San Francisco, CA (continued again)

Plenty more of the same since my last update. Bagels for breakfast, Subway footlongs for lunch, pizza for dinner. Sightseeing during the day and booze & pool all night long. Next time I come to America I'll definitely be coming back to San Fran, and quite possibly to this hostel in particular.

We had a fire alarm last night. Some dreadlocked numbnuts from Camden, under the influence of God only knows what, spilt cooking oil in the kitchen and decided to wipe it up using a towel and then put the towel straight into the tumble dryer. Flames and smoke ensued. At the time I was in a dorm sharing a big bottle of Smirnoff with a friend (who I actually first met in Chicago); we duly exited and carried on the party on the street, which was no great hardship. The SFFD turned up, much to the excited approval of the young ladies present, not unpredictably; I made myself useful and obliged said ladies by taking photos of them in turn as they draped themselves over the front of the fire truck. We did eventually get back inside, although the stink of fried towel is still very much in evidence.

Yesterday me & a few others went along to Gay Pride 2008; the march had finished but there was still a carnival going on at the end of the route. All kinds of everything at the carnival, as you might expect. (See the photo update). $8 for a beer though! So much for the anti-capitalist brotherhood...There were plenty of Obama campaign workers around, although in this part of the USA they're very much preaching to the converted.

Been to the City Lights bookstore (where Allen Ginsberg made the debut reading of 'Howl' in 1955 and was prosecuted for obscenity as a result), and to the Beat Museum, which was full of Kerouac memorabilia. Also I bought an Elvis T-shirt on Haight-Ashbury.

A grand delegation of about 30 of us made our way from the hostel to a nearby pub yesterday morning, to watch the Euro 2008 final. Viva l'Espana, etc etc. Not the greatest game...but at least ze Germans didn't win! Torres has been completely cack all through the tournament but he was in the right place at the right timefor this one.

During the game I was immensely displeased to hear a Geordie accent behind me, and sure enough it was some black and white tw*t from Denton Burn. Not that I wish to stereotype Geordies, or anything, but he had an immense beer belly and dodgy facial hair and plainly a very low IQ. He had lived for several years in San Fran, and several more years in New Orleans prior to that, without losing any of his naff Byker Grove accent. I assured him that I wasn't biased about Newcastle, I don't care who beats them, ha ha ha.

I really really love this place. It'll be a shame to leave it behind.


Gay Pride, San Francisco. Edd makes some new friends.

San Francisco, CA (continued)

This hostel has a piano and a guitar available for public use in the dining room. The piano is missing two Es, a D and a B flat, but what strings remain are more or less in tune, and the guitar has all six strings and works fine. I've been away from my various instruments for so long and it's a blessed relief to be able to have a tinkle & a strum once in a while. Sadly my listening options remain very limited, as my MP3 player died a soggy death in a rainstorm in Chicago, and the prevailing choice of music in the hostel is dubstep darkcore trance garage or whatever they call it these days. Bah humbug. I try playing along to that stuff on the piano but it doesn't really work.

It's the annual Gay Pride march tomorrow. Not that such an event will make all that much difference to the general state of affairs in San Francisco. There's more mincing going on round here than in Mr Kipling's factory in the run-up to Christmas. Still, whatever puts people in a good mood is OK with me.

Since my last update I have done more general sightseeing and eating and drinking, as you might expect. Plus obviously there has been Euro 2008 to keep up with. I was rooting for the underdogs in both semi-finals, but to no avail. The final is at lunchtime on Sunday; obviously in California there will be a solid consensus in favour of Spain and I am inclined to go along with that rather than support ze Germans.

Today I hired a bike and cycled all the way round town. The weather was great when I got here but since then it's reverted to the evidently more familiar chilly Pacific wind & fog. If it had been sunny today then I would have stayed out longer and maybe explored what lies north of the Golden Gate Bridge. As it was, I settled for a breeze past Baker Beach, Lincoln Park, Ocean Beach and Golden Gate Park and then home all the way along Haight. I also stopped briefly to inspect 710 Ashbury St, aka the Grateful Dead House. Thanks to Neale for the tip-off there. (For what it's worth, a substantial number of the bright young things with whom I've been conversing in my hostel have never heard of Haight-Ashbury, or indeed of the Dead themselves. I must be getting old).

