a charity event, attended a 'psychadelic' 21st birthday party in fancy dress (two words: free bar), went to an open air cinema by the beach to watch David Bowie in Labyrinth, I saw penguins climbing on the rocks of St Kilda to feed their babies, and I ate vegetarian schnitzel. Oh yes. We also played a feck load of Mario Kart, I'm counting it as culture because I played it with Aussies.

7. One of the weirder things we did was attempt an Escape Room. The idea is you're locked in a room, and you have a time limit to solve the puzzles to escape. When the timer runs out you're just let out, so the only real worry is feeling stupid because you can't solve anything. The theme was called 'endless dream', and we were trapped in this little room full of clocks, locked boxes, a painting of a brain, and some tough-ass puzzles. We asked for like five hints, but we made it out in the end. There's thinking outside of the box and then there's THAT. Still, the five of us left as more cohesive, oiled machine of friendship or something.

8. We visited an old timey town called Sovereign Hill. Who knew Europeans settled in Australia much the same as they did in America, with wild west towns built around gold mining? We panned for gold, tried old-fashioned bowling (you have to set the pins yourself, not worth it mate), took a horse drawn carriage ride, wandered round a gold mine, mimed a shoot-out in the street, drank ginger beer at the saloon, and saw gold being smelted. Interesting fact, the gold bar they use is 19 years old and gets smelted and cooled 10 times a day. Madness. It were a grand day out, I even got one of the old fashioned police blokes to arrest me whilst he told me how sexy ankles were (in character, I hope).

9. Yoghurt, blueberry jam, buttermilk cookie pieces, and protein clusters - that was an ice cream flavour. If there's an ice cream metaphor for Melbourne, it's that. They were both amazing. So there we are. There was plenty of other stuff too, mainly food, drink, films and good times. Oh, and vlogging: I made three guest appearances on Alex and Lachy's book-themed Youtube blog where I pulled a load of book reviews out of my arse on camera. That sounds horrible, I just mean I made them up on the spot.

Saying goodbye to a country where I heard the phrases "far out" and "rad" used in conversation without a hint of irony, I set off to the airport with a taxi driver who asked whether the UK and the US are linked, and if you can drive between them. I had no words. I can't thank Lachy and Alex enough for having me so long, and for sacrificing their privacy for me. I only hope I acted as a catalyst for flipping great times to occur. Final stop: New Zealand.

[alstravelblog]

World Trip 2014 - Part 6

Bula, my friends. That means hello in Fijian; and about a thousand other things, as they say it NON-STOP. I spent just under two weeks on this set of Pacific Ocean islands, and I'm pretty damn glad I did. When I arrived from LA, I'd missed the entire day of the 28th October due to crossing the international dateline 'backwards' so that means all of you had an extra day in your lives that I just never had. I've finally become a time traveller. I was too early to check in to my hostel, so I slept on a lounger by the beach until an old bloke told me what I really needed was a coconut. I cautiously followed him to his little coconut stash and then started my tropical lifestyle by drinking the juice with a straw. Some local guys came over and were adamant they snap a photo of me using my camera, making me feel like the biggest tourist in the world. Then I got overcharged for the coconut, so I guess I really am.

Every time I'd spent a bit too much in the USA, I told myself I'd make up for it in the cheap cheap land that is Fiji. Well, I was about to learn that the GOOD stuff in Fiji costs quite a bit. It ain't all white sand and clear waters; my hostel was next to a beach that wasn't winning any awards, and a town 10 minutes' drive away that didn't offer a whole lot except fruit. So I got stuck in this rut for a bit: hang around the hostel, living cheap but not really seeing Fiji, or splash out lots of cash to go and visit the islands that everyone thinks of when they picture this country. I hung around for a few days, sunbathing, eating, reading, playing table tennis, and making friends with Eleanor - a girl from London visiting Fiji for six weeks - and Johanus - as German as they come. Quick side note, Germans love travelling, they get everywhere. The day finally came where I boarded my speedboat ferry, and took off for the islands people come to Fiji to visit.

Island 1: Mana. We got the proper Pacific Ocean treatment when we arrived: walked off the boat through the clear water to the beach, whilst being serenaded by a guitar-wielding local before he placed a flower behind each of ears and offered us the mysterious 'welcome juice'. My time here was awesome; I sunbathed, ate the three included meals a day just metres from the sea, went snorkelling with some other travellers I met, the local kids danced for us (less sinister than it sounds, they weren't in chains or anything), the local adults sang a lot, we drank more kava, and played quite a lot of cards.

Island 2: Walolu. Eleanor had briefly seen our resort and said it was a real shithole, a crap beach mixed with a construction site - so our expectations were not high when we arrived. However, it turned out to be the nicest place we stayed at. We were upgraded to a private dorm (away from the herd of Australian surfers) and I could sit by the pool drinking on an outdoor bed - it doesn't get better, am I even backpacking anymore?! I noticed that the huge wad of cash I'd gotten out before island hopping had all been spent somehow, then I found out we had to pay a fortune for the meals there, so I jokingly complained about having no money to the manager. What followed was an insane decision by her to provide us with free meals for our stay, and THEN free cocktails all night because she felt so generous. The resort was putting on a big show for some travel agents that night, so I was also treated to crab racing - literally dumping a bucket of numbered hermit crabs on a table and betting on which one makes it to the edge first. Wooooo culture. Whilst staying here I also visited Cloud 9, a floating bar/pizzeria in the sea where you could just hop off and snorkel around. Trust me to choose the daywhen it's packed full of wedding party guests - even Grandma backflipped into the sea. I think.

Island 3: Beachcombers. The party island, apparently. A tiny little circle of sand and palm trees in the sea, we arrived here to a big old buffet lunch which suited us just fine. There weren't many people staying so there wasn't much of a party atmosphere (no matter how much the staff tried to make one: "anyone who wants to take part in the coconut relay, come to the dance floor now! Oh, nobody? Okay, it's cancelled." Just like that.) I fed some turtles, rode on a glass-bottomed boat over the coral, sunbathed, drank beer, the classics.

My time in Fiji ended at the cheap and cheerful hostel back on the mainland. I got a bit under the weather, praying to the Fijian gods that I hadn't caught Ebola (I still am to be honest), so it wasn't a very strenuous few days. I did, however, go to a Hindu temple in town, where they kitted me out with a dhoti around my waist and a bindi on my forehead; I caught a Hindu wedding which was cool -those guys know how to do stuff with pizazz. I've become a long-term guest at this hostel, so it's easy just to walk around and see people you know. Now here I am, saying goodbye to all the people I've met and to the SLOWEST COUNTRY ON EARTH.

Seriously, everyone here is on Fiji time and just takes life easy; I've spent more time in a hammock here than I ever thought possible, and the biggest decision each day is what I should eat. Time to move on somewhere with a bit more energy: Melbourne.

[alstravelblog]

World Trip 2014 - Part 5

Here we are, the last section of my USA tour. There's a lot to cram into this one so bear with me. Me, Jonny and Maria set off from Portland in our rented Mazda - which cost a fair amount for two days, mainly because we're under 25 - and headed south towards the Californian coast. I don't count Seattle and Vancouver as being by the Pacific as they technically lie in the Puget Sound Bay, which isn't really ocean, so arriving at an eerily misty seaside town late at night was our first exciting glimpse of the Pacific. That night we slept in a motel run by the creepiest family, to the sound of sea lions barking. The next day was a mad dash down to San Francisco, admiring the amazingly tall redwood trees, checking out the coastal scenery of Route 1, and crossing the Golden Gate Bridge during rush hour (the carpool lane, however, was a big bonus).

San Francisco is one hell of a city. Rammed full of people, about twenty forms of public transport, and hills too steep to be in a city, it's just crazy, colourful and loud. Our first night was spent at an Indian restaurant/Irish bar (that's right, combined) before enjoying a whisky in Little Italy. The next couple of days saw us playing old fashioned arcade games down on the pier, riding the cable car up and down the hills, climbing Coit Tower to admire the view, cycling to the ocean and then up to the Golden Gate Bridge JUST missing sunset by a few minutes, couchsurfing with a woman named Jess who treated us to a meal in Chinatown, bumping into a guy from St Andrews in the street, and watching fireworks on Pier 39 (the famous one) whilst eating Mexican food.