I've been freeloading with aplomb in recent days. While watching the Spain/Russia semi-final in an Irish bar downtown, I had two pints of Hoegaarden; the waitress got forgetful and gave me a check for just one. Even that was just five dollars, which compares very favourably with the 3 pound 75 (no pound signs on these computers!) which I normally pay in Chaplins for said beverage. Also I scored for a free bottle of whiskey in my dorm room at the hostel, left by a previous occupant; it's Johnny Walker Red Label, not a single malt, but tolerable enough when liberally mixed with ginger ale. And today's bike hire was reduced to $17 thanks to a promo discount from the hostel.

Another pub crawl tonight. Tomorrow I'm going back down to Haight-Ashbury to buy myself a suitably cool & bohemian T-shirt; no definite plans for Sunday; Monday I'm going to do the Alcatraz tour.

Haven't really been keeping up with Wimbledon. But perhaps the best thing about being in the USA is that I neither know, hear nor see anything at all to do with Big Tw*tting Brother.

710 Ashbury St, San Francisco - home of the Grateful Dead

(part of) the Golden Gate Bridge

San Francisco, CA

Vancouver photos are now up, not that they're anything to shout about. I don't have any SF photos just yet but I will endeavour to right this wrong within a day or two.

My flight here last night was delayed by two and a half hours, and when it did arrive the bags took quite a long while to follow, so it was nearly 1am before I got to my hostel. Fortunately everything was OK, and the nice lady behind the counter was happy, even at that hour, to give me the full lowdown on San Fran and its innumerable attractions. Plus, once I'd gotten my room key, I turned round and bumped straight into an Irish guy and we got talking and he was enthusing about Keano and Quinny, so he was, to be sure.

Popped out for a slice of pizza (if anybody reading this has never been to America, a slice of pizza over here is plenty for a meal, even by my standards) and then came back in to have a few drinks in the communal area. This hostel is more lively than the ones I've been to previously, but it's also a bit less cosmopolitan - almost everyone is from an English-speaking country. Not that I'm complaining.

But it's a peculiar contrast to the city of SF itself, which is a veritable monument to diversity. Normally I am suspicious of cities which trumpet too loudly their 'unique diversity' (translation: nobody speaks English and all the women are lesbians....great) but in this case it does make for a very interesting place, and one which looks well set to displace Chicago as my Favourite American City To Date. Indeed I'm getting quite into the diversity vibe myself, so much so that today I went to Quizno's instead of Subway for my lunch.

This morning I had my toasted bagel for breakfast and then wandered out down to the waterfront, past the Bay Bridge and through Fishermans Wharf and Fort Mason and up to the Golden Gate Bridge itself, which I walked up and down, as you do. By the time I got back to the Marina I had been walking for some four hours solidly, so I hopped on a very reasonably priced bus and headed south through Pacific Heights. I was overjoyed to find a decent pint of cask beer, at a little pub/microbrewery called Magnolia, on the corner of Haight and Masonic, just one block along from Haight-Ashbury itself.

H-A has innumerable T-shirt shops, several tattoo parlours, a busker playing a sitar, and an 'anarchist bookshop'. I was tempted to test the principles of the latter by taking several books and refusing to pay for them. But I didn't, in the end, obviously.

Well, there's a night out tonight, and details are sketchy but the poster mentions $3 margueritas and $2 bottles of Corona. I feel it is my duty to investigate. Will report back in a couple of days.

Vancouver, BC (continued again for the 2nd time)

I've now been on the road for more than a month. I miss home and I sometimes find myself looking forward to going back, but both of those sentiments are not really any stronger now than they were after the first week or so, and on the whole I'm glad to be out here and looking forward to plenty more travels to come.

Today I went up Grouse Mountain - the trail is called the Grouse Grind, it's just a 2800 foot ascent of scrambling up rocks & steps, there is almost no horizontal distance covered. The view from the top is pretty good, but my camera won't talk to the PCs here so photo updates will have to wait.

Yesterday I had a browse round the ever-so-bohemian district of Commercial Drive. All organic vegan food shops and ethnic basket weaving etc etc etc. In fact just about all of Vancouver is like that. It's like one big Guardian readers' convention. Obviously I feel right at home.