Just a quick mention about the cycling: they told us to return the bikes on the other side of the city by 9pm, but what we didn't realise was they didn't give us lights on our bikes. This meant that after sunset we had to cycle along pavements illegally, and through pitch black parks avoiding pedestrians and just whistling to be make ourselves known - it was stupid and difficult, especially after getting lost. However, we DID play an on-rails interactive zombie laser-shooting game on the pier, as well accomplishing a Mission Impossible style laser maze (where I showed a nimbleness I didn't know I possessed) - so that made things better.

Anyway, one of the highlights of the trip was renting our own campervan and driving through the streets of the city while people admired our paintwork (a massive osprey, for some reason). We even rode down that famous steep winding road in San Francisco, win Jonny telling me "This is it Al, we've made it in life." We took the van down the Californian coast, then camped under the stars just outside of Yosemite. That took a lot of driving, and we did have crappy salad sat in a dark, misty car park on the way there, but it was worth it when we finally camped and saw how many stars were above us (hint: a crazy amount).

People will think we're crazy for not even spending a night in Yosemite Park, but Jonny didn't want to camp in the cold (we were at 8000ft, can you believe), and our lack of time meant we decided to head out for the desert sooner rather than later. However, the day we spent in the park was amazing; the trees, the lakes, mountains like I've never seen before. After all the hectic travelling we'd been doing, it was nice to just sit by a silent alpine lake and do nothing. Hiking's for chumps.

So yeah, that evening we just drove and drove until we'd descended about 7000ft and camped by a desert road in Death Valley.

The next morning, stood outside the campervan underneath a big blue scorching desert sky, I threw a Breaking Bad reference Jonny's way. "Yo Mr White!" I shouted, pretty chuffed when Jonny grumbled "Yes, Jessie?" "When we gonna cook, yo?" It was a good moment, but maybe you had to be there. (If any adults reading don't know Breaking Bad, then just ignore this whole paragraph)

Death Valley is an insane place. Just like a massive, empty park where people drive miles and miles to see each attraction. You just pass each other on the big empty roads with a thought like "I wonder if they're going to see the abandoned mining facility, or the canyon full of colourful rocks?" We camped at a ranch with a pool, golf course, tennis courts, bar, cafe, buffet restaurant, everything. A bit TOO much for one of the driest places on earth... Still, chilling by the pool was a treat. So was watching the sunset from a rocky hill in the middle of the desert, beer in hand.

We woke up early before leaving the valley, to watch the sunrise at the lowest place in the USA (200ft below sea level! I've never spoken about feet so much in my life until I got here.) It's called Badwater Basin and it's just covered in salty crust, salty pools, and surrounded by a mountain range that looks badass in the rising sun. Oh, and we saw a desert fox being all mysterious on some rocks. Like the nomads we've become, me and Jonny then hit the road for Las Vegas - not an ideal place for a campervan.

It turns out that you can park in any of the casinos for free, so we picked one and it turned out we were right in the middle of the Strip. This is the weirdest city I've ever been to: people walk the streets drinking huge cocktails, they smoke cigarettes indoors, they walk past homeless people right outside the casinos where they'll spend hours throwing their money away into slot machines. And then there's the buildings. Pirate ships, castles, volcanoes, the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Canal (complete with fake blue sky overhead so it feels like daytime all night), Roman palaces -they have everything just crammed together on this one road, with outdoor music and escalators to help you move from casino to casino. I put a dollar into a slot machine, and won twenty, which was pretty awesome. Vegas ain't dragging me under.

Me and Jonny spent some time playing arcade games, and spent our prize tickets on some tat from the gift shop (including fake tattoos for him and a sheriff's badge for me), before trying our very first oxygen bar on the Strip. The idea here is that you get tubes up your nose to breathe in oxygen from different coloured cylinders and it's supposed to energise you, while the girl walks up and down giving head massages. Nice. That evening we went to a Vegas comedy show, where Jonny built a little fortress out of our passports and wallets to hide the fact that we were drinking cocktails and so wouldn't get picked on by the comedians. We ended our night by just wandering the length of the strip, watching the volcano spout its lava, and the Bellagio fountains dance to Frank Sinatra. It was then we realised camping in the car park of the Linq casino might be a bad idea, what with the security racing round on segways, so we had to camp out by some casino in the middle of the desert - a real pain in the arse after such a long day.

The following morning started off with an unplanned detour to Hoover Dam; not much to say other than that it's an insanely big wall of concrete built in a big old gorge and it's bloody impressive. No wonder it's one the modern seven wonders of the world. We hit up a classic diner for some ranchos heuvos (I can't even tell you what that is, eggs and cheese and stuff) then rode our way along Route 66 in the sun, blasting Queen's greatest hits on the radio. I then fulfilled a dream I didn't know I had: camping in a Flintstones themed campsite. We drank beers round the campsite and listened to Mumford and Sons which was nice. (Although is it sexist that the campsite laundromat was called Wilma's laundry? You tell me...)

Conquering another classic American tourist landmark, me and John visited the Grand Canyon. It's big. Bigger than it looks on TV. It just stretches off as far as you can see, so obviously we took loads of touristy photos of ourselves, before visiting the geology museum right on the side of the cliff. The next couple of days was just road tripping through the desert back to California to visit Los Angeles, a city so big it's actually made up of 53 cities apparently. It's stupidly big, and not in a 'woah' Grand Canyon way but rather an 'urgh, it's just miles and miles of concrete strip malls' way. We slagged off the city quite a bit on our long drive through it. However, we finished the day driving through the Santa Monica Mountains to camp by the sea at Malibu - that, my friends, is a nice place to camp. Better than the truck stop from the night before, that's for sure.

I'm going to be honest, LA was not what I've seen in the movies. The traffic is horrendous, the pavements are packed, and to get between two places worth seeing it'll take you hours. We still managed to do some cool stuff though: open-top bus through Hollywood led by a tour guide in Slytherin robes, saw Nightmare Before Christmas at the El Capitan theatre with added snow and smoke effects etc., saw the red carpet premiere for Interstellar and even caught a glimpse of Matthew McConaughey, and walked along Santa Monica and Venice Beaches to work on our northern England tans. I'm sure there are many reasons to love LA, but it wasn't mine or Jonny's favourite city, meaning I felt even more guilty hopping on a plane to Fiji and leaving him there.

[alstravelblog]

World Trip 2014 - Part 4

've been here a month already. Four bloody weeks. It feels like only yesterday my friends were forcing a line of shots down me while I tried to say I had too much packing to do to get that drunk. Anyway, this week had a bit less train travel and a bit more city-hopping. 

My first evening in Seattle was spent at the airport, learning that Jonny's luggage had probably been stolen. We were so keen to get to the pub that we pretty much brushed it off as 'one of those things' but, looking back, it's not that great. He had his best clothes in there, apparently, and now they're gone due to Seattle airport's publicly-accessible baggage carousels. The tossers.

So then, Pike Place Market. It's the big crazy market near the waterfront of Seattle - Stephen Fry went there in his documentary about the U.S., it's so famous - and our hostel happened to be over the road. You could buy all sorts there: peanut butter and jelly bagels, comic books, supposedly original TV scripts for shows like Doctor Who and Firefly, leather-bound journals (of which Jonny bought one), artwork, and a hell of a lot of fish. The fishmongers seemed to love their job, as every few minutes they shouted "we got another tip!" and cheered. We wandered over to the Space Needle, Seattle's most famous building, but decided not to pay the $22 to go up as it was pretty cloudy. Instead, we ate lunch in a renovated armoury and then wandered round the Pacific Science Centre - a cool museum containing things like robotic dinosaurs, laser shows, a butterfly house, and a colony of naked mole rats blindly climbing on top of each other.

After getting a beer buzz on at the Cheesecake Factory downtown, we had some free spaghetti at the hostel and then set out on a pub crawl. The second bar was full of transvestites, and I got hit on by a bloke called Ernesto whose brother is apparently running for mayor of Miami. Other highlights included an underground bar believed to be the last place Kurt Cobain was seen in public, which had a big projector showing videos of monkeys riding sheepdogs which were herding sheep; me and Jonny got to bust out our signature dance move in a dance club whilst incredibly drunk (it involves miming rope); and on the walk home, the hostel guide played music from his backpack, so we just danced home through the streets of Seattle like idiots to the Cha Cha Slide.