Admittedly I've spent most of the past few days watching Euro 2008. Indeed today's trip up the mountain had to wait until the conclusion of extra time and penalties between Spain and Italy. Fortunately there was still plenty of daylight left when I finally got there. All the Germans here, of whom there are many, as I've mentioned previously, are talking excitedly about the semi-final with Turkey and what could happen in Germany itself if Turkey win. My German is fairly poor but I'm pretty sure that what they were saying amounted to something along the lines of 'it's gonna kick off proper'.

Sore point at the moment is the perpetual presence in this hostel of many meat-headed youngsters, mainly Yanks and Canadians, but sadly some Brits too, who are good for neither co-habitation nor conversation nor anything else. They just make loud noises and have stupid conversations and play with mobile phones and laptops all day and all night. I'm sure I wasn't like that when I was a teenager. Another sore point is the guy in the bunk bed above me, who snores like a freaking Harley Davidson. Still, it's only $20-odd per night, so I can hardly complain.

The excitement stakes will be upped next time. Promise.

Downtown Vancouver, seen from the top of Grouse Mountain

Vancouver, BC (continued again)

Stop press: the beard is no more. I don't think it really suited me all that well; my facial hair is neither dark nor thick, and even after four weeks it looked a bit adolescent, a bit like the fluff Kevin Phillips used to sport circa 1997. So I am now clean shaven, courtesy of a rather painful half-hour session with a couple of disposable Bics.

Still taking things at a very relaxed pace here. The sun was shining for my first couple of days but since then it's become a bit more cloudy & windy. (Just like home). I've been out on a couple of pub crawls but otherwise I've been taking it easy. The pub crawls were good fun, out til midnight on Monday and about 3am last night. Vancouver is pretty expensive...I was somewhat dismayed to be charged $7.50 for a Stella in an Irish pub called Doolins, and you're expected to tip the b*st*rds a dollar on top. In the interests of fiscal restraint, I have had to abandon my long-standing commitment to premium lager, and am now reduced to knocking back Harp or Labatts or whatever else I can get.

These pub crawls are always a good mix of nationalities, and that provides plenty of fertile ground for some very frank conversations once everyone's had a drink. People seem to hold the Brits in fairly good regard; it's usually just the Yanks who get a bad press, and nowhere more so than at the hands of the Canadians, all of whom are at pains to distinguish themselves from their illustrious southern neighbours (though not always successfully; I for one can't tell the f*ckers apart, apart from the fact that Canadians insist on ending every sentence with 'eh..?')

The hostel is full of Germans, both staff and visitors, so Euro 2008 is attracting keen interest. The Canadians make heartwarmingly genuine attempts at appearing to be both enthusiastic and knowledgable about 'soccer'; on more than one occasion I've returned to the TV room from a toilet/coffee break to be greeted with 'Hey man,it's one-nothing at the mid-point, eh...?' or something similar. (I have told them they have to say 'nil' instead of 'nothing', although on reflection this is perhaps unfair, as 'one-nowt' is always acceptable in Sunderland and 'nowt' is after all short for 'nothing'.) Another linguistic trifle: I knew the Canadian dollar was referred to as the 'loonie', but I didn't know that they have a two-dollar coin which is more or less officially known as the 'two-nie'. Neat.

There's a English lady here whose job is to set calculus problems for exam papers and textbooks. (Note to any Geordies who might be reading: Calculus is not a Roman emperor, it's a maths thing.) She does all the work on her laptop and just emails it as required on a regular basis. Right now she's in Vancouver, but she's heading to Kenya shortly, where she'll continue to earn her living in the same way. I'm not 100% sure how the income tax thing works, if indeed it does at all, so anonymity has been preserved here; but what a nice way to earn a living! (Eh...?) That's the kind of job I need to get myself on my return, not that returning is prominent in my thoughts just yet.

Barbecue on the beach tonight.

Vancouver, BC (continued)

Been here for a couple of days now. On Saturday I walked into town; my hostel (Jericho Beach) is a few miles out of town, west along 4th Avenue, but there are plenty of things to see and do along the way. Yesterday I hired a bike and rode it round Stanley Park. Tonight I'm going out on a pub crawl downtown. In amongst all this there has of course been plenty of eating and relaxing and reading, playing pool and watching Euro 2008 and talking to various people. Er...that's it really.