After seeing the quirkier parts of Seattle, including a giant troll under a bridge, and an underground tour of the old city, we caught the bus northward for a spontaneous trip to Vancouver (mainly because we couldn't find accommodation in Oregon for the weekend). It turns out this was a great decision. Vancouver is awesome, especially if you like your cities merged with forests, lakes and mountains. Arriving in the evening, we walked down by the harbour and into the first casino we saw - where we drank whisky and gambled some of Jonny's money away at the blackjack and roulette tables. On our way home, we dropped in to a noisy pub to sit at the bar, drink a pitcher of beer, and watch ice hockey like true Canadians. We got chatting to folk sat near us, and ended the night walking through the city centre rammed with thousands of hockey fans, while our new friend Melissa told us the best sights in the city to visit and shared some of the local plant life with us. Sorry Mum.

The next day we took a ferry and a bus to a big old gorge just next to the city (one of Vancouver's suburbs is actually built around it, it's amazing) and crossed a suspension bridge that just kept on swinging over the river. As the rain came in, we rented bikes and those really embarrassing waterproof ponchos and went cycling round the sea wall of Stanley Park - 7km of lighthouses, boats, forests and beaches. We stopped off at a restaurant for a drink and the concierge asked if he could take our coats, but I didn't want to hand over my poncho in such a fancy place so I just stuffed it in my bike helmet and sat by the fire. And so ended my brief stay in Canada.

Another bus ride later (and another scary trip through customs) and we reached Portland, Oregon, known for being a weird, kooky city. There's not much to say about this place that'll blow your minds, it's just full of young people with beards and moustaches, and parks filled with stretchy folks doing gymnastics during the day instead of working. Me and John, as he likes to introduce himself here, drank lots of local ales, ate lots of Cajun tatertots and wandered around the massive late night book shops Portland has. We even caught a book- reading by a semi-famous author whose book has become a big show in America (Resurrection, for those interested). After a failed attempt at renting a car with a girl named Maria we met at the hostel to visit a local national park, we proceeded to drink more beer and watch Gone Girl at the vintage cinema near our hostel. We must have done something right, because our waiter gave us free tickets and the cinema had alcohol and reclining chairs. The film, however, is totally messed up and weird, which didn't mellow us out as much. Still good, though.

The three of us decided to road trip it to California, so that's what comes next week, folks..

[alstravelblog]

World Trip 2014 - Part 3

Let's start with the big stuff, three words: Stephen King's house. He lives in Bangor, Maine, and we sat in the car outside his house at night like the creepy stalkers we are. I also took part in an American pub quiz, which they just call 'trivia' here, and lost pretty badly due to our lack of knowledge of American high school sports teams; I got lost in the forest on the University of Maine's campus like a true tourist; I got questioned by a jogger while I sat on a bench, as she apparently likes to check on the mental health of young people on their own (in case I'm contemplating crazy gun stuff, I guess); I tried fried dough covered in syrup and powdered sugar -delicious; and I had margaritas with Jack and Jess before heading back to Boston. I can't thank them enough for their hospitality, and I'll miss their dogs.

Back in Boston I visited the New England Aquarium, where I may have insulted the staff by saying one of the turtles looked sad. "Nope, just old and tired. We DO look after them," was pretty much her response. My ferry trip to Salem to learn about witch burning was cancelled due to stormy seas, so I went out to Fort Warren instead. It's basically a fortress built on a Boston harbour island to defend against the British and such, but the technological advancements in military vehicles made the place pretty much obsolete as soon as it was built. My tour around the place was just me and old people, and the guide took us into this pitch black hall to 'have fun with the acoustics'. What followed was all of us singing 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat' in the dark, and this old bloke broke out into some song from the 1920s and we all listened as it echoed creepily. Weird.

I'll tell you though, it was nice sitting on this island, admiring the view of Boston from afar.

That night, my good friend Jonny arrived at the airport to join me on the remaining leg of my USA journey. The flight company lost his luggage, so we headed to Urban Outfitters to buy him new clothes until his bag caught up with us. We had dinner in Quincy Market, and a beer in the bar from Cheers (where everybody knows your name) to cope with the loss.