Some miscellania, as I approach the 1-month anniversary of me jetting off into the unknown:

THINGS I MISS ABOUT ENGLAND
Family, friends, real ale, Greggs, cool rain

THINGS I DON'T MISS ABOUT ENGLAND
Paying over the odds for everything, going to work, chavs, New Labour

BEARD PROGRESS
It was getting a bit overlong and unkempt so I had it trimmed on 4th Ave by a very nice Croatian-Canadian lady. It's still reasonably sizeable and it's doing a surprisingly good job of keeping half my face free from sunburn.

AUTHORS I'VE READ WHILE ON MY TRAVELS
Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Kurt Vonnegut, Jonathan Swift, Erwin Schrodinger, Anais Nin, Virginia Woolf, EM Forster

TOP THREE FAVOURITE SUBWAY FOOTLONGS (all on Italian, not toasted)
1. Tuna (pronounced 'tooner', not 't-yooner' or 'chooner')
2. Cold Cut Combo
3. Meatball

LIFE IMITATING ART
'Last Exit To Brooklyn' (Hubert Selby Jnr) - yes, did that on my last night in New York
'Going To California' (Led Zeppelin) - yes, obviously
'Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay' (Otis Redding) - will do it as soon as I get back to San Fran
'Midnight Train To Georgia' (Gladys Knight) - no, haven't been South, and the timing is impractical

I could go on but I don't want to lose any more readers. Hopefully something interesting will have happened by the time of my next update! And I'll include pictures.

North Vancouver, seen from Stanley Park, under Lionsgate Bridge

Locarno Beach (outside my hostel)

Vancouver, BC

Vancouver is very nice. Sunny but not too hot, with mountains overlooking Jericho Beach (where I'm staying). Got a whole new currency to get used to, but at least it's vaguely familiar, with HM the Q on the front of it!

Anyway, in case you're wondering, my time in Yosemite came to an end because I'd only booked five nights and I'd contemplated extending it but by the time I got to doing so everywhere was totally booked out. So I reviewed my options, and thought about Portland or Seattle, but Vancouver looked the best option. So here I am, after a bus and a train and another bus and an overnight stop in San Francisco (very nice) and then a short-haul flight this morning.

I've only just checked in here so I'll update again in a couple of days once I've actually had the chance to go places and do things.

Yosemite National Park, CA (continued again for the 2nd time)

Today I got up at 5.30am in order to get into the Valley as early as I could. Monday's little jaunt to Yosemite Falls was just a warm-up for this one - a trip to the top of Half Dome, 17 miles of distance and 5,000 feet of climb. (Half Dome is about 9,000 feet but the valley floor is 4,000 feet). The guide book says that this hike takes 10-12 hours...I'm not given to bragging, but if I was, just so you know, I would have to point out that I did it in 7 and a half hours and that included a lunch break at the top and a slight scenic detour on the way back down. See my updated photos for details, especially a rather hair-raising top few hundred feet, assisted by steel cables. This bit, I don't mind admitting, scared me. I was glad to get back down in one piece. One slip and it would have been, onomatopoeically peaking, screeeeeech.... bounce... bounce................. SPLAT.

Got talking to all kinds of people along the way. One American guy from Tennessee had been to the Lake District and to the Scottish isles; he was raving about them, and I felt a bit abashed to look around me at all the majesty of Yosemite and all the huge peaks and gigantic rock faces, and to think that the tallest mountain in all of England is only 3,000 feet. How can the Lakes compare with Yosemite? But on further reflection I'd have to say that Yosemite, great as it is, has more grandeur than beauty. The views are far more spectacular than those of the Lakes, but what the Lakes lacks in scale, it makes up for in line and colour, symmetry and proportion. I'm glad to have seen Yosemite but I think when I get back to England I will do a lot more hill walking and perhaps appreciate it all a bit more than I used to.

I have found a better food shop than the one I was previously patronising, so for the first time in about a week I'll be able to cook myself a meal which I'm not ashamed to name. (It's hot dogs.) However disaster has struck at the resort cafe: the one decent beer they had, Mothership Wit (see previous entry), has run out. Curses. Plus, the internet is free here, but all they have are two fairly old Apple Macs; and because it's free, the laws of supply and demand fail to kick in properly and you can never get near the computers. So apologies again for being less than forthcoming with email replies. However you can be assured that everything is gratefully received and read with interest.

Yosemite Point, seen from Half Dome

Half Dome - the last bit is the trickiest

A creature on top of a mountain

Tolkienesque

Yosemite National Park, CA (continued again)

Today I got up early and had a shower and hopped on a bus into Yosemite Valley. Weather conditions were somewhat predictable, ie blazing sunshine and no clouds and no wind at all until you were past four or five thousand feet. I walked up to the top of Yosemite Falls (see previous photos for how it looks from the bottom), and then onwards another mile to Yosemite Point, for a panoramic view which took in most of the notable peaks and benefited from totally clear visibility in all directions. At times during the climb and descent I felt quite dizzy - there are sheer rock faces stretching up vertically thousands of feet above you, and while the paths are pretty safe, you definitely need to stick closely to them. The total distance I covered was about 10 miles horizontally, plus about 3,000 feet straight up and obviously the same amount back down. The valley floor is about 4,000 feet above sea level to start with so today's peaks were 7,000 feet or so. Anyway, I've updated new photos for your viewing pleasure.

Last night and tonight my tea was that famous Italian dish, spaghetti con spam. For breakfast I've been having ham and potato salad sandwiches. I know, it's weird, but the shops in Yosemite Valley are limited to say the least. You'd think they'd at least manage tinned foods, but no...Fortuately I've also discovered a hitherto unknown fondness for cheap instant noodles - which is good when travelling, you can get a tasty and reasonably nutritious lunch for $0.39. Better still, in the hostel bar they serve a decent wheat beer called Mothership Wit for $5.00 a pint; it's almost good enough to make me rescind my long-standing judgement on American beer (that it's piss). Presumably this stuff must be Canadian or something.

More tomorrow!

Looking straight down from Yosemite Point

Half Dome, seen from Yosemite Point

Top of Yosemite Falls, not for vertigo sufferers

Yosemite Falls, seen from halfway up

Yosemite National Park, CA (continued)

After yesterday's struggle with that ZX81-style interface, it's nice to get back to a real keyboard. Sadly it's attached to an Apple Mac. (Before the Mac users out there start sending me petrol bombs, let me just say, I'm sure I would love this Mac if I had the time or inclination to get used to it. But I don't.)

Anyway...I had my one night in Vegas, saw all the sights, and felt ready to move on and more importantly get out into the fresh air and get away from cities in general. I've had enough of being pushed and jostled and hustled and panhandled and generally overloaded with everything.

I got up early, having had my dorm to myself, and sat reading downstairs for a while (this is at the Sin City Hostel, as my attentive readers will recall). The hostel proprietor was a gentleman called Kelvin, very friendly and also very well-travelled. We discussed our shared fondness of Budapest. Kelvin must have had a cold this morning, because he went into his office and I heard him taking what must presumably have been some kind of nasally-administered decongestant. It seemed to work a treat, because he displayed no cold symptoms when he emerged, and indeed he was in an extremely sunny mood overall.

I got a Greyhound to Bakersfield, California. It wasn't too crowded so I got myself that all-important double seat, and watched the Mojave desert drift by. We stopped for 'comfort breaks' a couple of times, in places so hot that I was sweating in the shade. At Bakersfield it was a short walk to the Amtrak station, and then a comfy 3-hour train ride (got a double seat again!) to Merced. This latter journey was made more tolerable yet by a couple of bottles of chilled Corona. I like the way American menus list 'beer - domestic' and 'beer - premium'; I like the implicit admission that American beer is piss.

At Merced I was met at the station by Larry, proprietor of the Merced Home Hostel, in his pick-up truck.The Merced Home Hostel is basically the home of Larry and Jan, a very friendly middle-aged Californian couple,with two bedrooms converted into bunk-bed dorms. Tonight I was the only visitor. I was served ice cream while Larry took me through the Yosemite maps and gave me some very sound advice about what to do and what not to do.We also discussed American property taxes and lottery taxes - I hadn't been aware that if you win $100m in the California state lottery, you have to give 40% of it to the federal government ('Uncle Sam', as the very patriotic Larry called it with audible distate; that's one of the things I like most about Americans, their ability to distinguish clearly between the nation and the state).