The next day things really started to go tits up. We boarded our train to Chicago, knowing we were in for a 21 hour long journey. I'd been told the fields of Ohio and Indiana we're going to be dull, but THAT dull? Oh god. The bit of the journey I wanted to see - Niagara Falls - was in total darkness when we passed, so that wasn't cool. Anyway, this is the slowest train I have ever been on. We were meant to arrive in Chicago at 9:45 this morning, it's currently 18:10 and we're still not there. That's over eight hours late, due to frigging freight trains hogging the tracks. Our train is like a polite person, letting all the big freight trains go past; we've spent more time stationary than we have moving. If I didn't have Jonny with me I'd be a lot more insane right now. Although he keeps singing lines from Frozen, and the conductor is pretty much ready to quit his job. They've told us they'll put us up in a hotel in Chicago seeing as we missed our connection to Seattle a long time ago, so that could be good. I feel like I've dragged Jonny out here, only to get him stranded in the arse-end of Indiana. Ah well, we're staying positive. We even wrote a poem to battle through the boredom. An actual poem, don't ask why.

This wouldn't happen in Britain. I'm sorry for all the times I doubted you, National Rail.

Okay, here we are, two days later. We're on another train, out in the plains of North Dakota, waiting for freight trains again. Amtrak is just bad in general, it seems. Our night in Chicago was needed, after a total delay of 11 hours; the hotel was swanky (even though it was in the dreaded South side of town) and we ordered takeaway sandwiches to eat in the room like kings. We had one day to wander round the city, admiring the amazing city centre, the impressive architecture of the buildings, and ride the ferris wheel down on the pier. I was gutted that the floating interactive zombie haunted house was closed, as I would have definitely dragged Jonny onto it. Chicago seems like a cool city, and it's sad we couldn't spend more time there, as the waffles and pancakes we ate were fantastic.

The current train is full of characters: like the sweaty fat biker who walks past every few minutes to choke us on his BO, and the cowboy with his red neckerchief and leather boots who's lost his disposable camera, or the young Amish guys with bowl haircuts. If we become stranded, it'd make a hell of TV drama as we all struggle to cooperate and survive. Plenty of fatties here to cook and eat if things do turn to cannibalism, though. We're going to take a break from eating crisps and trail mix, by having overpriced dinner in the dining cart later on. Jonny hates poor people too, so here's hoping it gives us a break from the riffraff. Anyway, this wonderful train service doesn't offer wifi, even though the journey is 48 hours long, so I'll post this when I get to Seattle.

Next week, Washington and Oregon. Stay tuned

[alstravelblog]

World Trip 2014 - Part 2

t's been a busy second week. Travelling up from DC to New Haven, Connecticut, I had to walk through the centre of New York City. A pretty daunting task for a guy on his own with a big old backpack on a hot day. However, it also happened to be the day of the largest climate change march in history; thousands and thousands of eco-warriors stormed through the streets, demanding a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. This, combined with the closure of the one subway line I needed to take, made my journey to Grand Central Station a tough one - but still, good on the folks marching. You could tell the rest of the city was thinking "why the hell are these smelly hippies clogging up the roads?" though.

I made it to New Haven eventually, a name that conjures up an idyllic New England town. However, when my friend Louisa picked me up from the station, I was told that this part of town has recently seen muggings at both knifepoint and gunpoint - oh boy! Clinging my belongings to me, we headed to the safer part of town, where I was treated with a proper sit down meal, the Great British Bakeoff, and wine. That's what I'm talking about.

Over the next few days I felt like a student of Yale as I followed Louisa to classes, employment seminars, and study sessions. As a neuroscience graduate, I was interested in going to her neuroeconomics lecture, led by a Nobel prize winner nonetheless. He put so much emphasis on all this neuroscience he claimed to barely understand, yet when it came to the economics stuff he just skipped past it. Strange. I enjoyed the neuroscience, but I don't think all the management students did. Nothin' wrong with some synapse talk at 8:30am, y'know?

A special highlight of my time in Yale was watching Netflix in the School of Law, while everybody else studied like suckers. They never guessed that I was an imposter, feeding off their internet, and claiming the free pizza offered at the end of an employment talk. I ended my time at Yale by being taken to Pepe's Pizza and the drinking raspberry beer at the campus bar - it's a cool place.