Went to bed and was up at 6am yesterday morning. Larry gave me a lift back to the Amtrak station, where the Yosemite bus arrived shortly afterwards and took me all the way into the park, a drive of three hours or so.(I took some pictures and should have them uploaded into 'Images' within an hour or two of this post.) It was Saturday, so the park was fairly full of tourists, so I contented myself with just meandering around and picking up some provisions and then got a bus out to my hostel, which is actually on the periphery of the park, an hour's bus ride from the Valley. But the bus is only $6 each way, and to stay in the Valley itself would be very expensive.This hostel is only $20 per night.

Before I forget - I can't seem to get any mobile coverage in Yosemite at all. In the event of any real emergencies, this is the Yosemite Bug Hostel and I'm checked in under my real name!

Yosemite, and a Stella

Yosemite Falls

on the Greyhound out of Vegas, through the Mojave desert

Yosemite National Park, CA

After a day and a half of travelling - bus, train, bus - I am finally where I want to be. The sun is glowing red hot; I've just seen my first cloud since Chicago, but it was only a little wispy one. It's 10am and I can't get checked into my digs for a few hours so I'm just going to mooch around in the shade and take in the scenery for a while. The scenery, by the way, is quite something to behold.

Incidentally, my Beard Project is now approaching the 3-week stage and is progressing satisfactorily. Photos may follow.

I'll update in more detail when I get to an actual PC (this is a naff phone box-style kiosk and the foregoing has taken me about ten minutes to type).

Las Vegas, NV (continued)

Been doing Vegas, as you do.

I am staying at the Sin City Hostel (oh yes) and by lucky chance I have a 4-bunk room all to myself. Quite civilised really. However I'm still making sure to keep things padlocked in the locker.

Vegas is huge and spectacular and nutty and crass and tacky and everything else.The best bit for me was the three fairground rides I've just been on. One of them is a little track of about 40 feet, where the car rolls up and down while the track itself see-saws backwards and forwards; another is a little whirligig merry-go-round thing with chairs suspended from above; and the other is a tall vertical pole where your seat gets shot up about 100 foot and then falls back down again. All three sound fairly tame, but the special attraction is that they're all located at the top of the Stratosphere tower, at an altitude of roughly 866 feet, which is about the same as the highest observation deck of the Eiffel Tower. Oh yes. On the see-saw and whirligig rides (called X-Scream and Insanity respectively), there are moments when you're suspended in mid-air and looking straight down at the street, nearly 900 feet below. Learjets and helicopters glide past BELOW you. Meanwhile the sun sets behind the mountains lining the horizon, and even at that height there isn't really any wind to speak of. Mercifully, the heat (80 degrees F) is manageable even for me, as is the humidity.

Who needs casinos when you have rollercoasters? I wandered up and down the main drag this afternoon, and again tonight after a siesta & shower. There was plenty to gawp at in town without actually needing to join the zombified hordes staring into their fruit machines (or whatever Yanks call them) or taking up the innumerable offers of Latino beauties delivered 'direct to your room' for 35 dollars. Indeed, to my surprise, I haven't had a beer all night (1am Pacific time as I write), although I've got through a good few litres of rather painfully overpriced soft drinks.

By the way, it only cost me $28.95 for entry to the Stratosphere and unlimited rides all night.I did the Big Shot (the vertical launch thing) three times. While I was wandering around the observation deck below, the piped muzak was playing 'Fields Of Gold' by Sting. The same song was playing at 11pm on the 94th floor of the Hancock Tower in Chicago a few days ago. I think in both cases it's an attempt by our American cousins at a subtle metaphor, ie all those twinkling yellow lights make up a 'field of gold'. As a metaphor it would work quite well if only Sting wasn't so naff. (Sorry Mam.)

I think I've used up all my appetite for cities, at least for the time being. Next update will be in a couple of days, from somewhere a bit less busy, where I can breathe a little. Somewhere a bit like going for a wander up Tunstall Hill, except different.