The next couple of days I found myself walking the streets of Bahstan, Massachusetts, and what a cool city it is. I learned all about the American Revolution, and JFK's term as president; I explored Harvard campus and got mistaken for a student by some tourists who wanted to photograph me; I walked around Quincy Market to see all the awesome different foods they have, as well as Boston waterfront; most importantly, I ate well. A food truck in the park sold the best veggie wraps I could have asked for, and I got to eat them in a square with a public piano - meaning people would play relaxing jazz music while you sat. Also, I ate Subway, which is always a win. (Ali from 2017 is not so into Subway anymore)

I spent one night in a fancy Boston apartment block, staying with my university academic dad's wife's brother (complicated, I know). We'd never met, but he informed the doorman to let me into his apartment. Yep, doorman. We ate some pizza, drank some beers, watched some TV, it was cool of the guy to host like that for a stranger from Britain. I finished my first stint in Boston at the opera house, watching the Lion King; I don't think I could have been sat further away, and hearing the American actors try and be British as Scar and Zazu was weird, but it was still pretty damn good.

I finished my week in Maine, in a town called Orono. My academic dad lives there with his wife, doing research and teaching at the university. It's a small town, full of trees and college kids, and they offer beer, pancakes, burgers, hot dogs, pizza -just great stuff that I came to this country for. It was here I went to my first American mall, truck stop and liquor store, all the highlights. These people have never seen a British passport before so they spend 10 minutes checking what countries you've been to when they ID you, because why not I guess.

If you get to go to the Acadia National Park, then do. It's on an island off Maine called Mount Desert Island (who knows.) and it's full of lakes, mountains and forests, meaning I was pretty lucky to visit during Autumn. Dotted around the island are little villages, one of which we visited so I could try Maine lobster. So yeah, I took a break from being vegetarian so I could see my dinner alive minutes before they killed it and I cracked it open and ate its flesh, but it WAS Maine lobster... Don't judge me.

Stay tuned for next time, when I ride a train across the entire country, coast to coast.

[alstravelblog]

World Trip 2014 - Part 1

So then, my first week. It's been pretty hectic. I left all my packing until last minute, and I even had my friend Callum take a photo of each unread page of my book the day before I flew so that I could read it on my iPad rather than bring the book with me (he offered, I'm not some slave driver). I met a guy named Hal on the plane, who made the whole 'flying into New York City on my own at night' process a little more bearable by being a decent guy who I could chat nervous ramblings to.

I arrived at the hostel at around midnight local time - so 5am frickin' me time - and got into my bunk, when the guy next to me who I'd introduced myself to offered me some food. How could I say no to late night dunkin donuts on my first night in New York? Me and Jay from South Korea proceeded to eat and chat in the cafe, and thus ended the first night of my world trip.

The following day the hostel ran a 12 hour 'grand tour', led by a local retiree named Jerry. I saw Brooklyn, crossed Brooklyn Bridge, visited Ground Zero, rode the Staten Island Ferry, saw China Town, Little Italy, Grand Central Station, and finally Times Square. It was a long day, I'll tell you that. And Jerry was insane, he sang 'Run Rabbit Run' three times in succession for no reason, and put on an Asian accent whenever he spoke to this one Turkish guy. Also, his motto was "when you looky looky, don't walky walky, or you'll hit something."

In the next few days I walked the length of Central Park twice (TWICE, it's massive!), went to the top of the Rockefeller Centre, had birthday drinks in Greenwich Village with a Brazilian bloke named Rodrigo, met my school friend Jenny for MORE birthday drinks, wandered around some museums etc., but the biggest highlight? Seeing Billy Joel live in the Madison Square Garden. Holy crap, why can't I do that every night? He was the tits, cracking jokes and getting the audience to vote-cheer for different songs. One highlight was him cracking out the electric guitar to play ACDC's Highway to Hell, while some bloke screamed the lyrics before dropping the mic and walking off. 

I could talk about Billy for a while, but I won't. I then visited Washington, D.C. for a couple of days. It's a chilled, tidy city, full of free museums and huge monuments dedicated to everything and everyone ever in American history. The holocaust museum was a highlight, very moving. It was pretty damn crowded in there, and I saw a bored lady bust out a few moves to some onscreen Nazi parade music. I don't think she realised what she was getting jiggy to, but it was inappropriately entertaining for a few seconds. Next stop, the even norther-east US.