Las Vegas - the Stratosphere tower in the distance, from outside my hostel

Las Vegas, NV

Vivaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Las Vegas! Yes, after a very enjoyable week in Chicago I decided to have a couple of nights in Vegas. Sadly, as can be seen from the previous entry, that has now been changed into one night at Denver Airport and one night in Vegas.

My trip out of Chicago started badly...I strolled into O'Hare Airport, feeling very smug and sensible for being a couple of hours early, when it dawned on me with a deep sense of nausea and terror that my flight was actually departing from Chicago Midway, across the far side of the city. Bit of a Basil Fawlty moment to be honest. I got straight back on the subway, and then once back downtown I hailed a taxi. 'To Midway at once, my good man, and be quick about it!' Or words to that effect.

As luck would have it, my flight was slightly delayed, and that allowed me to get checked in OK, although they tutted at me for being late. Sadly, that same piece of good luck turned into bad luck later on because the Chicago-Denver flight being late meant that I missed the onward flight to Vegas. They offered me some crappy voucher, something like $5 off a hotel 'only about half an hour away'.I slept behind the electronic departures board, and the $75 I'd already spent on my first night's hotel in Vegas disappeared in a puff of smoke. Such is life.

My rearranged flight this morning left at 8.30 or so. It was overbooked and at one point it looked like I might score for a $400 voucher if I agreed to hang back four hours, which wouldn't really have been a problem. But sadly it wasn't to be, there were a few no-shows.

Will report on Vegas and also sum up Chicago in a day or two. Missing you all!

Denver Airport

Not where I want to be. Stuck here overnight due to a delayed flight & missed connection. Will be sleeping at the gate. Arse arse arse.

Chicago, IL (continued again)

Been here a full week now.

There isn't really much of a backpacking culture in US hostels, at least not in the big cities; most people are only here for a couple of days and are just trying to save money rather than stay in hotels.All of the people who I was out on the lash with last week were gone within a couple of days. It's quite sad really. (I think I'm the longest-serving resident here now, apart from an old-ish woman in a wheelchair who leaves free cookies for everyone in the communal fridge, and who spends long hours talking on the payphone, and even longer hours sitting by the payphone waiting for it to ring.) But I'm off out again tonight, this time to get some BBQ food, and there are plenty of newly-arrived people to talk to.

Went to Lincoln Park Zoo and that was pretty good, especially the underwater view of the polar bears. On Sunday I took a chance on the baseball - Chicago Cubs vs Colorado Rockies at Wrigley Field. Attendance was 41,730 (ha! is that all?) Oh my God, what a bum-numbingly tedious snooze-fest baseball is. I didn't last more than about half an hour before I couldn't take any more. No artistry, no excitement, no suspense, just throwing and whacking and that annoying organ music introducing every single play and player. Never again.

On Sunday night I wandered down to the TV room. There were six of us in there - we were all guys, and yet somehow we still managed to end up watching 'When Harry Met Sally'. Last night was an improvement in the shape of 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off', which I hadn't seen for ages (and in which I now recognise all the various Chicago landmarks). Today I had a trip to the Science and Industry Museum, but I've been to so many museums in the last two weeks that they're all starting to merge into one, and even in the face of some genuinely impressive exhibits (a full-size German U-boat today for instance) I find myself just wanting to go back outdoors and get some fresh air.

Also did some more skyscraper exploration. Manhattan may have the world's best-known steel & concrete forest, but in fact three of America's four tallest skyscrapers are in Chicago. Having done Sears and Hancock during daylight, I decided to go back up the Hancock for a view of Chicago at night. It's spectacular for sure, but at the same time I was definitely conscious that the appeal was beginning to fade a little. The real moment of revelation for me was in New York, when I first reached the observation deck in the Rockefeller Center overlooking Central Park; every time after that it just becomes a little bit more routine. Such is life. I suppose you just have to keep looking for the next dream. Man.

Anyway, on the way back down from the Hancock last night, I had a 94-floor elevator journey all to myself. I took advantage of my solitude to maximize, childishly, most of my five or six seconds at 0.7g. (For those of you who didn't understand that - never mind. For those of you who did understand it and think I'm a geek - fair comment. That just leaves Sam, and Sam, I know you're on my side here.)

Well, I'm off to get hammered and eat burgers. Take care y'all.